Movies 'The Killer' - David Fincher/Michael Fassbender Arriving on Netflix Nov. 10th w/ a Limited Screening Oct. 27th

[SoberChef]

 

 

I mean it's fucking FINCHER! I really have, for so many years, scratched my head as to why in the hell Fassbender isn't a bigger star. He's tremendous in everything I watch him in, yet for some reason & far more often than not, the projects he's in aren't that good. Here's hoping to turning things around professionally, and either way I am so here for this flick!

 

Furthermore, Ross & Reznor will be doing the composing!

[Greatoneshere]

It's Fincher, so I won't be watching the trailer, I'm in day one. Been excited for this one for awhile, Fincher has wanted to make this for years. As for Fassbender, other than X-Men: Dark Phoenix in 2019, he shockingly hasn't acted in 6 years (since 2017). Also, Fassbender isn't a big name? Dude has been in tons of incredible movies, quite the opposite that he isn't a big star (he's an enormous one) or that most of his projects aren't good (many are). Have you seen all of the below?

 

-Band of Brothers

-Hunger

-Shame

-12 Years A Slave

-300

-Eden Lake

-Fish Tank

-Inglourious Basterds

-Jane Eyre

-X-Men: First Class

-X-Men: Days of Future Past

-A Dangerous Method

-Prometheus/Alien: Covenant (okay, this one is debatable but I liked them)

-Frank

-Slow West

-Macbeth

-Steve Jobs

-The Light Between Oceans

 

[GeneticBlueprint]

Agree Fassbender has some star power. But going through his IMDB I am surprised at how big he is considering how many mediocre and/or forgotten things he’s in compared to his gems. I wonder why he hasn’t worked for so long. I’d imagine I’m not too different than others who saw him in Inglorious Basterds and that was their introduction to him. I also loved him as Magneto especially in the first two installments of that X-Men run.

[Greatoneshere]

10 hours ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Agree Fassbender has some star power. But going through his IMDB I am surprised at how big he is considering how many mediocre and/or forgotten things he’s in compared to his gems. I wonder why he hasn’t worked for so long. I’d imagine I’m not too different than others who saw him in Inglorious Basterds and that was their introduction to him. I also loved him as Magneto especially in the first two installments of that X-Men run.

 

Other than his last 7 movies, which were primarily mediocre/bad, I'm not sure where people are getting he has more mediocre movies than good ones. Going through his IMDb, these were the only bad movies I found from the start of his career until 2016, when he made that string of 7 bad movies (ignoring his early TV and TV movie work in the UK).

 

-Blood Creek

-Jonah Hex

-Haywire (I personally think this is an excellent Steven Soderbergh movie overturning action movie tropes)

-The Counselor (the director's cut I think is great and a very nihilist film written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott)

 

And now here's the string of 7 bad movies from 2016/2017 which likely caused Michael Fassbender to take a break from acting for over 6 years now.

 

-X-Men: Apocalypse

-Trespass Against Us

-Assassin's Creed

-Song to Song (directed by Terence Malick!)

-Alien: Covenant (I liked this)

-The Snowman

-X-Men: Dark Phoenix

 

So as you can see his bad movie list is significantly smaller than his good movie list, and I'd argue three to four of the movies I listed in this post are misunderstood and don't deserve to be on there. I just think his most recent run may have affected peoples' perception of him maybe?

[TwinIon]

Another good trailer from Fincher, not that I needed one to see it. Shame it'll only be in theaters one day, hopefully I'll be able to see it that way.

[TheLeon]

Fassbender had some tough beats. X-men crashed and burned after a couple of fun movies. He had another franchise opportunity with the Harry Hole adaptations, but The Snowman was a disaster (worth reading about - they straight up didn’t finish shooting the script!). He was really passionate about Assassin’s Creed, and that didn’t take off. His last few smaller movies didn’t make much of an impact either.  
 

But also he married Alicia Vikander was able to comfortably take a few years off, and is coming back as the star of the next Fincher movie, so you can’t feel too bad for him. 

[Brick]

As others have mentioned it's Fincher so of course I'll be watching it. 

 

Fassbender not really acting since 2017 is probably due to him auto racing for Ferrari and Porsche. That and yeah maybe after a string of bad movies he wanted to take a break and reevaluate things. 

[Greatoneshere]

30 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Fassbender had some tough beats. X-men crashed and burned after a couple of fun movies. He had another franchise opportunity with the Harry Hole adaptations, but The Snowman was a disaster (worth reading about - they straight up didn’t finish shooting the script!). He was really passionate about Assassin’s Creed, and that didn’t take off. His last few smaller movies didn’t make much of an impact either.  
 

But also he married Alicia Vikander was able to comfortably take a few years off, and is coming back as the star of the next Fincher movie, so you can’t feel too bad for him. 

 

The story with The Snowman movie is just crazy, I agree. The fact it had such a prestigious director making it (Tomas Alfredson, who did Let The Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and it still turned out awful thanks to a lot of factors must have been demoralizing for Fassbender (same with Assassin's Creed not working out and the X-Men movies going south in quality after 2 really good ones).

 

And it is very possible that after he married Alicia Vikander in 2017 he'd rather spend time with her than act. Makes sense to me.  Also he will star in this year's Taika Waititi film Next Goal Wins as well (shot before Thor: Love and Thunder, so it's been in the can for awhile). 

 

22 minutes ago, Brick said:

As others have mentioned it's Fincher so of course I'll be watching it. 

 

Fassbender not really acting since 2017 is probably due to him auto racing for Ferrari and Porsche. That and yeah maybe after a string of bad movies he wanted to take a break and reevaluate things. 

 

Holy shit I had no idea about this and just looked it up. He seems he loves auto racing even more than acting and has been doing it professionally since 2017 after training in 2016. That's pretty impressive and also explains the lack of acting.

[Keyser_Soze]

Assassin's Creed was actually OK imo

[GeneticBlueprint]

I’d rather drive Ferraris professionally than act in movies so that makes sense. 

[Greatoneshere]

14 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Assassin's Creed was actually OK imo

 

It was okay/mediocre, I agree. I can't imagine that's what Fassbender was hoping for when trying to create a franchise starter. He'd even brought on his great visualist director who he worked with on Macbeth (which was really good!), Justin Kurzel, and it still didn't turn out good. He probably shouldn't have used the shitty writing duo of Adam Cooper and Bill Collage to write the film (Fassbender was also a producer on the film). They've written tripe like New York Minute, Accepted, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Transporter: Refueled, and Allegiant. So that's probably where the issue was.

[Guest]

Fassbender is the kind of talent that makes you realize you aren’t actually very good at what you do. 
 

I’m overjoyed that he’s working with Fincher

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

It was okay/mediocre, I agree. I can't imagine that's what Fassbender was hoping for when trying to create a franchise starter. He'd even brought on his great visualist director who he worked with on Macbeth (which was really good!), Justin Kurzel, and it still didn't turn out good. He probably shouldn't have used the shitty writing duo of Adam Cooper and Bill Collage to write the film (Fassbender was also a producer on the film). They've written tripe like New York Minute, Accepted, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Transporter: Refueled, and Allegiant. So that's probably where the issue was.

 

Eh, the story was just as good if not better than the games.

[Greatoneshere]

4 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Eh, the story was just as good if not better than the games.

 

Agreed but movies have a much higher bar to clear than video games when it comes to being considered "good" narratively. 

[GeneticBlueprint]

3 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Other than his last 7 movies, which were primarily mediocre/bad, I'm not sure where people are getting he has more mediocre movies than good ones. Going through his IMDb, these were the only bad movies I found from the start of his career until 2016, when he made that string of 7 bad movies (ignoring his early TV and TV movie work in the UK).

 

-Blood Creek

-Jonah Hex

-Haywire (I personally think this is an excellent Steven Soderbergh movie overturning action movie tropes)

-The Counselor (the director's cut I think is great and a very nihilist film written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott)

 

And now here's the string of 7 bad movies from 2016/2017 which likely caused Michael Fassbender to take a break from acting for over 6 years now.

 

-X-Men: Apocalypse

-Trespass Against Us

-Assassin's Creed

-Song to Song (directed by Terence Malick!)

-Alien: Covenant (I liked this)

-The Snowman

-X-Men: Dark Phoenix

 

So as you can see his bad movie list is significantly smaller than his good movie list, and I'd argue three to four of the movies I listed in this post are misunderstood and don't deserve to be on there. I just think his most recent run may have affected peoples' perception of him maybe?

 

I said 'mediocre and/or bad' so I'm talking about his movies that--regardless of how I feel about them (I'm with you on Prometheus/Covenant for example)--didn't have great critical or commercial success. All that to say: with how good I consider him to be I'm surprised it's not just banger after banger. But a heavy front side of his career and then a lagging back side and then a hiatus... that's surprising to me considering how much I like him.

[Greatoneshere]

7 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

I said 'mediocre and/or bad' so I'm talking about his movies that--regardless of how I feel about them (I'm with you on Prometheus/Covenant for example)--didn't have great critical or commercial success. All that to say: with how good I consider him to be I'm surprised it's not just banger after banger. But a heavy front side of his career and then a lagging back side and then a hiatus... that's surprising to me considering how much I like him.

 

In that sense yeah I'm in complete agreement with you, I'd say your spot on.

[Keyser_Soze]

9 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

Agreed but movies have a much higher bar to clear than video games when it comes to being considered "good" narratively. 

 

Or it doesn't matter. Is the Mario Movie the high water mark here? Because everyone said the story in that wasn't good yet it made jillions of dollars.

 

Basically IP matters most for a movie, the story doesn't matter (Resident Evil, Sonic, Mario)

Story matters most for a TV show - Good: (The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Castlevania, Sonic Prime) "Bad": (Halo, Resident Evil) - Basically killed by fanboy bitching not actually really bad.

 

TV Show that doesn't matter for either: Arkane - Successful because of the name and bots not necessarily because it was good. (You didn't even have to play the game omg!)

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Or it doesn't matter. Is the Mario Movie the high water mark here? Because everyone said the story in that wasn't good yet it made jillions of dollars.

 

Basically IP matters most for a movie, the story doesn't matter (Resident Evil, Sonic, Mario)

Story matters most for a TV show - Good: (The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Castlevania, Sonic Prime) "Bad": (Halo, Resident Evil) - Basically killed by fanboy bitching not actually really bad.

 

TV Show that doesn't matter for either: Arkane - Successful because of the name and bots not necessarily because it was good. (You didn't even have to play the game omg!)

 

It matters and it's why Assassin's Creed did poorly. The Super Mario Bros. Movie at least responded with audiences. I'm suggesting the reason critics and audiences both didn't like Assassin's Creed was because of the story. You also have to remember that Assassin's Creed was a hard PG-13-type movie for teens and older whereas The Super Mario Bros. movie was aimed at kids and families, where the bar is much lower for box office success (see: Minions). So in Assassin's Creed's situation, it matters. A story in an Assassin's Creed movie for teens and adults matters a lot more than the story in a Super Mario Bros. movie that's all CG and made for kids and families. What demographic(s) a movie is targeted for will determine to some degree which factors will matter for that movie, like story or something else (for Super Mario Bros. bright colors, ADHD plotting and directing, and lots of easter eggs and references and fanservice is what works for kids, so that's who they made the movie for, and boom it worked). 

 

Also I said "good" narratively and The Super Mario Bros. Movie does not clear that bar either. It just made a lot of money, which is meaningless in terms of determining whether a movie is good narratively and movies in general do have a higher bar to clear since there isn't gameplay and interactivity also part of the package like with games.

[Keyser_Soze]

37 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

It matters and it's why Assassin's Creed did poorly. The Super Mario Bros. Movie at least responded with audiences. I'm suggesting the reason critics and audiences both didn't like Assassin's Creed was because of the story. You also have to remember that Assassin's Creed was a hard PG-13-type movie for teens and older whereas The Super Mario Bros. movie was aimed at kids and families, where the bar is much lower for box office success (see: Minions). So in Assassin's Creed's situation, it matters. A story in an Assassin's Creed movie for teens and adults matters a lot more than the story in a Super Mario Bros. movie that's all CG and made for kids and families. What demographic(s) a movie is targeted for will determine to some degree which factors will matter for that movie, like story or something else (for Super Mario Bros. bright colors, ADHD plotting and directing, and lots of easter eggs and references and fanservice is what works for kids, so that's who they made the movie for, and boom it worked). 

 

Also I said "good" narratively and The Super Mario Bros. Movie does not clear that bar either. It just made a lot of money, which is meaningless in terms of determining whether a movie is good narratively and movies in general do have a higher bar to clear since there isn't gameplay and interactivity also part of the package like with games.

 

I think you either agree or misunderstand.

 

I'm saying IP is more important than story for a video game movie. You're saying story matters but there has not been a video game movie with a good story. The most successful movies have people showing up because of the IP not the story, and the most successful video game movies are not good narratively. I fail to see a world where people flock to see an Assassin's Creed movie great story or not, and it's impossible for AC to have a good story because the games are nonsense in the first place.

 

BUT what I am saying is a video game franchise benefits more from being a show than a movie because you can actually flesh out the narrative. Assassin's Creed would have been more successful as a show than a movie.

[Greatoneshere]

25 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I think you either agree or misunderstand.

 

I'm saying IP is more important than story for a video game movie. You're saying story matters but there has not been a video game movie with a good story. The most successful movies have people showing up because of the IP not the story, and the most successful video game movies are not good narratively. I fail to see a world where people flock to see an Assassin's Creed movie great story or not, and it's impossible for AC to have a good story because the games are nonsense in the first place.

 

BUT what I am saying is a video game franchise benefits more from being a show than a movie because you can actually flesh out the narrative. Assassin's Creed would have been more successful as a show than a movie.

 

Yeah I agree with all of that, I'm simply saying Assassin's Creed, specifically, wasn't a good movie at the screenplay level, whatever else may be the case, and that's where the major issue was with that film. When watching it that becomes pretty apparent, regardless of whether the games had a good story or not, you can often spin a good story out of a bad one when adapting something so it's not like a good story was outside the realm of possibility. Whether games work better as TV is sort of irrelevant to the point I'm making since good adaptations of video games into films (as opposed to TV shows) is certainly possible.

[TheLeon]

I’m annoyed that this isn’t playing near me. I get that Cincinnati isn’t a major market, but we get a lot of limited releases, even if it’s just on one screen for one week.
 

I’m almost done with my Fincher rewatch (Gone Girl tonight and Mank will be tackled later this weekend) and it’s been a blast. It’s so hard to rank them, because even his “lesser” movies are so good that most directors would kill to have them on their resumes. 

[TwinIon]

1 hour ago, TheLeon said:

I’m annoyed that this isn’t playing near me. I get that Cincinnati isn’t a major market, but we get a lot of limited releases, even if it’s just on one screen for one week.

 

Same thing here in San Diego. When I looked the only theater showing it was in TJ, though I assume that somewhere in LA it was playing at some point. Netflix did a super limited release for Glass Onion and I was able to get a seat for that, shame they aren't doing it for this.

 

I do have to wonder how committed Netflix is to this strategy. Both Amazon and Apple are far more willing to do normal theatrical runs, and it certainly seems worthwhile. This would have been a great weekend to release as well. I don't think The Killer would have blown up the box office, but Fincher's thrillers have usually made ~$100M domestic. It's rumored that Netflix spent $175M on this, probably because they had to pay out the backend up front, and that just seems silly.

[Greatoneshere]

6 hours ago, TheLeon said:

I’m annoyed that this isn’t playing near me. I get that Cincinnati isn’t a major market, but we get a lot of limited releases, even if it’s just on one screen for one week.
 

I’m almost done with my Fincher rewatch (Gone Girl tonight and Mank will be tackled later this weekend) and it’s been a blast. It’s so hard to rank them, because even his “lesser” movies are so good that most directors would kill to have them on their resumes. 

 

Mank is really good if you watch Citizen Kane first as a double feature if you have the time.

[TwinIon]

Rewatching some Fincher, and so far my previous opinions have held fast.

 

Zodiac has moments of excellent, but is broadly overrated. Social Network is one of my favorite films from the decade. Gone Girl is excellent, Alien 3 still fails to impress. The Game is Meh, but Fight Club is great. Haven’t gotten around to revisiting Mank, Se7ven, or Girl With the Dragon tattoo, but there is still time this week.

[DPCyric]

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

Rewatching some Fincher, and so far my previous opinions have held fast.

 

Zodiac has moments of excellent, but is broadly overrated. Social Network is one of my favorite films from the decade. Gone Girl is excellent, Alien 3 still fails to impress. The Game is Meh, but Fight Club is great. Haven’t gotten around to revisiting Mank, Se7ven, or Girl With the Dragon tattoo, but there is still time this week.

 

I liked The Game but pretty sure I watched it enhanced 

[Greatoneshere]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:11 AM, TwinIon said:

Rewatching some Fincher, and so far my previous opinions have held fast.

 

Zodiac has moments of excellent, but is broadly overrated. Social Network is one of my favorite films from the decade. Gone Girl is excellent, Alien 3 still fails to impress. The Game is Meh, but Fight Club is great. Haven’t gotten around to revisiting Mank, Se7ven, or Girl With the Dragon tattoo, but there is still time this week.

 

No mention of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? I know most don't like it but the ending moves me every time.

[TwinIon]

On 11/3/2023 at 11:11 PM, Greatoneshere said:

No mention of Curious Case of Benjamin Button? I know most don't like it but the ending moves me every time.

I haven't revisited that one since it came out and failed to impress, I really should give it another go.

[Greatoneshere]

40 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I haven't revisited that one since it came out and failed to impress, I really should give it another go.

 

Definitely give it another chance if the opportunity comes up. Go into it watching it like it's a dark fairytale story/darker version of Forrest Gump and that helped it click for me more. It's a quietly melancholic affair.

[TheLeon]

First time I saw Ben Button: “this is weird in kind of a fun way, but mostly boring”

 

Second time I watched it: “ Why is this the most beautifully sad thing I’ve ever seen?“

 

Third time fell somewhere in between those two.  I really love it now, but totally understand when it doesn’t click for people. 

[Greatoneshere]

10 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

First time I saw Ben Button: “this is weird in kind of a fun way, but mostly boring”

 

Second time I watched it: “ Why is this the most beautifully sad thing I’ve ever seen?“

 

Third time fell somewhere in between those two.  I really love it now, but totally understand when it doesn’t click for people. 

 

This was exactly how multiple viewings went for me, with the second time watching it hitting the hardest. I still lean much closer to my feelings on a second viewing than the feelings I had on my first viewing, and I do think it's better at least than what the general consensus seems to be.

[Greatoneshere]

I'm surprised no one has come back to post about watching the movie, it's been available on Netflix since November 10th. Anyways, I finally watched it, it's good! A solid 7.5 overall, with the technical craft on display elevating what is overall a surprisingly sedate and calm movie. Honestly it didn't feel much like a Fincher film, with more documentary-style cinema verite filmmaking and a lot of bright shirts and even brighter island settings. The film did have some "Netflix effect" to it like Rian Johnson's Glass Onion did where the film looks and feels just a little cheaper than their usual theatrical productions. But the acting was uniformly excellent and it was refreshing to see a cautious and thorough assassin on film for once.

 

And Fincher low key made one of the best melee fight scenes of the year with just downright incredible sound design, up there with John Wick stuff. The movie is worth watching for it alone. Dude isn't an action filmmaker yet does an action scene that destroys. But the movie overall is definitely B-tier Fincher, but still better than a lot of movies in general.

[TheLeon]

I was pleasantly surprised with how darkly funny it was. My biggest takeaway from this movie is that it’s really close to the style and tone I want out of a Hitman adaptation. He’s a cool, cold blooded assassin, totally dedicated to his craft… but he’s also playing dress up, setting up elaborate schemes just to get through a door, and basically the entire movie is him trying to recover from a massive fuck-up. 
 

I liked it, but it’s definitely in the bottom tier of his filmography for me (which is not an insult when his batting average is so high).

[Greatoneshere]

5 hours ago, TheLeon said:

I was pleasantly surprised with how darkly funny it was. My biggest takeaway from this movie is that it’s really close to the style and tone I want out of a Hitman adaptation. He’s a cool, cold blooded assassin, totally dedicated to his craft… but he’s also playing dress up, setting up elaborate schemes just to get through a door, and basically the entire movie is him trying to recover from a massive fuck-up. 
 

I liked it, but it’s definitely in the bottom tier of his filmography for me (which is not an insult when his batting average is so high).

 

Yeah, I would agree with everything you said. It was very darkly funny, I enjoyed all the ridiculous aliases he was using. And despite all his planning he does just keep fucking up, it kept playing out like a Hitman mission, all set up properly then it all breaks down once one mistake happens.

 

You could immediately tell this was a somewhat "cheap-o" Netflix production because the movie starts with the wonkiest opening credits ever and the movie just starts by going right into them. For Fincher, who is known for excellent opening credit sequences (Seven, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), this struck me as a Netflix thing.

[ShreddieMercury]

This was a bizarre movie that I thought had some impressive scenes, but overall was pretty derivative and lifeless.

 

The best part for me was the first sequence where he is waiting to execute his assassination.  I sort of wished for that to be stretched into the entire film, and then I remembered that The American with George Clooney essentially has that premise.  I enjoyed that one quite a bit.

[Brick]

I watched this last night, and it's a solid movie! I agree that the opening credits just starting immediately was jarring. Very strange choice. That fight scene though was great.