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Michael B. Jordan plays twins in a vampire movie that fails to bite.

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We review Ryan Coogler's vampire film "Sinners" starring Michael B. Jordan as twins, discussing how it attempts to blend social commentary with horror but struggles with pacing and storytelling issues.

• Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers whose differences aren't distinct enough, creating confusion
• The film spends 75% of its runtime on character development before introducing vampires
• Beautiful cinematography and music are standout elements despite narrative problems
• Vampire rules like needing invitation to enter homes create some genuinely funny moments
• The film attempts to draw parallels between vampire stories and historical discrimination
• Final act delivers action but feels disconnected from the character-focused first two acts
• Mixed ratings from the hosts, ranging from 2 to 3.5 out of 5 stars

If you enjoyed this video, please like, share and subscribe, and comment below with your thoughts on "Sinners."


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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Movies Worth Seeing. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about Sinners, starring Michael B Jordan and directed by my favorite favorite director because he was so great in all the other shitty movies he made Ryan Coogler, who directed Black Panther and Creed. So, with such a fantastic filmography, what could go wrong? Addy and Martin are joining us for today's episode, and Martin's fallen asleep, pretty much like I was during this movie.

Speaker 2:

I liked the movie. I liked the movie. I liked the movie. Why? Why not that? There's just a one-off movie, one story, not part of a franchise, not a prequel, not a sequel. It's just a simple one-off movie. You go in, you get a beginning, middle, climax, end, and there's no sequel. It's not an an original story, let's be clear. It's Dust Till Dawn 2.0, which is then derived from Vamp.

Speaker 1:

It's not even from Dust Till Dawn 2.0. It's from Dust Till Dawn if fucking Steve Soderbergh directed Dust Till Dawn and took all the fun, joyful moments out of it.

Speaker 3:

Are we going into spoilers?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we could go into spoilers. Fuck this movie. I don't care if we spoil it. Did you love the, the difference in character between the two characters that michael b jordan was playing? Did you love how completely different they were?

Speaker 3:

all right, so clearly there's a tone of sarcasm here I've heard the opposite before coming into it, that like, uh, people were like in their own individual anecdotes, were saying that it was believable enough that he was portraying two separate brothers and stuff it was confusing it did take me a bit.

Speaker 1:

It did take me a bit too. Two Michael.

Speaker 2:

B Jordans. Look, there were sly differences, but a lot of time I was really trying to piece together. It's like wait, wait, smoke. A lot of time I was really trying to piece together.

Speaker 3:

It's like wait, which of them brought it? Wait smoke or is it stack. Smoke or stack or is it? Which one are we looking?

Speaker 1:

at right now it's blue, michael B.

Speaker 3:

Jordan and red Michael B Jordan.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, but like Without the hats One's wearing a red hat and the other one's wearing a blue hat.

Speaker 3:

Take the hats off and then you start.

Speaker 1:

They should have put their names on the hats that would have. Yeah, you twins. No, we couldn't but like, if you're gonna spend an hour, two and a half, two hours of build up, well, at least flesh out their differences, at least flesh out their relationship a bit, so that then I will care when the vampires come out and start killing people. Despite all of that f***ing time that was spent, I did not care at all. I did like the little. All right, everyone, let's eat the garlic and see who's still a vampire and who's not.

Speaker 3:

They're setting up defences.

Speaker 1:

There's lots of great ideas in the movie, but nothing reaches its full potential.

Speaker 3:

Now we out here playing games, telling ghost stories, in place of doing what we ought to do being kind to one another.

Speaker 1:

But then you're watching the movie and you're just like can something happen? Can we get to the vampires? I know this movie has vampires, so just get to the vampires, it's what's marketed to us.

Speaker 3:

It's just like a sort of social commentary movie that the last half hour happened to be about, like vampire uprising and invasion, and I don't think it really melded all that well that they were building up all this like history of discrimination and like the gangs and then the being veterans.

Speaker 2:

But that is Dusk Till Dawn, that is from Dusk Till Dawn.

Speaker 1:

You cannot deny it.

Speaker 2:

The build-up for the first 75% of the film has nothing to do with the vampires Nothing. Suddenly there's vampires and then that is like two complete, separate movies.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I did remember on our drive back, that I was commenting loudly about how this could work if this was like two different movies, where, yeah, one movie could just be about two struggling twin brothers trying to rise, just trying to go above the fray in the struggles in a white, in a white man's world and then the vampire movie could be a different movie this movie tries to add like emotional depth and weight, with like oh, there's symbolism and social commentary, but it's wasted because the movie's so damn boring as well as the brotherly bond.

Speaker 3:

I thought you were brotherly bond is nothing.

Speaker 1:

The brotherly bond in from dust till dawn. You see them bicker and argue and shit, like it builds towards something to where, at the end, you actually felt something when they had to kill each other, when one of the brothers got infected, whereas in this I was like I knew one of them gets infected number one because the stupid trailer spoiled it, but number two I'm like I don't care, I don't know anything about them. That's different. My daddy was an evil man and he passed that evil down to us.

Speaker 1:

And the worst part is the movie is trying to be like this is a big deal. Look at the emotions on michael b jordan, look at all the inner conflict in his face and I was like just get on with the movie and like they're just arguing like oh, he's not your brother anymore for like 10, 15 minutes and I'm like just get to the point, get to the action. Are there any aspects that we did actually like? I really enjoyed watching? There were certain moments that were fun to watch for me, like seeing the vampires try and find a way to get invited was kind of funny.

Speaker 3:

It's very cordial and very polite. You have to be invited to enter, so you listening to this, just step aside and let me on in now.

Speaker 1:

Why you need him to do that, you being strong enough to push passes. Well, I wouldn't be too polite now would it miss annie? And then seeing the characters like deconstructed and be like, wait a sec, like you never were this polite before, why the f**k is getting an invite so important all of a sudden. So just seeing them have those moments of like suspicion was kind of fun.

Speaker 1:

It's also just funny like it is funny just watching, genuinely vampires that are so powerful and evil, but they're like come on, invite me in the house, let me in, and I like. I like that part with, like, the three white people going up to the bar and they're like, they're white, though no, you can't come in.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So overall I really liked the movie, but there's a couple of moments that really took me out. That just wasn't justified. Okay so when Smoke or Stack killed. Annie, and then Michael B Jordan that was already a vampire was like let's get out of here, let's get out of here, we're gonna go, yeah. And they came back to the next door. It's like, why did they leave? Why Everybody stopped to watch her die? Isn't this like the perfect time to just go in and kill everybody? Like, honestly, they've swarmed the place.

Speaker 3:

Why not not dog pile? Why not dog pile on them? They have them.

Speaker 1:

They were all like, let's get out of here and I was like no, but there was only three or four left and the whole army of vampires it made.

Speaker 2:

It made no sense. Look again, I love the movie. There's so many good things about the. Music is awesome. The vibe of it when they're dancing, it was awesome. Cinematography wise, lighting wise. There's so many good things from a story wise. I gotta admit vampire movies have always been terrible at justifying things, always has plot holes. From a cinematography perspective, what's your take?

Speaker 3:

It is the first IMAX production with a female cinematographer, and so this will open the door for more talented female cinematographers out there.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, it's just all this passion and the goodwill going into it with the meritocracy it's just sort of undone by the clumsy sort of story execution so you can have an amazing story, but you can have a fantastic cinematography, but if the story itself just then it's just the great cinematography and takes the credits away from what it actually is all money come with blood.

Speaker 3:

Baby, listen here, this ain't no house party. Y'all ready to drink, y'all ready to sweat till y'all stack. You want some that?

Speaker 2:

from a one to five stars. What would you give it?

Speaker 1:

two bro. I think sinners has a lot of potential, but there's just nothing fun that makes me want to ever see this movie again, except for maybe the last 15 minutes when the vampires and the humans are actually fighting, which is what brought me to the dance.

Speaker 3:

I would say oh, three and a half, yeah, seven out of ten, three and a half, three and a half out of ten, five, idiot, like I acknowledge that this is not a movie made for our people. God, don't put that in Keep it in I can acknowledge that this is a movie that's not made for our people.

Speaker 3:

It's speaking to a history and a culture that we didn't grow up with and live with. I don't know, I'm like I don't know, I'm wholly ignorant to soul music in saying that, uh like, we discussed a whole lot of build-up that amounts to nothing, like the good aspects. That raises it a bit above the midway point for me are, in the same way that we discussed how moments and aspects of the story are good, discreetly, but don't gel together.

Speaker 2:

I would give this film three and a half out of five stars as well. One more thing we forgot to talk about this beautiful voice from the kid, simon a soulful kind of thing. Yeah, no, yeah, genuinely good, yeah beautiful voice, uh, beautiful, beautiful music throughout the whole film. But when he finally performs and his music transcends time and space and we travel through the time past, present and future our, our current present.

Speaker 2:

The future was our current present yeah, but then it clicked and then we went through like different stages of cultural development. One thing I do not believe that should be credited to be proud of. Should I do it? Twerking, twerking, culture, culture. Why would you have twerking in such a symbolic moment of the film where music, the blues, transcends time and space to travel throughout all aspects of cultural development of a certain culture and add twerking to it? It's like we added in a low point. You know what I mean. But overall I thought the movie was really good. I was entertained and that's why I go to the cinema.

Speaker 1:

And we hope that you've been entertained by watching our review of Sinners. If you enjoyed this video, please like, share and subscribe, and comment below and let us know what were your thoughts on sinners. Did you enjoy the slow burn? Do you enjoy movies where nothing happens? If so, comment below and let us know until next time. That's us. Take care, goodbye.