I’m glad I waited this long until I saw this movie. I can see that if I saw it nearly three years ago when it was released I would have been disappointed. As it is though I’m just motivated to see the second part in theaters.
It seems like this is a story that really benefits from such a long first act. I haven’t read the book, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a lot of fictional politics. Which is a very difficult thing to pull off in a movie (*cough*The Phantom Menace*cough*trade negotiations*cough*). In a book you can stop, re-read, and think about it, whereas a movie just chugs along whether you’re with it or not.
That being said, I think this movie pulled it off well, at the expense of runtime. Which only makes it necessary to split it into two films. Now that I know fully the stakes at play, and can have several days to ponder it all, I can go into Part 2 a little more confident in understanding it all.
The action here was good, and the worm scenes intense. Things felt tactile and believable (with the exception of one shot that went a little too MCU.) Incredible shot composition.
