CLICK THE PIC TO WATCH THE VID!
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word. Keep me motivated! Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!
Tag Archives: Marvel
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Assemble.
The day finally came. After 11 years and 22 of my top 22 favorite films of all time, we’re in the Endgame now. Even with all my hatred of people and crowds, my excitement and impatience would not allow me to wait long to see it. But Infinity War set a very high bar for the MCU. There was certainly no way they could pass that, or even blow it completely out of the water, right? Well there’s only one way to find out. Well, by the time of writing this, two ways because I’ve already seen it twice. And even though the second time was today, I feel like I’m itching to see it again. But what did I think of the movie, you might be asking? …Really? Have you never read one of my reviews or seen one of my videos? Well here’s my probably entirely predictable review of Avengers: Endgame, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, and starring…like everyone. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Josh Brolin, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Bradley Cooper, and so many more names.
Thanos (Brolin) won and wiped out half of all life in the universe with the snap of shiny, bejeweled fingers. Even though they were thoroughly trounced by Thanos by himself, the remaining Avengers – Captain America (Evans), Hulk (Ruffalo), Thor (Hemsworth), Black Widow (Johansson), and War Machine (Cheadle) – as well as the two remaining Guardians of the Galaxy – Rocket (Cooper) and Nebula (Gillan) – decide it would be a good idea to take another crack at it because the new girl, Captain Marvel (Larson) claims to be super strong. Iron Man (Downey) decides to stay home because he’s sleepy. So the Avengers set off to … avenge. And all of this is the first half hour. Pretty much anything else is a spoiler.
Y’know what? Avengers: Endgame could’ve been better. …Don’t get me wrong, it was the greatest movie of all time ever, but I’m sure there’s something that could’ve been improved. I was able to think of at least one, but we’ll get to that. But a movie that contains as much hype as this movie has and I only really had one gripe? That’s a killer flick! Problematically for the sake of this review, I don’t think it’s worth talking about without spoilers. Pretty much the entire movie after the first half hour is spoilers, so if that is a problem for you, feel free to stop reading and come back after seeing it. Otherwise, let’s dish!
The story of Endgame was fantastic. Time travel is a tricky thing to pull off and even the most well thought out stories can probably fall apart if you think about things too much. Endgame does a good job of avoiding talking too much about the science involved so it can’t be picked apart too badly. Science probably can’t prove that you can’t travel through time by shrinking down to sub-microscopic levels and entering the Quantum Realm because those things probably can’t happen in the first place. And if you’re going into Avengers looking for good science to occur in the movie about superheroes, then what’s wrong with you? The story obviously does leave some questions that may or may not be addressed. What happened with past Loki? What happens later when Hydra thinks Cap is one of them? What changed when Cap decided to stay in the past? In the very least, it seemed like these choices were intentional and may be leading to something. The MCU has earned my faith in them. And what’s more is that the time travel stuff added to what this movie really was deep down: fan service. It was the most fan servicey movie ever, and I loved them for it. There were callbacks to earlier movies (including what I say is the best moment of the film: when Falcon’s voice crackles through the radio when all hope seems lost and calls back to Captain America: The Winter Soldier when he says, “On your left.”) And then when they start getting into time travel, we’re literally taken on the greatest montage/flashback in cinema history! We go into Avengers, we go into Guardians of the Galaxy, and we go to shortly after Captain America: The First Avenger. We see the filmmakers saying, “Remember this? Oh you loved this!” And we also see extra stuff, like how and why Loki got that gag mask in Avengers and what were the sorcerers that are supposed to be defending our realm doing during the Battle of New York. You could also say that the death of Thanos in the beginning of the movie was not too surprising. I mean, the team is in a spaceship heading off to kill Thanos in the first half hour, but we all know this movie is 3 hours. They probably should’ve run the credits after killing Thanos and treated the rest of the movie as the best after-credit sequence ever.
I generally talk about the look of the movie here, but they put so much time and money into this movie it’s not worth talking about. It was great. I guess the only thing worth saying about it is that people often complain about CG characters and how they’re not realistic or compelling. Avengers already got rid of that idea with Infinity War, making Thanos a very realistic and well-acted CG character, so much so that you could be forgiven for forgetting he wasn’t really there. This movie continues that with Thanos, but also does the same level of quality with the Hulk. So instead of talking about the look of the movie, I’m just gonna list the most exciting moments that I wrote down during that last fight. And I’ll write them just as I wrote them in my notes. Cap and Mjolnir! Chips are down! ON. YO. LEFF!! Assemble! Rescue and Iron Man! Wasp called him, “Cap!” INSTANT KILL! A-FORCE!! CAPTAIN MARVEL! I AM IRON MAN!! …I straight up got goosebumps just typing those. …I’m gonna go see it for a third time…
The cast of the movie was…well it was everything. If you ever appeared in an MCU movie before, you probably showed up in this movie in some way or another. You can get mentioned and shown in pictures like the Dark Elves from Thor: The Dark World or you can appear in unused footage with some new voiceover like Natalie Portman did or you can straight up appear in some degree like Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, John Slattery, Tilda Swinton, Hayley Atwell, Marisa Tomei, Taika Waititi, Angela Bassett, William Hurt, Winston Duke, Maximiliano Hernandez, Frank Grillo, Jacob Batalon, Robert Redford, Ross Marquand, Callan Mulvey, Sean Gunn, James D’Arcy, and even Ty Simpkins, the little kid from Iron Man 3 that’s all grown up and appears at Tony’s funeral but even I didn’t figure it out until I got to the parking lot. (In my defense, I didn’t care for Iron Man 3 much and don’t rewatch it often) So many people you couldn’t possibly ask for more, to the point where they even had Wong say, “You wanted more?” …Here’s my thing… Yes, you gave us so many people. Almost everybody! …ALMOST! There’s so many that I know I shouldn’t complain, but this is the end of an era, man! I think you should’ve found a home for everyone. At least everyone that’s still alive in the continuity. But what about Lady Sif? She’s still alive as far as I know. What about some Nova Corps action? Where was Adam Warlock? What about the Skrulls? Anybody from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., like Quake or Agent Coulson? I’m not caught up on that show, but past Coulson could’ve appeared. I’m not like most people in thinking that this was the time for X-Men to show up now that Marvel has the rights. It would’ve been too rushed and the MCU really should build to them properly. But biggest of all would be the Defenders. I know the Netflix series are cancelled and Marvel’s not looking to bring them back, but this would’ve been one hell of a sendoff. Just having Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and the Punisher step out of a portal together? Tell me that wouldn’t have blown your mind! And it would’ve been easy! If those actors wouldn’t have agreed to get into wardrobe and step in front of a green screen looking determined, those actors are silly people!
Now let’s go through the main cast. They are all still amazing at this, and I’m gonna be sad to see some of them go. Though thankfully for my tear ducts, not too many of them had to die. I think only 2 big ones. Downey’s Tony Stark being the biggest one, obviously. Man I cried so hard the first time I saw the movie! And only maybe 10% less on the second viewing. I didn’t see it coming really. I was convinced that Captain America was going to die and Tony was going to retire, but they flipped it on me. Tony bothered me in the beginning. I really liked his relationship with Nebula, but when he gets home he starts being a real douche for no reason. He claims Cap wasn’t there when he needed him. I saw Infinity War, Tony! Everyone was begging you to call Steve, but you just never got around to it! I understand his motivations for not wanting to get involved when they found a possible solution, but I feel like everyone knew that Tony wouldn’t be able to resist if someone posed an interesting enough theory to him. It was just a matter of time. And finally, Tony’s sendoff was perfect. Retirement would never be good enough for him, and if he was going to have to go, it should be by saying, “I am Iron Man,” and saving the day. And the funeral was perfect, from the cast involved in it, to the music and presentation, to the wreath with the proof that Tony has a heart. Speaking of send offs, Cap’s was perfect as well. I was expecting a noble death, but his noble life was even better. I loved the “Hail Hydra” moment and the fight with himself, and I especially loved America’s Ass. …I mean the line! I wasn’t staring at his ass… Most of the joy of Captain America was in the final fight, how even as possibly the weakest of the three heroes that started it; Cap was the one holding his own the most. And holding Mjolnir! I squealed with glee at that moment! And then how he used it! Calling in lightning, spinning it like Thor, throwing it at his shield in midair! Perfect! And finally, after all these years, he says, “Assemble!” Though it raises questions, I really enjoyed his ending. He finally got that dance with his best girl. It makes you wonder now where second Cap was through all these other situations as you assume he wouldn’t be able to just lay low and hide knowing he could help, but whatever. I’m kind of on the fence about him handing the shield off to Falcon. I know that happens in the comics, and I know Sam is an honorable dude, but I feel like you go with Bucky. He can be Captain America, from the strength and the history and the fighting ability. Falcon can’t do what Cap could. Falcon should be Falcon. But whatever. It’s fine with me.
I was bummed and surprised at what happened with Black Widow. Having heard she had a movie coming, I was not expecting what happened to her. On second viewing, hearing her say, “See you in a minute,” before they head back in time was heartbreaking. But anyone watching Hawkeye and Widow head to Vormir after having seen Infinity War probably had a sinking feeling in their gut. I was personally hoping that the self-sacrifice aspect would be a loophole. I mean, we’ve only ever seen someone sacrifice someone else. Thanos threw Gamora in there and Thanos got the stone for it. Widow threw herself in there, so Widow should get the stone. And then the Soul Stone says, “Well…ya got me.” The other hope I have is ongoing because, besides wondering what happens when Cap is returning the stones and goes to Vormir and sees his old buddy Red Skull there, what happens when the Soul Stone is returned? Is the soul returned? Maybe we’ll see… Thor continues to be a joy since Ragnarok. It was very funny, and very fitting, to see fat Thor, drowning in self-loathing as he would be. And he got to have a lovely moment with his mom. I was kind of hoping that his magic, armor-up, beard-braiding action transformation might Hemsworth him up a little and bring that sexy back, but it’s fine. He’ll get there. I also felt like they used Captain Marvel well. They didn’t make her too over-powered and didn’t make her just save the day easily when she decided to show up, and they also explained well why she wasn’t going to be around to save the day every time because she’s busy in space. And she set up a moment I loved. First, her little interaction with Peter Parker was adorable, but then that leads to the assembly of A-Force, or all the women heroes of Marvel, getting together for a save the day push. I love me some badass ladies, and they put so many of them in one frame that I nearly passed out. I would say that part of me found it a bit pandering because why in the context of the movie would only the ladies decide to make a stand. We’re all equal on this battlefield and everyone was all spread out, but all these ladies just ran to the same point to do some work. But who cares? It was awesome! Speaking of awesome, Scarlet Witch versus Thanos! At that moment, I wasn’t even thinking about how much I wanted to see that, but then it happened and it was epic. And Tom Holland. His activity in this movie was somewhat limited by the whole dead thing, but it should be noted that this kid is such a damned good actor. His death in Infinity War and his reaction to Tony’s death here were so heartbreaking! I felt worse for Peter than I did for Pepper, and Pepper is his wife and mother of his child! For two other tiny points, I loved Nebula’s character ark. She’s really becoming likable. I just wish when Cap called Thanos a son of a bitch that Nebula would chime in and say, “Actually, my grandmother was a lovely person…” And he wasn’t in there much, but I wish Doctor Strange’s line was, “If I tell you, it won’t happen…but trust me, the whole thing is going to be an awesome spectacle.”
Now, you’ve been waiting through a lot of fangasming to see the payoff of a tease I mentioned in third paragraph and never paid off. What is the one problem that I had with Avengers: Endgame? It sucks to have something built up and built up and never pay it off, doesn’t it? …Well too bad! Moving on!
I’m kidding. THE HULK! That was my one problem with this movie! Infinity War sets up Hulk’s inability to transform and help the team SO HARD and never pays it off. It gave me blue balls! …Or in this case, green balls, I guess. And it just ended on that! So of course I spend an entire year dreaming of what that moment will be where the chips are down and everything looks like it’s lost and then Falcon says, “On your left,” and Hulk transforms and turns the tide. It would have to be some epic moment, right? After all that build up? …NOPE! This movie starts and he’s just Hulk already. Granted, he’s Hulk AND Banner, which is cool, but he just figured it out off screen in a bland, science moment we never saw and all that build up to nothing. Well then certainly we’ll have some great moment for him in the big fight where almost everyone has a big moment then, right? …NOPE! I think I saw him once, and he punched something insignificant off camera and was never seen again. I will grant you that technically the greatest moment for me in the film happens because of the Hulk. If he hadn’t sacrificed his arm to snap then no heroes return moment. I also grant you that his arm was hurt so he wouldn’t be as big of a factor in the fight. But I’m not asking him to be the one that defeats Thanos, but give him something! In Infinity War, Banner had a very hard time in his fight against Cull Obsidian because he had to rely on the Hulkbuster armor. Why could we not have the moment when Cull is walking up on Iron Man but the Hulk drops down, makes some quip about beating him with one hand tied behind his back, and whoops that ass? Well we couldn’t because Cull was stepped on by Ant-Man as a throwaway gag. I don’t need Hulk to save the day or win the movie or absorb the gamma radiation he said the glove gives off to become Worldbreaker Hulk or anything, but you guys set it up and let it fizzle out and that was a real bummer that stuck with me after the movie. …The one and only bummer, so you guys still did an amazing job.
So that’s it. A decade long setup leading to a seemingly decade long review written by me. And all of it paid off perfectly. At least from Avengers: Endgame. This review? Fine at best. But Endgame was the perfect fan service movie that included characters and references from nearly all of their 21 movies leading to this moment that in no way disappointed. Well, in one way disappointed because of the Hulk thing, but if your movie is 2 hours of solid fan service followed by one hour of back to back hype moments and I leave with only one minor bummer as a Hulk fan, you have succeeded in a way no one ever has and possibly no one ever will. You have done the impossible. I’m not even going to tell you to see this movie because it’s obvious that I think you should and you should have already at least 7 times and I also told you not to read this until you had. Avengers: Endgame gets “I love you 3000” out of “SO MANY STAIRS!!”
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word.
Captain Marvel (2019)
My Name is Carol.
In a concerted effort to put out more content and make the end of the year easier on myself by having material to use to remember these movies I’ve seen throughout the year, I am going to try to review the new movies I see more often. You’re welcome. And since I saw so many damned movies at the end of the year, I could not imagine going back to the theaters until this movie released. Obviously, I was super excited for today’s movie. It should come as no surprise. The word “Marvel” appears on the poster many times, as the company that makes it and the name of the character. How would I not have seen it? This movie is Captain Marvel, written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and starring Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Lashana Lynch, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, Djimon Hounsou, and Gemma Chan.
Vers (Larson) is a Kree member of Starforce with amnesia typical of a RPG protagonist. With Starforce and her commander, Yon-Rogg (Law), they undertake a mission to stop an invasion by the shapeshifting Skrulls, led by commander Talos (Mendelsohn). The mission goes awry and Vers is captured. The Skrulls try to sift through Vers’ memories to find the location of an experimental engine designed by Dr. Wendy Lawson (Bening), which they find to be on Earth. Vers escapes and crashes to Earth, where she meets Nick Fury (Jackson). Together, they try to find the engine – as well as Vers’ missing memories – and stop the sinister plot of the bad aliens.
On its announcement, I was very excited for Captain Marvel. Closing in on when I would be able to see it, I started hearing a lot of negative reactions to the movie from the internet in general and from my friend Jordan, who acted like the movie was nothing special and I shouldn’t bother seeing it. As if there were even the slightest chance I wasn’t going to see it. And now that I have seen it, I think Jordan is out of his mind. And that the internet is being the internet. I assume the internet was mostly a bunch of angry guys who were somehow bothered that this was not another white, male superhero, even though this is the first female lead Marvel movie after 20 male lead ones. So those people can go to hell. Jordan, I assume, probably just expected too much. This is an origin story. Typically, the origin stories suffer because of how much they have to do to introduce us to the character and we don’t typically get to love that character until the second time we see them, which I imagine will happen very quickly with Captain Marvel. I, however, already love her. I thought this was a damned solid origin movie. Maybe not as solid as the first Iron Man, but better than some of the other ones. I also was indeed surprised as they intended me to be with the alien race swerve they pulled on us in the movie. Otherwise, as a white male, I’ve seen plenty enough of me’s in Marvel movies already, especially given how uncannily similar I look to Chris Hemsworth, and I’m happy to see something different. The movie was awesome, entertaining, and funny when it needed to be. I didn’t feel too many heart string tugs during the movie, but I don’t think it was trying for too many.
But speaking of heart-string tugs, I burst into instant tears twice during this movie, and it warrants talking about. Neither were because the story was trying to make me cry. Neither were even really part of the story. The first wasn’t even part of the movie! It was the damned opening studio credit! They changed the Marvel logo, usually awash with their heroes in action from their various movies, and they changed it to the biggest and best hero in the history of the company: Stan Lee. Typing that gave me goosebumps right now and seeing it made my face well up with tears and joy as they showed proper respect to The Man himself. I could’ve used a bit of a warning, movie! The second was his cameo, and sadly probably one of his last. He was just sitting on a bus talking to himself and reading something, but in the theater I missed it. I was happy to see his cameo, but it wasn’t until later that I found out how beautiful it actually was. The movie takes place in the 90’s and Stan was on the bus rehearsing for his scene in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats! That was so damned beautiful and I felt a strange happiness for Smith that he got to see that shout out from his idol and friend months after losing him. Well-played, Marvel. You got me bad with those.
As for the action in Captain Marvel, I was scarcely disappointed. In all of her fights, she seemed to be a real threat and a total badass. If there is one criticism to be made of any of the fight scenes in this movie, it would be the “Just a Girl” fight scene, where she gets into a fight and No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” starts playing. I get it; it’s the 90’s and that song was popular, and Danvers is indeed a girl. It was a little too on the nose for my liking, I would say. It didn’t take me out of it or ruin the scene for me. It just made me laugh a little, but I did hear from others that they felt this was a little much, and I don’t necessarily disagree. Otherwise it was badass, especially when she unlocks her true power and lays waste to all those enemy ships and scares off the rest by punching her fist into the palm of her hand. That was fantastic.
All of the performances in the movie were on point. Brie Larson was great. She can bring pathos and comedy and action in equal measure flawlessly. I hope she’s around for a long time because I definitely want more of this character, and I’m very excited to see how she interacts with the Avengers next month. A lot of the best moments in the movie were the chemistry between her and Samuel L. Jackson. A lot of those scenes played like a fun, buddy cop movie that I would love to see. I also liked seeing how Jackson changed the character of Fury to make him seem younger and not as experienced with these kinds of things. I also liked seeing him interact with the cat. I would say that I thought that how they showed Fury losing his eye was funny, but not exactly how I was hoping to see it happen, shall we say? Mendelsohn was also great, able to successfully pull off both sides of his performance, both before and after the big reveal of the movie. It was nice that he also got to play for a while without all the makeup that would probably hold him back in his performance, though you really couldn’t tell. Jude Law was also great (did I mention all of the performances were?) but I can’t really think of anything in particular to say about his performance that I didn’t already say about Mendelsohn’s. And lastly, Clark Gregg was great. I would’ve liked more from Coulson though, just because I like him so much and he’s not in the MCU as much since Avengers.
Regardless of what friends and sexist idiots on the internet told me, I very much enjoyed Captain America. It was fun, surprising, action-packed, and exactly what you’ve come to expect from the MCU. Sure, all said this movie probably winds up placing in the upper middle of the MCU in terms of quality, but it’s got a lot of stiff competition, and I would say it places pretty high amongst the strictly origin film MCU, which is what you should compare it to if you’re being fair. A strong opening for the character of Carol Danvers, keeps my excitement high to see her again both in Avengers and her own movie, and is hopefully a good start to other female-lead Marvel movies in the future. Captain Marvel gets “I know a renegade soldier when I see one” out of “I have nothing to prove to you.”
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
The World’s Changed, Boys. Time We Change Too
It doesn’t seem correct that the last time I wrote a written review for a movie was over 2 years ago, but I’ll take your word for it, WordPress. Well, I figured if I wasn’t going to have a video ready for this week, maybe I could write a review instead. And what luck! I happen to have seen a movie today! So I’ll just go ahead and give you a few words about Spider-Man: Homecoming, written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, directed by Jon Watts, and starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, and Jennifer Connelly.
Peter Parker (Holland) is Spider-Man. …Probably should’ve put a Spoiler Alert warning in the intro… Anyway, he fights bad guys. But not as much as he thinks he should. The tailor of his suit, Tony Stark (Downey), disagrees and thinks he’s not ready. Well Peter goes and does it anyway, getting in a little over his head when he starts getting closer with a gang of former salvage employees turned criminals and lead by the flying suit wearing Adrian Toomes (Keaton). Other stuff happens, Tony tells Peter to get naked, Peter starts wearing a hoody with steampunk goggles, happy ending.
The general shittiness of my tone when describing the movie is not an indicator of my feelings about it. I really enjoyed this movie. I just don’t wanna give anything important away on accident. I wanna do that when I goddamned good and ready! I’m so happy Marvel got their mitts back on Spidey because they did it just as well as I hoped they would. It just felt so much like Spidey! More than it has felt like Spidey in quite a long time. His jokes were good (Sorry Andrew Garfield) and at no point did he have a cringe-worthy dance scene in an emo black suit (Sorry Tobey). It was more fun than serious, but succeeded on both fronts when it aimed to, which is something the DC Universe should take note of, especially with how well Wonder Woman did it. The movie keeps our friendly spider more grounded and small, working out of a neighborhood setting one could say. It doesn’t get too big for its britches, even though Peter wants it. It’s better this way. Spider-Man should handle his own business, and then occasionally get involved in the bigger, crossover type things like they do in those picture books people like so much. He should have his Peter Parker troubles and have to perform a balancing act with his secret Spider-Man troubles, and in this movie he does!
The movie, however, was only ALMOST perfect. It’s hard to put a movie together without flaws, and the minor ones in this were definitely forgivable, but worth noting because it’s very difficult to make jokes about good stuff. The biggest one for me was the whole MJ thing. One thing that really stuck in my craw about the Dark Knight Rises was the whole Robin thing, and the MJ thing in this movie reminded me of that. You have this character that you’ve created for the movie and that’s fine. But why have a big reveal at the end that the character we’ve been watching in the whole movie shares a name with something we know? Like, am I supposed to get excited that John Blake’s real name is Robin? Even though he’s not Robin and won’t be Robin and no Robin has been named John Blake? So it’s just a moment of the filmmakers saying, “Remember that beloved character!? …Well, this isn’t them. But, y’know, it’s kinda cute… right…?” Well that’s how the MJ thing felt in this movie. Didn’t ruin anything, mind you. I just thought it was unnecessary. I also felt like this movie came dangerously close to getting in over its head with the characters. I know Marvel is excited to get to play with these characters again, but when I looked through the Wikipedia page for the movie after the fact, almost every bit character in the movie was meant to be bigger characters from the comics. They had Prowler (apparently), the Tinkerer, the Scorpion, one version of a guy that would become Venom, and TWO Shockers! There was also electricity in some of the scenes, and that will probably be revealed to be Electro at some point. It didn’t hurt anything for me really, but maybe slow down a little. You can have bit players in a movie and it won’t hurt my feelings that the dude that sold Peter a sandwich wasn’t Kraven the Hunter.
I can’t say I have much to say about the action and visuals in the movie. They were all great. I thought they would be and my psychic powers were confirmed when they were. …NEXT!
The casting was phenomenal. We’ve met a lot of these people before and already knew how good they’d be so not a lot of surprise there, but they either met or exceeded expectations. Tom Holland didn’t have it easy jumping into such an iconic character, but felt even better when we got to spend more time with it. And being Spidey ain’t easy. The first hardest thing about being Spider-Man is not beating Flash’s ass. The second hardest thing would be having those abs and wearing a shirt to high school. These are both things that would’ve been much different if I were Spider-Man. Perhaps my uncles did a poor job imparting wisdom to me. …Plus they’re both alive, which seems like they really let me down. But Holland was Peter Parker and Spider-Man both at the same time perfectly, which is something I don’t think I could say about any other Spider-Man I know. Michael Keaton was also expectedly fantastic. He had solid motivation and reasoning and one of the most important things to get right about a villain is their motivation. A bad guy who is bad just to be bad is boring. This is a family man that got screwed by Damage Control and went a little overboard afterwards to take care of his family. And he was intimidating AF! The way they had him put together the Peter/Spidey thing was masterful and believable. And his line comparing the way he got rich with the way Tony Stark got rich was also perfect. Jacob Batalon as Ned and Zendaya as Michelle were both great comic relief, without overdoing it. I felt a little annoyed with Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau in this movie, though. They did a great job, but their role in the movie was to get mad at Peter for trying to handle something even though he constantly tried to let them know about if first. Something is about to get hijacked! Call Happy! …He hung up on me. Better handle it myself. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO!” says Tony. “I also had the other thing handled and you didn’t need to get involved…but I guess I forgot to let you know I called the FBI. …Probably would’ve let you know that you didn’t need to get involved if I told you, wouldn’t it…?” Also, I really enjoyed Jennifer Connelly as Karen, Peter’s AI suit companion. I didn’t know it was her until after the movie, but they had a lot of cute interactions.
Y’know, I always say I don’t have much to say about movies I enjoy and that’s why I don’t write reviews for them. Guess I showed me! I can talk way too much about anything! Next up: Sports! But Spider-Man was lovely. A perfect balance of a Peter story and a Spidey story with only minor annoyances that don’t take away from the overall enjoyment, with great action and comedy and wonderful performances to realize those things. Go out and see this movie! You have my blessing! Spider-Man: Homecoming gets “You were on the ceiling!” out of “If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”
P.S. Rest in Peace, Joan Lee. This movie and character may not exist at all without your support.
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word. Keep me motivated! Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!
The Films of 2015
Another year has passed and I still feel compelled to talk about movies that I’ve seen. If you don’t want to read and you just want to hear the 13 best and worst movies I saw, I’d be happy to tell you all about them in THIS video. But that’s only 13 of the 39 I saw. If that’s not enough for you, here’s the complete list of movies I watched in 2015, and what I thought.
JANUARY
EX MACHINA
This was a very interesting movie that was well-executed on all fronts. It’s an extremely small movie with really big ideas in regards to all the interesting questions that arise from artificial intelligence … especially if that AI is hot. This ain’t Hayley Joel Osment. It’s hot ass (and if I recall correctly, temporarily naked) Alicia Vikander. The movie was essentially 3 people talking, but one of them was a robot, and still it keeps your attention and is pretty riveting all the way through. Wasn’t too much of a fan of the ending of it, but I’m sure they didn’t write the whole movie for just me.
JUPITER ASCENDING
All I really know about this movie is that I watched it. What I think I remember is that Mila Kunis was the lost queen of some planet and Channing Tatum was her puppy/human protector. If not, then I had a really strange and boring dream and I should stop eating pizza before bed. There wasn’t much going on here by way of story and it didn’t really keep my attention very well, but there is some eye candy for all manner of tastes with Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum … as long as the people that like Tatum would be okay with him being part dog or whatever he was. But there’s really nothing going on here that needs to be seen.
PROJECT ALMANAC
It seems like a lot of other critics have really had an ass full of the found footage genre recently, but I’m not quite there yet. Granted, the novelty of it has worn off a bit, but I still find it an easy way to engage your audience. So I didn’t really have the same issues with Project Almanac as I’ve seen from other critics. It was an unsurprising movie, but it was enjoyable and engaging enough. Some credit needs be given to a movie just being what it advertises, and that’s what this one does. Good enough for a watch, but you’ll be able to live without it as well.
FEBRUARY
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
Holy shit! This movie sucked a big ole bag of dicks. Actually, no it didn’t. That would imply that it was sexy in the slightest. This is a movie that is centered around what a huge Twilight fan flicks the bean to and it’s still way closer to gross and boring than it ever nears sexy. Unless you’ve got a real hard on for contract litigation. There’s a lot of that. I even have a terrible dialogue fetish and this movie still wasn’t able to turn me on, and it’s got almost exclusively terrible dialogue. And they apparently left out worse dialogue that was in the book the movie is based on. So a movie that’s almost exclusively about sex turning out to be the opposite, with terrible dialogue, awful story (if you would call it that), the nudity is pretty much just the same girl over and over again so that you’re bored of seeing her naked by the end of the movie, and worst of all … they’re apparently making 2 more. And women, this is all your fault. You should be ashamed. Knock it off.
DRAGON BLADE
This movie came as a last minute request from my friend Tara, who advertised it as a laughably bad movie. The danger that comes with this is that I love Jackie Chan movies, and I love big martial arts epics as well. What if I didn’t hate this movie and she lost all respect for me?! Well that’s not something we have to worry about. I didn’t HATE this movie, but it was not good either. I think my scale for bad movies is much different than most peoples. When it was a big martial arts epic, I was fine with the movie, but it spent an awful lot of time being a friendship building montage between the Asians and the round eyes. The performances were mostly fine for what they needed to be, but Cusack didn’t seem to be trying to hard and Brody went a little over the top. And that little kid was terrible and annoying as hell. The guy that jumped off the cliff while holding the sobbing bastard is a hero.
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2
This is another one the critics were perhaps a bit too hard on. What did you expect when going in to see a sequel to a movie about 4 friends that get sent back in time by getting drunk in a magical hot tub?! Well it was that. It was dumb, it was ridiculous, and it was juvenile. All as advertised. It also had some funny moments. If you liked the first one, you’ll probably like the second one. And if someone ties you to a chair and forces you to watch it, you probably won’t kill yourself. It’s thoroughly okay.
THE LAZARUS EFFECT
There’s nothing wrong with this movie per se, there’s just not much special to it. I like the concept of the scientists creating a serum that brings someone back to life, but them bringing something terrible back with them. I mean, that concept alone should be enough to scare both the religious and the scientific together! …It probably wouldn’t, but it’s technically possible! But the movie is decently executed and the acting is solid, but it inevitably winds up as just okay and completely skippable.
MARCH
CHAPPIE
I was pretty surprised by this movie. I’ve not been a fan of Neill Blomkamp’s other movies (at least not to the degree many other people seem to be) but I didn’t mind this one. Don’t really think I’d care to watch it again, but I don’t mind having watched it once. I had mixed feelings about Die Antwoord being in this movie, and they’re what scared me off for a while, but they were actually pretty good at the acting part, and the painful part of them being in the movie came from their music being used so often. The story was pretty good though, and the only other really annoying part was Chappie himself, but he was a small part of the movie and not the main character so that probably didn’t have that much of an effect … oh wait. It’s still okay.
ROAD HARD
I am a fan of Adam Carolla so it my feelings about this movie probably need to be weighed against that fact a little, but I really enjoyed this movie. It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was enjoyable. It’s funny and it’s sweet, but if there was a problem to be had with it is that it couldn’t possibly surprise me because I’m such a big fan of Carolla’s. This movie is a dramatized version of Carolla’s life if it hadn’t turned out so well for him with his podcast, movies, and TV shows. Like if he hadn’t got those things and had just gone on the road as a stand-up comedian after the Man Show, this movie could have been his life. And a lot of the jokes in the movie, if you listen to every one of his podcasts as I do, might not surprise you. But it’s a well-executed movie and I found it very enjoyable. I can’t really say if people will enjoy it if they’re not big fans of his, but you would have the benefit of getting to experience most of the jokes for the first time. I say watch it. It’s a solid, funny movie.
THE FINAL GIRLS
This was a thoroughly enjoyable movie that reminded me a lot of another movie I loved called Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. It takes a well-known and somewhat worn out genre (a Friday the 13th-esque slasher film) and turns it on it’s head by making a group of friends Last Action Hero themselves into a slasher film one of the character’s mothers starred in before she died, which also brings a great emotional side to the story I didn’t expect out of a fairly goofy comedy. There’s some real heart and some real laughs in this movie, and a good amount of Thomas Middleditch, who I’d like to see a lot more of. Definitely a movie to watch.
TRAINWRECK
I don’t know why this movie surprised me with its quality, but it did. I didn’t see it in theaters and even when it became available to rent, I took my sweet time to get around to it. But it’s strange because I like Judd Apatow, I like Bill Hader, and I like Amy Schumer, and I still turned my nose up at it. But turns out that liking the comedy of the 3 main creative people in charge of a movie usually means it will turn out to be something you like, and I did. A little vulgar in the comedy at times (not for me, but that’s what my mom told me) but really funny and pretty touching in parts. Schumer did a great job with the comedy and the dramatic stuff, Bill Hader was great, Tilda Swinton transformed so drastically for her part in the movie I had to look up that it was her, Colin Quinn was shockingly fantastic, and John Cena and LeBron James were both surprisingly good. Great movie. Go check it out.
APRIL
FURIOUS 7
I don’t know why they keep making these movies but, more importantly, I don’t know why I keep watching them. I suppose the fact that people keep watching them is why they keep making them. But I suppose the main reason I saw this one was to see how they would handle the tragic situation with Paul Walker, and that’s also what made this movie much more tolerable. The greater majority of the movie was just wall to wall testosterone and the incredulity I felt over watching Jason Statham be a formidable opponent to The Rock, but the end of the movie was a touching tribute and farewell to Walker. Granted, the real life situation with the actor informed your feelings about it a lot more than the movie and the script did, but it’s a touching moment you don’t expect out of one of these movies. Of course, I just saw that they’re making yet another one, so hopefully I’ll be able to make myself sit that one out.
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
I often feel like I shouldn’t even bother writing a review for these kinds of movies because y’all know how I feel about it. It’s a Marvel movie! I probably loved it! It is probably only technically worth talking about if even I thought it was awful. But that’s not what happened here. I wouldn’t say I liked this one as much as I liked the first Avengers movie, but this was still really great. It mostly matches up with the first one. The story was still what it needed to be to further the plot, the action was fantastic, there was some good humor there as well, and the cast was still great, but with the addition of Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen (who both did fantastic), Paul Bettany doing more than just being a voice (though I would’ve liked more of him, but that’s not how the story worked out), and most importantly, James Spader killing it as Ultron. The Hulkbuster fight alone makes this movie worth seeing, but there’s still a lot more to this movie that makes it great.
PAUL BLART: MALL COP 2
Allow me to save you 94 minutes that I can’t imagine anyone but me was willing to sacrifice for this movie: Paul Blart is fat and dumb. That’s about the entirety of the joke attempts in this movie. I don’t believe the purpose of a joke in these movies is to make you cringe. They probably want you to laugh, but that’s not what happens. It’s just bad. I guess it goes against my argument that movies should be judged based on what they advertise, because this movie does live up to what it advertises. It looks like a bad, dumb comedy, and it totally delivers on that, but since it’s a bad, dumb comedy I’m going to tell you not to see it. Did you need me to tell you that?
PITCH PERFECT 2
When the first Pitch Perfect came out, I turned my nose up at it until I had heard from enough people that it was worth watching. After seeing it, I really enjoyed it. And I had roughly the same experience with the second one. It’s never really the story as that’s pretty basic. The story’s purpose in this movie is to set up a few good jokes and some great mashup songs, and it succeeds in all of those areas. After seeing the movie, I went and bought the soundtrack. And every once and a while since seeing the movie, I’ll go to YouTube and look up the video of the songs because the great music can only be helped by looking at some of those purdy Bellas performing them.
MAY
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
I enjoyed Fury Road a lot, but I was perplexed by the amount of adoration I saw for this movie. Why is it okay for some action movies to throw story away but not others? The story is just something that fills in the gaps between a big car chase or an over the top action spectacle. Which is completely fine, but I’m confused how this movie gets away with it but most action movies do not. There was obviously nothing to the story here, but the performances were all pretty great, though I was a bit bothered by Max taking a backseat in his own movie to Furiosa. Furiosa was great and Charlize Theron did a great job with her, but it’s not really her movie. I do like seeing a strong female in an action movie though. And the action was absurd in all the right ways, and the fact that so many people actually risked their lives for these scenes in a world of CGI made them that much more spectacular. Definitely a movie that needs to be adored, but I don’t really reach the same level of adoration as most for it, it seems.
TOMORROWLAND
I watched this movie with the intention of finding some bad movies for my end of the year review, but was pleasantly surprised by it. It’s not going to be anywhere near my best movies of the year, but it was definitely a solid watch. I liked the message of hope that the movie revolves around, I liked the acting from Clooney, Britt Robertson, and Raffey Cassidy, and the visuals and spectacle of the movie were fantastic. Nothing wrong with this movie and I’d definitely recommend it for a watch, but it falls a little short of greatness. Landed right on top of goodness though.
SPY
This movie got talked up way heavier than I felt that it had earned. I like Melissa McCarthy well enough in a supporting role or a cameo, but I haven’t totally signed off on her being the star. This movie was fine. Nothing special in the story, a few laughs here and there, Melissa McCarthy was Melissa McCarthy as you’ve seen in almost every Melissa McCarthy performance. To me, she’s kind of Kevin James with a vagina. CAN be funny, more often is not, does way too many movies, but keeps getting lots of work. But if you like her, you’ll probably like this movie. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
INSIDE OUT
What I have often said about Marvel could also be said of Pixar, but with a much more universal blanket to the statement. They can do no wrong. And they seem to keep getting better. I have loved Pixar movies often in the past, and I have even gotten sad during some of them like Up, but I don’t recall any of them ever making me shed a tear. Inside Out? Twice. The story itself was a fairly basic adventure, but the magic comes from the adventure being personified feelings inside the mind of a little girl dealing with her troubles. The imagination required to turn the emotional landscape into such a complete world was simply brilliant. The voice cast was perfect and the movie was touching. You should have already seen this, whether you have kids or not, and you must enjoy it, or I have nothing to say to you.
POLTERGEIST
I don’t know why this movie exists. It wasn’t bad, but it was Poltergeist with different actors and a better camera. I don’t mind a remake. Hollywood runs out of ideas from time to time but I still demand to be entertained and distracted from the fact that I’m going to die one day. But if you’re gonna remake, change it up a little bit so I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen around every turn. Stuff’s going on in the house! I wonder if it’s that Indian burial ground we built the house on! Well no it’s not because that would be offensive in 2015. Even Native American burial ground would offend some people. So I guess you did totally change the movie. I totally recommend you see Poltergeist. But probably the first one. Or this one. They’re the same thing.
SAN ANDREAS
Through whatever tumor has developed in my brain, I love a big, stupid disaster movie. It seems like every year without fail I go on a kick where I watch nothing but 2012, Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, and any big disaster movie. I guess some men just want to watch the world burn. And San Andreas is definitely getting added to that cycle. It’s big and it’s stupid, but it’s fun and the cast is pretty great. The movie gets a little preachy at times and the “We rebuild” line at the end of the movie is so corny I thought I might find it in my poop the next morning, but it is pure fun spectacle. And, as a message to filmmakers going for these kinds of movies, please just have The Rock do the Rock Bottom, or at least the Peoples Elbow, to the fault line. You know what you are, so just go for dumb in the biggest way possible!
JURASSIC WORLD
I had gotten into an argument about this movie when I referred to it as dumb. It’s certainly an enjoyable movie that at least mostly lives up to its predecessors, so what could be dumb about it? How about the fact that hundreds of people have died over the 4 times they have attempted this park and yet they’re still going for it. And not only do they reopen the park, the genetically create the goddamned Superman of Dinosaurs! It’s bigger than a T-Rex, It has the active camo system straight out of Metal Gear Solid, it can change its heat signature, it’s intelligent, it can talk and plan with Velociraptors, and it can shoot lasers out of its eyes and it has gatling gun tits. And oddly, very few of those things are fake! (I bet the tits are fake) But all that being said, if you can suspend disbelief in yet another way than just thinking dinosaurs can come back to life, then you can suspend the other stupidity and just enjoy the movie. And the final battle with the Jesosaurus Rex is worth the price of admission on its own.
JUNE
INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3
I never go into these kind of horror movies with high hopes, but this one turned out pretty well. Pretty basic horror movie plot, but it was well acted and creepy enough. And I like Lin Shaye and am happy they went into prequel territory so they could bring her back after killing her off in one of the other ones. But there’s not too much to say about this movie. It’s good. Your mind won’t be blown, but it’s good for a watch.
TERMINATOR GENISYS
I think what’s hurting the Terminator series the most is that they’ll never be able to top Terminator 2. And also that they are going to continue to try to make it work until a few years after Arnold is dead and buried, trying to find a way he is still in it and old and dead even though he’s a robot. But this movie reaches “fine” basically because it was exactly what I expected it to be. Story barely made sense, acting was what it was (but at least Daenerys Targaryen was there), but things blew up with a good degree of frequency. What more were you expecting and what more could you ask for?
ANT-MAN
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Obviously I lean towards happy with Marvel movies, but I have no particular interest in the character of Ant-Man from the comics and so wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this one, especially given the news that Edgar Wright was no longer involved. But they took this character I wasn’t interested in and put him in a really fun romp of a movie. Well, they made the character a secondary character and some new, non-Pym Ant-Man the star, but it was still fun. The script was good and funny though their attempts at feels didn’t quite work on me, and the performances (especially from Paul Rudd and Michael Pena) were fantastic. Definitely a fun movie and worth a watch.
THE GALLOWS
I liked a lot of things about this movie, but somehow when they came together it didn’t go higher than luke warm. It did succeed at being kinda creepy, and I liked the idea of the stage play that went wrong and created an angry ghost, but I didn’t get the ghost’s motivations. So an accident happened and you died. How does that justify killing people that were only tangentially involved or not involved at all? That’s bad form! The found footage thing also seemed more of a hindrance in this movie, and the ending didn’t work for me at all. So altogether the movie was okay, but not something anyone needs to see.
JULY
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION
Who doesn’t like the Mission: Impossible movies? They’re so big and fun and exciting. And they’ve all stayed pretty consistent to me. This one changes nothing. It’s hard to top Tom Cruise climbing up the side of that huge building in the 4th one, but they gave it their all. Hanging off the side of a flying airplane is pretty spectacular. I also love the whole usual cast (especially Simon Pegg) and I like the new addition of Rebecca Ferguson because she was super hot and badass. And (pretty surprisingly for a big action movie) the story was pretty good here. I liked the rogue nation aspect and the super spy turned bad guy (even though he looked like Kyle Dunnigan from Reno 911!) and I had no idea how Tom Cruise was going to win in the end of the movie until the movie revealed it, and I thought it was pretty well done and clever. Check this movie out!
PIXELS
I think most of us probably made a decision about this movie pretty quickly after we heard about it. Adam Sandler, Kevin James. And I’m out! Well not if you’re me. If you’re me, then you push all your chips to the center of the table. Well that’s misleading, because I obviously wouldn’t go see it in theaters or give it very much money. I’ll give you my dollar from RedBox. But this movie was much better than I expected it to be … and that means it was just not terrible. It wasn’t really funny, but it wasn’t painfully unfunny. I would say it was cute. And of course I approve of the message of video game nerds that save the world with their nerdiness. I’m still in training for that situation to this day. Have I seen better from Adam Sandler and Kevin James? Absolutely! But I’ve also seen much worse. So I guess that means the movie isn’t that bad, but you still don’t really need to see it.
THE VATICAN TAPES
I picked this movie up from RedBox just for shits and giggles. I do like a ghost/demon horror movie, but the possession movies don’t really do much for me. Most of them are just one act of slowly seeing the signs of possession and then two acts of dislocating shoulders and peeled back fingernails as the demon tries to do as much damage to its host body for some reason. That’s essentially what this is. But then it ends with the Antichrist going out into the world. So it’s got that going for it. But the way these play out don’t work out to scary, much like the gore show horror movies, but this one had even less gore. So it’s a horror movie devoid of scares, but the performances are pretty good. Not good enough that you need to watch the rest of the movie to see them, but they were still good.
AUGUST
FANTASTIC FOUR
First one didn’t work, so let’s try this again! And yeah, of course we’re gonna tell the same origin story again! People may have forgotten in the last couple years … how to use Google, where they can find the origin story. But this movie does the same thing I had a problem with in the first Hulk movie: you take too long to show the title characters! 47 minutes! Before that, it’s the goddamn Reed Richards show. And way too long to answer the obvious question: why do I feel like this black guy with a black son and a white daughter hiding something from us? I suppose it would get to be awkward for him to always introduce Sue as his adopted daughter, but I was a bit curious. After that, the problem with the movie is that it was boring. A lot of science, not a lot of fighting. The new cast was pretty good. Didn’t much care for Victor von Doom. His powers were pretty cool (although they didn’t resemble Dr. Dooms very much from what I could tell), but he looked terrible after his transformation. So, as you can see, there can be a Marvel movie I don’t like and won’t recommend!
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Man, Batman v. Superman looks good, don’t it?! Anyway, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a movie that is pissing me off more as I have to type the name with all those periods in it. But the movie itself was pretty good. I didn’t really want to see it (unlike Batman v. Superman), but I decided to rent it as I was preparing this review and it turned out pretty well. It was a fun little throwback movie to a time where my parents were just thinking about getting born already. Pretty simple spy movie story, but it was fun and all three of the main actors (including the Russian, Superman, and Ex Machina lady) were enjoyable. I’d rather see at least one of them with a big “S” that means “Hope” on his chest and another with nothing on her chest, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s still an enjoyable watch. …Like Batman v. Superman…
NO ESCAPE
I assume that this movie almost exclusively sought to create tension, and it did that fairly effectively. What it probably didn’t want to do was make me hate Owen Wilson’s family with a passion. They were the worst! Always complaining and second guessing and doing everything they could to throw roadblocks in front of Wilson to keep him from saving them. One of these little girls throws a bitch fit for a few minutes because they dropped her stuffed animal and didn’t go back for it when they were RUNNING DOWN THE HALL ESCAPING GUNFIRE! And mom keep suggesting they stay put and wait for … I don’t know, marshmallows to fall out of the sky and save them all. I assume the writer of this movie hates his/her kids. After that, it’s also got a little bit of problems with the fact that white people are all good in this and any other color skin is bad, which I assume some people might frown upon. But, since I’m sure that’s not a message they were intending to conceal in this movie, I’ll let that go. Instead, I’ll just say that it is a pretty intense movie, but it doesn’t have much more going for it than that.
AMERICAN ULTRA
I have never been shy about my hatred of Kristen Stewart. I find her mostly unbearable, but with an extremely rare chance to be slightly tolerable. That doesn’t mean I liked this movie, but her presence didn’t really have an effect on my feelings towards the movie, which wound up just being okay. I like the idea of the movie, though it’s been done before with brainwashed candidates only being less stoned than this one. It wasn’t really funny (and I wasn’t even really aware that it was supposed to be until reading about it afterwards), so that would mean the movie would depend on its action scenes to impress … and it didn’t. They weren’t bad, but if I see the best sleeper cell agent ever getting activated, I want that shit to turn into a Jet Li movie. Jesse Eisenberg can pull off the stoner wussy guy part, and even can pull off the badass facial performance, but there wasn’t anything interesting happening when he got to fighting. Michael Cera did it in Scott Pilgrim, they should’ve been able to do it here. Bu the movie isn’t terrible, and John Leguizamo is great in his short scenes, but the movie is skippable.
SEPTEMBER
THE MARTIAN
The talking up for this movie scared me off for a while. It just seemed like it couldn’t possibly live up to what people were saying about it. And how interesting can a movie be that’s just Matt Damon alone on a planet with no one to talk to? Well turns out it can live up to it and it can be really interesting. It’s really grounded (which is a strange thing to say about a movie that happens on Mars, but he WAS on the ground of Mars, sooooo…) and Matt Damon does a fantastic job keeping it emotional, funny, exciting, and interesting all the way through. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily edge of your seat the whole time like Gravity was because there was enough down time of Matt Damon just trying to do small things like farming to stay alive, but Matt Damon never let it be boring. Everything was amazing and enjoyable about this movie, and you really need to see it.
PAN
I wouldn’t call Pan a “bad” movie, but it sure was odd. I mean, it’s a Peter Pan sequel but they have the pirates singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Blitzkrieg Bop” while they work to mine out a rock that is the representation of fairy dust, but that brings it to another problem: why is there a rock representing fairy dust? This is a Peter Pan movie! If you take all the magic out of a Peter Pan movie, you just have a movie about pirates, Indians, and an annoying boy. But there is still some magic to be found in this movie (both in the context of the movie and in the movie itself) and their wasn’t really anything wrong with it. There just wasn’t very much right with it either. It was pretty and colorful in parts of the movie (especially once they met the Natives) and the story itself was an interesting enough idea, and the actors were even great. It just didn’t contain much explanation for why the movie was made or why anyone should see it.
OCTOBER
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION
Yup. I still like these movies. I don’t know why and (for the most part) you probably shouldn’t listen to much I have to say about the series unless you also like seeing movies about the ghost of the dead horse this movie series continues to beat. It answers some of the questions left by the rest of the series and introduces a cool new idea with the camera that can see the ghost world, but that kind of takes away from things. Alien and Jaws were good because they didn’t show the Xenomorph or the shark for as long as they could. I guess 26 movies was long enough for the Paranormal Activity people, but nothing you show us will be as scary as what we could imagine. And it wasn’t. Toby was mostly a black liquid looking thing. The movie’s not particularly spooky, but there are enough jump scares that it can get your blood pumping. This movie is good enough if you’re looking for something like that.
SPECTRE
Because I watched both in the same day, I was really able to see the similarities between this and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. The government wants to shut down this very effective organization because it’s outdated, there’s this uber-bad guy that knows all the hero’s tricks, and they even got Léa Seydoux who was in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol! And I’m sure none of it was coincidence! Or maybe it was. Spectre was fine. Not the best or the worst James Bond movie, and not even the best or worst Daniel Craig James Bond movie, but pretty decent. Some good action, nice car, little light on the gadgets, couple of really good looking women. If you’re looking for more out of a James Bond movie, you don’t know what a James Bond is.
NOVEMBER
CREED
These Stallone movie sequels are dangerous and unpredictable. Even if you just look at the Rocky series. The first one was amazing and then they go straight downhill to number 5, and then number 6 is pretty good again. So what can anyone assume when going into Rocky 7? It’s actually better than 6. Maybe as good as the first one. It’s a fantastic picture. Great story about Apollo Creed’s son coming to grips with his troublesome parentage, with Rocky dealing with his own problems, a little love story with the girl that makes terrible music that Adonis Creed gets involved with. The performances were also great, especially Michael B. Jordan and Stallone. Stallone can really turn it on sometimes. A lot of people forget about that because of … half his IMDb page. And the fights were also pretty great, but were just a few moments. The focus of the movie was more the human adventure as it should be. As the first Rocky was. Speaking of which, a few moments were either derivative or homage-ey, depending on how you look at it. Like someone gets sick as inspiration to the fighter like what happened to Mick in Rocky 3. And the outcome of the movie has similarities to the first movie. But this never becomes a problem. Got all teary-eyed in this movie a couple of times, and I think that’s a pretty big compliment. Go see this.
DECEMBER
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
I won’t typically see a movie in theaters multiple times, nor will I usually go see a movie the week of its release in theaters. I’ll do it for this movie. I tried to keep my hopes low. I tried to remind myself how I felt when I got this excited and saw Phantom Menace, but it didn’t work. After 2 days of hearing rave reviews from my friends and being terrified of spoilers, I broke down and went and saw this movie. Worth. It. I should’ve known too. I wasn’t a fan of Star Trek until they gave it to J.J. Abrams, so what would happen if they gave the same man my childhood to make a movie out of? He’d make a movie that took me right back to my childhood and had tears exploding out of my face in a couple different places, both from sadness over something that happened in the movie (people who have seen it know what I’m talking about) and once out of what I can only explain as sheer awesome welling up in my face and leaving no room for liquid in there. The story was exactly what it should be, the look was brilliant as they did as much with practical effects as they could, the old cast was amazing and the new cast was fantastic. I’m shifting all my prepubescent love from Carrie Fisher over to Daisy Ridley. Carrie had her chance and never made a move. Sorry, love. I can’t wait forever. And you shouldn’t wait to see this movie! What is wrong with you if you haven’t seen it yet?!
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word. Keep me motivated! Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!
The Best and Worst Films of 2015 – Video 0069
0047 – Films of 2014
0040 – The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review
Lego Marvel Super Heroes (2013)
The (Hopefully Temporarily) Best Game on the X-Box One!
I’ve had my Xbone for a few months now and thus far I’ve been fairly disappointed with what it has to offer. Not as a system itself; that has been fantastic. What disappoints me is the lineup available for my next gen system. I’ve played a few games on the system already and have found the results typically mediocre. The game I’m reviewing today has been available since the system’s launch, but I’ve never felt it was quite worth its price. That was until my friend Bob, the Mayor of Krunkytown, told me that I needed it. Well, you don’t argue with a mayor and so I went out and purchased Lego Marvel Super Heroes, developed by TT Games, published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and starring the voices of Stan Lee, John DiMaggio, James Arnold Taylor, Clark Gregg, John Eric Bentley, Dee Bradley Baker, Roger Craig Smith, Troy Baker, Fred Tatasciore, Nolan North, Laura Bailey, Kari Wahlgren, Travis Willingham, and Phil LaMarr.
It would probably be too hard to go too in depth with the story of this game. Not because it’s particularly complicated, but because I would have to list too many damned names. The quick break down is that a bunch of supervillains are getting together to steal cosmic bricks in order to build the “Doom Ray of Doom” to defeat Galactus (John DiMaggio) the World Devourer in hopes that it will make the people of Earth fall in line and worship their saviors. Little do they know that they are being played by the Asgardian God of Mischief Loki (Troy Baker), who intends to harness the power of Galactus to destroy Earth and Asgard. But Marvel comics doesn’t just make villains, do they? HELL NO! AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!! …And a lot of other heroes too!
This is hands down the best game available on the Xbone. That title is made much easier to achieve by having only 20 other titles to compete with, but that does not take much away from the acclaim. I’ve always been fond of the Lego series. I’ve never connected with them too drastically, but they’re typically cute and fun and they just keep getting better. Some of their properties that they’ve made into Lego versions haven’t interested me too much, but this is Marvel. Of course I’m in! And it’s the best Lego game I’ve played. The story is nothing too spectacular. It’s basically just a “heroes save the world” deal. Actually, it’s pretty much the story of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. That’s really all it needs to be though. What I appreciated about it is the funny little moments they can install into the story. I still think I liked them better when they couldn’t talk because they were pretty good at adding comedy without it. But they’re not too shabby with dialogue either. Having Hulk yell, “HULK SMASH UGLY SIDEBURNS!” when he meets Wolverine is pretty funny. They also used Nick Fury in some hilarious ways. Though he had nothing to do with the game, the character of Nick Fury is typically played by Samuel L. Jackson, and Traveller’s Tales used that for some comedy that would be well over the heads of the children that might typically play their games, making some nice references to Pulp Fiction and Snakes on a Plane.
One of the things I appreciated the most about this game was the fan service. They referenced everything they could think to reference from the Marvel universe, and more specifically the Marvel movies. There was a part where the Hulk punches the Green Goblin as he punched Thor in the Avengers, Thor arrives into the game like he does in Thor: The Dark World and even in a similar setting, the Put Up Your Dukes level is right out of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, one of the times you rescue Stan Lee is a reference to when he drank the infected juice in the Hulk movie, the chess set where we find Stan at one point might be a subtle reference to his cameo in the Avengers, and the game even has a mid-credit sequence like the greater majority of comic book movies. Also, there are achievements for doing the Fastball Special (throwing Wolverine at an enemy as Colossus) and for having Captain America and Human Torch on the same team (because both are played by Chris Evans in the movies).
Now, all of those references could not have been recognized if it were not for some extreme levels of nerdiness. That nerdiness also caused a few problems with this game. At one point, Gambit stops the Juggernaut dead in his tracks by dropping a chandelier on him. As big of a fan of Gambit as I am, that just doesn’t happen. Once the Juggernaut starts moving, nothing can stop him! He’s the Juggernaut, bitch! Also, why is the X-Men airplane called the X-Jet now? Is it not still the Blackbird? And since when is the X-Mansion on the island of Manhattan?! I also had a lot of problems arise from what the characters were able to do. First of all, Spider-Man has genius-level intellect. Why do I have to switch to that lame ass Mister Fantastic in order to use a control panel? And while we’re on the subject: I know you probably felt the need to make Mister Fantastic seem useful, but since when can he turn himself into complex machines like an electric screwdriver? That doesn’t even make sense! …The rest of the game is perfectly logical to me though… I also thought Mystique should’ve been more useful. She can basically just sneak past things. Shouldn’t she at least be able to turn into people with claws to use the claw switches? She turned into Wolverine and had claws in the first X-Men movie! I also didn’t like that Jean Grey didn’t have the special senses to detect switches like Spider-Man and Wolverine. How does that make sense? She has EXTRA Sensory Perception! That’s like two more sensories! And even worse, how can she take fire damage when you pick the version of Jean Grey that’s the Phoenix? She flew into the Sun as the Phoenix! And how does Iron Man get frozen?! He fixed that icing problem in Iron Man 1! And how does Magneto not fly?! I AM THE KING OF NERDS!!
Admittedly, the look of the game doesn’t quite live up to next gen expectations. It looks about as good as recent Lego games have on current/previous gen consoles. It’s the look they’re going for and I don’t really knock it for that. It’s kind of for kids, so it’s supposed to have a really colorful and not necessarily photorealistic look. Also, it’s a Lego game. How do you go photorealistic with that? And this one is different from any others I’ve played because they let you play around in a sandbox Manhattan between story missions, and that is just fine by me. I got to jet through the streets as Iron Man and the Silver Surfer! Although I was a little bit bothered that the Silver Surfer’s flying sounded a little like a vacuum cleaner. Is he the Silver Maid or something? I thought all maids were brown! BOOM!
The game is really fun and kept me interested right up to the point where I got 100% on the achievements. I can’t really keep wasting time on a game when I’m not getting no chievos no more! There were a couple of minor problems with the game. Sometimes the camera didn’t want to play along, or more accurately to let you see what you were playing. I also had a common problem where my character would choose to target my ally relentlessly when I was surrounded by enemies. I also got irritated in the first level because they kept putting up reminders when I was the Hulk that I could hold Y to turn back into Bruce Banner. Why would I ever want to do that? You realize that I’m currently the Hulk, right?
Lego Marvel Super Heroes is currently my favorite Xbone game by leaps and bounds. It’s not hard to do when everything else on the system turned out to be okay at best, but the game is still entirely enjoyable. The story is simple but peppered with some enjoyable humor, the game looks good though not quite next gen quality yet, and it’s lots of fun to play. I got hours of enjoyment out of this game and lost track of most of those hours after I started playing and realized shortly after that it was 4 in the morning. And it’s an easy 1000 achievements for you achievement whores like me. Don’t try to act like you’re too adult to enjoy this game! It’s fun for the whole family! Lego Marvel Super Heroes gets “Excelsior!” out of “I’m still hungry! I need something to eat!”
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word. Keep me motivated! Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
I Only Ask for One Thing in Return; a Good Seat from Which to Watch Asgard Burn!
I would like to offer you some backstory to why I saw today’s movie, but it simply doesn’t exist. It’s a sequel to a movie I’ve seen and vaguely liked. But more importantly than that, it’s a comic book movie. That is all that is required for me to find interest in seeing it. And then the movie came out and I watched it. What do you want from me? There’s not always an interesting story leading up to these reviews! Sometimes I just watch movies! And this one was Thor: The Dark World, written by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely, directed by Alan Taylor, and starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christopher Eccleston, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Rene Russo, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jaimie Alexander, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, and Tadanobu Asano.
Eons ago, the Asgardians defeated the Dark Elves on the battlefield of Vanaheim –where Disneyland will someday be built – before they got the chance to plunge the universe into darkness with a weapon known as the Aether, but their leader Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) manages to escape with his lieutenant Algrim (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and some of their men. In present day, the realms come close to aligning again, bringing the return of Malekith when he senses that the Aether was discovered by Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) when it started to use her body as a host. Her “boyfriend” Thor (Chris Hemsworth) returns to Midgard to take her back to Asgard with him to see if it can be removed.
I didn’t really go into this movie expecting much. The first Thor movie was okay, but not really anything special. This one was slightly better. Not the greatest thing ever and not the worst, but it was an enjoyable enough watch. The story was your basic “Bad thing’s gonna happen, hero’s gotta stop it” storyline. And some of the subplots were a little predictable. If you were the type that kept thinking during the Avengers, “Why did they make Coulson’s part so much bigger? It’s like they’re trying to get us attached to him for some … Oh …,” then you may think the same thing about a returning character that had one or two lines in the first movie and was suddenly Chatty Cathy. There’s also a fight near the end of the movie between two characters who – though they are technically enemies – are clearly faking it. I don’t think anyone watching thought they were actually fighting instead of feigning a fight. Though the writing can be predictable, there are some well-written funny moments to be had. The scene where Thor and Loki are walking down and Loki was changing his appearance was pointless, but funny. I also thought the moment where Loki and Thor are arguing over who’s a better pilot and Thor says, “Out of the two of us, which one can ACTUALLY fly,” was a funny line, but Loki really dropped the ball on that one. Thor doesn’t fly! He throws his hammer and gets dragged through the air by it!
Not much to say about the visuals of this movie. It looks pretty great all the way through. One thing that stood out to me was the singularity grenades that the enemies used. Those were pretty awesome, and pretty brutal.
We’ve all probably seen this cast before, either in Avengers or the first Thor movie. They do that. But they still do it pretty well. Chris Hemsworth is all around solid, in both performance and body. And Natalie Portman is sexy, in both performance and body. …I don’t think that one makes sense… Tom Hiddleston is also very good. I think the stand out performance in this movie for me was Kat Dennings. She was comic relief in the first movie, but they really gave her a lot of funny to work with in this one, and she made good with it. She’s one of the few comic relief performances I’ve enjoyed in recent memory. I was really curious about the Warriors Three, or more specifically the Warriors Two out of Three. Ray Stevenson came back as Volstagg, but new actors were portraying Fandral and Hogun. They did fine jobs at it, but what the hell are the other two doing that they can’t be in an epic Marvel movie? Once Upon a Time? Worth it!
Thor: The Dark World was a step up from the original Thor. The story was basic, but entertaining, and even managed a good couple of laughs. The look was great and the action was solid, and all of the actors did fine jobs, especially Kat Dennings, who was typically hilarious. This was an enjoyable movie and definitely worth the money to check it out in theaters. A rental would also work if you would rather wait for it. Thor: The Dark World gets “Look at you! Still all muscly and everything!” out of “If we do nothing, they will destroy us.”
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word. Keep me motivated! Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!
Robert Reviews Stuff 