MovieChat Forums > Da 5 Bloods (2020) Discussion > Can we finally strop pretending Spike Le...

Can we finally strop pretending Spike Lee is a great film-maker now?


This film was a mess. Hokey, cliche, outdated. Every actor outside the M.C. was horrible and the film goes on five hours after the plot ended. If his films didn't preach political themes, people would be more level headed in their evaluation. Spike Lee has been a film-make for FORTY YEARS, he still doesn't have words like "editing," and "subtlety." in his vocabulary. He'd be thrown out of film-school otherwise with a joke like this, but lo and behold, he gets a 91 on rottentomatoes by experts who would otherwise know better.

A hundred years after America grows out of its juvenile skin shade obsession, scholars will look at his films and there will be nothing to see.

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He’s a bad director and this movie is garbage, but people are scared to say it because they will be considered racists.

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He's made one amazing film, a few very good films and a lot of "just okay" films. I found this film to be just "okay". BLacKKKlansman was a better. He hasn't come close to reaching the heights of Malcolm X again which is by far his best film and one of the best films ever made. Of course there are the usual individuals with anti black, white supremacist leanings who regularly hate on him and all of his movies so that's to be suspected.

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Malcolm X and Inside Man are good. I don't think he is a very good director. He just knows how to market himself. I don't even watch any of his new stuff anymore.

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I mostly agree. It was a mess, and your description of "still doesn't have words like 'editing,' and 'subtlety' in his vocabulary" was spot on. He reminds me of a novelist who believes his first draft of a book is magnificent and should not be touched, when, in fact, the real art in writing, unless you're a bona fide genius, begins after the first draft.

I haven't seen all of his films, but I've seen some of them (a few, like this one, I couldn't even finish). To my mind, Malcom X was his one good film. My least favorite, that I actually watched all the way through, was Do the Right Thing.

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This is the best movie I've ever seen for getting into the viewer's guts, heart and soul and giving them a feeling as to what PTSD from serving in the war is about. It was brilliant. There are lot of insignificant things you can pick at ... like the highest usage of the MF'er word I think I've ever heard, but at the center of this, this is a deeply human movie.

You know, as you mentioned, you're way statistically out-voted on this issue, so maybe using the pronoun "we" in terms of pretending the Spike Lee is a great film-maker is more than bit presumptuous.

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Yeah except the movie has a 59% on rottentomatoes and I see a lot of people echoing my sentiments. This movie is not being well received by the general audience. He thought he could use political virtue signaling to get a free pass on flaws that people wouldn't let slide otherwise, but clearly a lot of people aren't falling for it. Spike Lee is a hack.

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Happy to hear your ideas and opinions on this movie, you seem to have a real bias against Spike Lee.

70% on IMDB.

> He thought he could use political virtue signaling to get a free pass on flaws that people wouldn't let slide otherwise, but clearly a lot of people aren't falling for it. Spike Lee is a hack.

I don't think there is any reason you can pick that up, or justify it, and the insulting tone indicates a bit of irrational animus towards this movie and Lee.

Not a very cool, objective or positive communication.

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He’s a talented but wildly inconsistent filmmaker. I don’t think he has made a great movie although Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour and BlacKkKlansman are very good, and some of his other films have strong elements. I didn’t care for this one much at all, and in all honesty his direction and script were its weakest parts.

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