Tusk Review

I love movies. I love watching them, enjoying them, making fun of them, and critiquing them. In the last eight months, it’s been nearly impossible for me to get to the theater, and when I do, I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to find the motivation to write anything about the movie I watch. I watched Aquaman, and it was great. A true saving grace for the DC Cinematic Universe. I viewed Endgame twice, and debated whether or not to say anything, but what could I say that hasn’t been said a million times over? Maybe I’ll do something for the “extended” re-release. I saw Unplanned, wrote half a review, then scrapped it because I didn’t want my return to writing to be on such a controversial topic. And so, it’s been one year since my last review, and eight months since my last post. I’ve continued watching movies, looking for one that inspires me. One that’s so different I have to address it. One that fills me with that passion for writing that I’ve missed so much. Nothing in theaters has done it for me, so I turned to past movies. Hesitant to make the transition from current movies to past movies, I searched for the right one. And I found it. A movie so utterly dumbfounding I find myself feeling the irresistible urge to speak. So without further ado, Tusk.

***SUMMARY***

Tusk is the story of a charismatic, arrogant podcaster named Wallace Bryton, played by Justin Long. Wallace and his friend Teddy (Haley Joel Osment) run a podcast called the Not-See Party. Wallace travels to various location to interview outrageous people, and Teddy stays home, reacting to the hilarity that ensues. After viewing one such outrageous video, Wallace travels to Canada to interview a subject. Discovering that his interviewee is no longer able to do the podcast, he conveniently finds a strange old Man named Howard Howe (Michael Parks), a wheelchair-bound retired explorer offering lodging and a lifetime of stories in exchange for some assistance around his mansion. Intrigued, Wallace reaches out and makes contact with Howe. Howe is clearly a interesting individual, whom Wallace quickly notices has a fascination with walruses after being stranded on an island with one in his youth for an extended period of time. As the evening progresses, Wallace passes out and awakens to find his leg is missing. Howe feeds Wallace a thin story about being bit by a spider, and we see the insanity of our host beginning to show. Wallace tries to contact Teddy and his girlfriend Ally (Genesis Rodriguez), managing to leave a terrified voicemail on their phones before Howe traps him in his basement. Howe reveals his plan to surgically turn Wallace into a Walrus. As Howe drugs Wallace further and begins his surgery, Teddy and Ally investigate Wallace’s disappearance. They encounter failed Investigator Guy Lapointe (Johnny Depp), a kooky French-Canadian police inspector who’s been tracking Howe for years. Howe completes the transformation of Wallace into a walrus, a flesh suited monstrosity composed of various human parts, then begins mentally conditioning his new pet. As the movie draws to its climax, all of our characters converge, Walrus Wallace faces off against his captor, and he’s discovered all to late to the disgusted shock of his friends.

***THE GOOD***

Tusk has an interesting premise of being a unique idea from a good director (Kevin Smith, Clerks, Chasing Amy). The cast is all around great in their roles. Obviously the most interesting character in the movie is Howard Howe in a scenery chewing performance by Michael Parks. Parks is an absolute blast to watch, and much like Dr. Heiter in the Human Centipede, the most entertaining part of the movie. He’s clearly having the time of his life in his role, and shows his ability to play both the eccentric old man, and the absolutely insane psychopath who turns people into walruses. He and Justin Long have wonderful chemistry in their initial scene where they meet. Speaking of their first scene, it’s wonderfully executed. Watching the two play off each other and Howe tell his stories is likely the best scene of the movie. The other saving grace of the film is Johnny Depp as Guy Lapointe. Depp clearly is phoning in the entire performance, drunk out of his mind, and having a ton of fun with his character. When you can understand him through his ridiculous accent, he’s a relatively funny character, and responsible for the majority of the laughs we get through the film. Overall, the film stands out for its comedic timing when it wants to be funny. Unfortunately, it suffers from a similar issue many horror films today struggle with, which leads us into

***THE BAD***

Tusk suffers from a highly inconsistent tone. It feels like it wants to be Human Centipede if Centipede took itself less seriously. With a ridiculous looking walrus suit, two over-acted corny characters, and such a ludicrous concept, Tusk sets itself up as a seriously dark gore-fest comedy. But it goes all the way in the wrong places, and not far enough in others. When it’s clearly designed to be funny, it reigns itself in, almost as if it’s trying to ground itself in reality by giving Howe motivations, and Lapointe a tragic backstory. It tries to make you feel bad for Wallace, but as the movie goes on we get flashbacks showing him to be a more and more unlikable, unsympathetic asshole. Wrong move. His friends are shown to be moderately decent people after a while, but after their introductions, it’s hard to like them. But the biggest flaw of Tusk is it takes itself too seriously, and much like Human Centipede, you get practically nothing out of it you didn’t expect going in. You’re promised a man being turned into a walrus. You get a man who gets turned into a walrus. The surgery, you know, the part that’d make any gore-hound squeal with a mix of fascination and disgust, is entirely offscreen. The suit is very obviously latex, and looks pretty stupid. It’s attempts to ground itself dispel your suspension of disbelief, making you realize just how much dumber the entire concept is in reality than you first thought. How unbelievable it is. And the finale is soooo bad. After confronting and killing Howe (also in a Walrus suit), Wallace is taken to an animal sanctuary, believing he’s really a walrus. In what is one of the dumbest endings I’ve seen in a movie in recent history, it finishes with Wallace accepting his fate, and living out the rest of his life as a walrus. But after the serious scenes preceding it, no amount of lunacy will restore that precious suspension of disbelief to make you accept it as a satisfying finale.

***CONCLUSION***

In conclusion, Tusk is one of the most purely stupid films I’ve ever seen, and it infuriates me. A film with so much comedic, or horrifying potential tries to settle for both, and only succeeds half-way with its mediocrity. And so much wasted potential is the worst crime a movie like this can commit. Can I really recommend it? Who really cares. You get what you came for, nothing really more. You want a walrus man? You get a walrus man. It’s Human Centipede Lite. No balls, one and a half good performances, both of which overstay their welcome. A stupid plot, and it’s painfully boring. 3.5/10

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review

Ordinarily, I’m pretty decisive on my opinions when it comes to movies. I love them or I hate them. They’re good or bad. But sometimes, on very rare occasion, I see a movie that I really just don’t know what to do with, and that movie is Star Wars the Last Jedi.

SUMMARY:

So, without getting into spoiler territory, let’s begin. The story is somewhat simple: The Rebellion is being chased by the First Order. Their fleet is mostly wiped out, and it’s up to Finn and Poe, with the help of a mechanic they recruit named Rose, to break into an Empire, I’m sorry, First Order flagship to disable a tracking device, allowing the remains of the rebel fleet to escape. Meanwhile, Rey has found Luke Skywalker and attempts to convince him to assist the rebellion, and to train her in the ways of the Force.

THE GOOD:

So, there was a decent amount of good stuff in this movie. Kylo Ren was definitely much better here than in the previous installment. His internal struggle was handled moderately well, and Adam Driver is definitely trying his hardest, so I can’t really fault him there. Kylo Ren was definitely better than last time. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher both had good scenes. There’s a big fight scene in a crucial part of the movie that’s probably the best part of the whole film, basically a 2v6 fight. The music in this is really good. In this respect, it felt like a truly new installment into the franchise, rather than the complete rehash from the first film. Other than that, the only other thing I can say is really good are the special effects about 70 percent of the time.

THE BAD:

Look, I tried. But my God. This movie had some absolutely prequel tier garbage in it. To start, the dialogue is downright atrocious. I haven’t heard lines this horrendous since Attack of the Clones. It genuinely hurts to watch, because there’s some legitimately good talent onscreen. Unfortunately, there’s no Ewan McGregor to be found, and no one is anywhere near charismatic enough to make such terrible lines work. Poe is basically Tom Cruise from Top Gun. He’s some confident schmarmy douchewad there to fill the movie’s quota for Han Solo stand-in. He spends half of his time either creating forced conflict, or acting like he’s in a Marvel movie, throwing out quips and one-liners. Finn and Rose have probably the most useless sub-plot in the story, a plotline that takes up about a full hour of runtime. They’re tasked with going to this casino-planet to find an elite hacker to assist them. At the end of their mission, absolutely nothing is accomplished, and the segment seems to exist for no reason other than filling space. Normally I’d have no issue with this, so long as the opportunity was taken to develop the characters through their interactions, similarly to the Farmhouse from Avengers Age of Ultron. Unfortunately, this entire subplot brings the movie to a grinding halt, bores the audience, and doesn’t even have the decency to really develop any chemistry between the characters of Finn and Rose. Speaking of Rose, I really hated her character. She felt like this unnecessary extra character added for no reason. I never really was able to connect to her in any way. She existed for the sole purpose of further developing Finn, and she failed there, making her a truly pointless character that left no lasting impact. My last big gripe character-wise is Rey. I’ll be honest. I didn’t care much for her in TFA. She was overacted there, and it’s just as bad here. If Hayden Christensen underacted Anakin, Daisy Ridley overcompensates and ridiculously overacts Rey. She’s annoying, and painful to watch, and watching a movie where you can’t stand the main character is pretty difficult. Moving on from characters for the moment, let’s talk about the tone of this film. It felt so incredibly lost. It seemed like it was trying to be a Marvel movie half the time, and that really hurt it. The first half of the movie felt like more of a parody than anything else. Characters make incredibly stupid decisions all the way through. Villains make even more stupid ones. There were a few points where I thought to myself “Okay, if the First Order messes this one up, then they really deserve to lose.” The second half was better, but still extremely flawed. The humor was terrible slapstick, with random CGI aliens doing ridiculous things in the background, or right up in front of the screen. It tries too hard to be cutesy for the little kids, and instead just comes across as Jar Jar Binks/the Ewoks. It just doesn’t work. The plot was a convoluted mess, jumping back and forth between plotlines with no real sense of flow. Certain scenes just came across as a giant slap in the face to fans of the franchise, or as blatant ripoffs of other popular franchises. It was painful to watch quite a bit of the time. Last but not least, half of the characters in this feel like their existence was justified by the need to sell toys. They serve little to no purpose other than merchandise. And no, Disney. Porgs are not going to be the new Minions. This is a good thing. Leave it at that.

CONCLUSION A:

Normally, this is where I’d write my full conclusion and be done with it. Buuuut normally I’d also include a spoiler section. Due to this being such a massive movie, I’m going to do something a little different this time. Below I’ll include a spoiler section, which’ll also include probably my biggest gripes with the movie, and a final conclusion. However, here’re my (spoiler free) final thoughts. As I walked out of the theater, I remarked that Last Jedi felt like the Phantom Menace of the new trilogy. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but with some great scenes, and enough redeeming factors to make me want to come back. The action is decent for the most part, the characters who’re bearable are interesting to watch. If you’re a big Star Wars fan, be wary going in, and lower your expectations. If you’re more of a casual viewer, I guess it’s a fine movie. There’s nothing overly offensive, or too much of a slap in the face. Based off this, I’d give it a solid 6/10.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

I’m warning you now, Spoilers are ahead. I’m saying this to give you enough time to leave, and not see something that’ll ruin the movie for you before you get the chance to see it. That being said, let’s get down the the real meat of the movie. Certain decisions in this seemed like less of a slap in the face, and more of a giant middle finger to the audience. In the very beginning of the movie, we get a fake-out where the First Order destroys the Rebel Flagship’s bridge, jettisoning Leia into space. She’s shown floating, frozen, when she suddenly comes back to life and uses the force to fly back inside the ship. I think I can safely quote Han Solo here when I say “THAT’S NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS.” It was stupid and unnecessary. Next up on the chopping block: the villains. I thought we learned our lesson from Spiderman 3. Too many villains with no real payoff is a bad formula for a movie. In TLJ, we have 4, two of which are barely in it enough to count, and the other two are Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren. I already said I didn’t mind Kylo Ren too much. He’s a bit of a whiny brat, but it works well enough. The other three on the other hand…. We have General Hux, the over-the-top leader of the First Order. He’s an overacted villain with no presence. I’ve seen people wondering why he doesn’t work as a bad guy, but Grand Moff Tarkin from the original movie did. It’s pretty simple: Tarkin had presence. You could tell from his demeanor that he was in charge, and people would listen to him. He was calm, collected, and powerful. Hux screams half his lines, and has no sense of calm, or dignity at all. As a result, he has no power, and fails as a villain. Next is Captain Phasma, the chrome plated commander of the stormtroopers. She’s incredibly shoe-horned in towards the end. We never learn anything about her. She just exists to give Finn someone to fight in the end of the movie, then she dies. Finally, Snoke. This character had so much potential. He’s built up an extremely powerful ancient being with control of the force greater than even the Emperor. We meet him here, and he’s pretty cool for a while. I’ll give it to Andy Serkis: he knows how to play a villain really well. Unfortunately, he serves as nothing more than a plot device, as they kill him halfway through the movie. No explanation to who he is, where his power comes from, how he seduced Ben Solo to the Dark Side, no nothing. He sits in his chair, monologing to Rey and Kylo, and gets axed off by Kylo Ren. It served as nothing more than an excuse for Kylo Ren to rise to power, and a testament to Rian Johnson’s laziness and refusal to expand on a concept for a character. Up next? Luke. Mark Hamill tried. You can definitely tell, he tried his hardest here, and he did a good job. Unfortunately, this was not Luke Skywalker at all. Everything he does and is portrayed as in the original trilogy seems completely forgotten about. He’s just off on a planet by himself waiting to die. He created Kylo Ren by trying to kill him, causing him to destroy Luke’s Jedi Temple and join Snoke. This is so out of line with Luke’s character it’s not even funny. It just felt like a giant middle finger to an iconic well loved cultural icon. Then they kill him too. Yep. You read that right. They kill off Luke Skywalker. After the Rebel’s escape to a planet with an old rebel base on it, Luke appears, and steps out in front of the entire invading force of the First Order. Kylo Ren comes out, and after Luke toys with him a while, it’s revealed that Luke is still on his planet, but using the force to Astrally Project himself to Kylo Ren. Aaaaand this somehow drains his life force, and after stalling for time so that the remaining members of the Rebellion can escape, he leaves Kylo, returns to his body, and disappears Yoda style. So, yeah. They kill off Luke Skywalker without having him really do anything terribly useful. Also, they use force-ghost Yoda, and it’s one of the worst effects in the movie. That about does it for my spoilers, so let’s move on to

FINAL THOUGHTS:

So… needless to say, there were several parts of this movie that genuinely infuriated me. But the good parts were there too. The handful of good scenes will probably keep this movie mostly watchable, as long as you can stay awake for the boring, stupid, horribly written parts. Seeing Rey and Kylo team up for 5 minutes to kill the Royal Guards after Snoke’s death was awesome. The exchange of dialogue directly after? Not awesome. Luke Skywalker walking out in front of a dozen AT-ATs, and shrugging it off when they all open fire at once? Pure awesomeness. Luke dying without doing much of anything? Not cool. The abundance of plot holes, forced plot lines, terrible dialogue, and bad humor make this an easy tie with Phantom Menace for second worst Star Wars film of all time. But hey, it’s still better than Attack of the Clones. Check it out if you think your hopes are low enough to not be mortified at this travesty. Final verdict? 5/10

Batman: Knightfall Animated

It’s been a while. Quite a while since I’ve done anything on here. But I wanted to get an idea out that I’ve had for a long time, and realized this would probably be the best place I know to put it, so here it goes

I love DC comics. Growing up, I spent a lot of my time reading stories from the Silver Age of comics: Green Lantern, Flash, Justice League, etc. These were crucial to helping develop who I’ve become during those formative years. There was one I never really got into when I read Silver Age comics though: Batman. Sure I loved the character, and I thoroughly enjoyed everything I knew about him, but he was honestly just kind of boring to me during the Silver Age. But when I started reading comics from the Bronze and Modern eras, there was one story that I absolutely fell in love with: Knightfall. It fell into the same boat for me as the Death of Superman as a true classic showing the fall of a legendary comic book icon, and his eventual return. I was devastated when I realized there hasn’t been a proper adaptation of the story to film. Sure, we got Dark Knight Rises, which was a decent enough movie, but it just didn’t feel like Knightfall. We got a, um, different version of Bane, and the iconic breaking of the Bat. The we saw him come back. For a live action film, it was good. It was a fine conclusion to a phenomenal trilogy. But I wasn’t satisfied. It just wasn’t Knightfall. So I began to brainstorm. How could we get a truly perfect adaptation of such a great series? And so that’s what I’ve been working to figure out. So here’s my idea for an adaptation of Knightfall.

To truly do justice to the Knightfall story, I firmly believe it should be a 5 part animated series. I believe this is the best way to get the most out of the story, as there are 5 distinct pieces necessary to set up the series: Azrael, Bane, Knightfall, Knightquest, and Knightsend. I think each of these parts should have their own separate film, to do true justice to the characters.

Part One: The Sword of Azrael

To properly establish the essential character of Azrael, we need to start with his introduction. Telling the story of Jean-Paul Valley works to establish the tone of the entire saga. We can start with an already well established Batman, an established Knightwing, and a Tim Drake Robin. You could even use Damien Wayne if you really wanted, but I prefer Drake. The first film would take us through the story of Jean-Paul taking up the mantle of the angel of vengeance, and eventually being converted away by Bruce Wayne, joining up with Batman. It’s a lot to cram into one movie, but I believe it can be done. Admittedly, introducing Azrael and the Order of St. Dumas, then showing a clear arc for the character may come off rushed, but if handled well, it would be fairly similar to the Son of Batman movie from a couple of years ago.

Part Two: Bane

This is probably the most important piece of the series. Bane is an amazing character, and deserves to be properly set up as such through his own film. His life before he ever reaches Gotham would honestly be enough for its own contained story, being told as a prison break movie. It gives us time to connect with him as a person, and see that Bane is almost an intellectual equal for Batman. We can go through his formative years, and see him develop into the beast he becomes. His early years can be gone through quickly, and bring us to the experiments that enhance him physically. After he’s powered up through Venom, it can transition into the story of him and his goons breaking out of the prison, and end with his arrival in Gotham.

 

Part Three: Knightfall

Although this is the part most people really want to see, I think it’s imperative that it come in the middle. We can start a few months after Banes arrival in Gotham, with his release of all Batman’s enemies. The majority of the movie can be focused around Bruce’s growing paranoia and burnout, as well as Robins plight trying to help, while Jean-Paul deals with the effects of the Order of St. Dumas’s System. The entire film would culminate in an exhausted Batman finally coming face to face with Bane, and the two fighting, with Batman being utterly destroyed by Bane. The iconic Breaking of the Bat would end the movie, leaving a cliffhanger to the fourth installment:

 

Part Four: Knightquest

For me personally, Knightquest was always the most interesting piece of the story. The story would pick up exactly where the last film left off, with Batman being broken and thrown away by Bane, then being rescued and brought back to the Batcave. Knightquest would be primarily split between telling the incredibly intense story of Azrael with Bruce’s quest for healing. Starting with Jean-Paul Valley taking up the mantle of the Bat, and fairly early in the film defeating Bane, we’d watch as his mental conditioning from the Order erodes all of his progress he’s made redeeming himself, tossing aside Robin, becoming progressively more brutal, and eventually breaking Batman’s cardinal rule. Meanwhile Bruce will take his journey to rediscover why he became Batman in the first place, travelling abroad and working to return himself to peak form. The film would end with Azrael completely isolated from everyone: Robin, the Police, and even his own sanity, as Bruce gets word of what’s happened back in Gotham with Azrael, and sets out to return, and reclaim his mantle.

 

Part Five: Knightsend

In the final chapter, and ultimate conclusion to the story, we’d see Bruce Wayne return to Gotham to find it a total mess, with Azrael having become exactly what Batman was never supposed to be. His partner Robin would be mad at him, as would Nightwing, for abandoning them and leaving his mantle in the hands of Jean-Paul. We’d see the Azrael face off with Bruce early on, effectively throwing him out of his own home, and demanding he leave the city. Bruce then would finally put the suit back on, and properly confront Azrael. The finale of the movie would then be Azrael and Batman clashing, with Batman finally beating Azrael, re-affirming himself as the Dark Knight, and delivering the speech from the comic, stating his mistakes and the issues with Azrael’s method of handling things. The movie would end with potential for a much larger Batman universe as he has to work to redeem his name, and cement himself back as the protector of Gotham City.

 

While flawed, I still personally believe this to be the perfect method of telling one of DC Comic’s most iconic stories. It would be a massive commitment, especially for an animated film series, but I believe that in the long run, it could go down as one of the best adaptations put onscreen. Knightfall is such a classic story that it deserves to be told in full, without compromising its integrity, giving people a deep and insightful look at one of both comic book, and cinema’s most beloved characters. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I’ll leave you with one question: what comic book series would you like to see adapted onto the big screen, and how would you do it?

Avengers: Infinity War Review

It’s all been building to this. A film 10 years in the making. With 18 previous movies setting it up, it is easily the most ambitious crossover movie ever attempted. With well over 40 characters in leading rolls, and on a far grander scale than we’ve ever seen, it is Marvel’s Magnum Opus. Let’s jump into it.

So, I just got back from watching Avengers: Infinity War, and… wow. I seriously mean wow. I really don’t even know where to start. As a longtime fan of the MCU, this movie had a ton riding on it, and I firmly believe that the Russo Brothers completely knocked it out of the park with this one.

SUMMARY: ***Spoiler Free***

Thanos is the most dangerous being in the universe. His goal is to bring balance to all of life by destroying half of it. In order to do so, he must first acquire the six Infinity Stones, which will grant him supreme power to accomplish his plan. It’s up to the Avengers to stop him, but can they contend with a person of his power?

THE GOOD:

It’s kind of funny. Usually when I look at a movie and think to myself: “what’s the best part about this movie?” I can pretty easily pick out 2-3 things that stand out from the rest. Not so with Infinity War. Everything is just so well handled it’s difficult to pick something exceptionally good. Let’s start with the actors. Everyone nails their parts. Robert Downey Jr. returns to his role as Iron Man, and seeing him come to terms with what he’s been afraid of since Avengers 1 is stunning. Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch are both great. The real standout here, is definitely Josh Brolin as Thanos. Despite being mostly CGI, he delivers a spectacular performance. He’s sympathetic, but also evil. He really gets across the character’s motivations, and while you still don’t like what he’s doing, you can see why he wants to do it. There are a handful of truly heartbreaking scenes involving Thanos that I won’t get into here for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say, Brolin is phenomenal. Next, the effects and the score. The CG in this was almost perfect (save 1-2 shots). You’re never taken out of the story, and it’s never so jarring that you think to yourself “That’s fake.” The score perfectly accentuates every shot. From the big swells when a character makes an entrance to practically forcing tears down your face during gut-wrenching scenes, Alan Sylvestri plays your emotions like a fiddle, and it adds so much to an already powerful movie. Last but not least, the plot. There is so much going on in this movie at any given point in time that I’m legitimately shocked they managed to pull it all together. At any given point in time there will be 3-5 different plotlines running, and somehow they keep it all together as a cohesive plot. The story is executed near-flawlessly. I really don’t know what else I can say about it, which brings me to

THE BAD:

Really, there wasn’t much in this that rubbed me the wrong way. All I have are a handful of nitpicks. A handful of jokes rubbed me the wrong way, mostly Spiderman’s pop culture references got a little old. A couple of shots with Bruce Banner looked off. The only real issue I take is that Rhodes (War Machine)’s injury from Civil War really doesn’t affect him at all. That was a major point in Civil War, and here he’s pretty much acting like nothing happened. Other than those minor nitpicks, there’s really not much else bad I can say.

CONCLUSION:

This pretty much wraps up my spoiler free section. Altogether, it was an extremely strong movie. The characters are fun to watch, and interact well with each other, the story is strong, and keeps you interested, on the edge of your seat, and leaves you yearning for more. I’d definitely recommend seeing it in theaters, and can rate it a solid 9.5/10

 

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I’d suggest not reading any further. Seriously. MAJOR SPOILERS are ahead. This isn’t some Iron Man 2 or Thor Dark World kind of movie. This is the culmination of 10 years of movies, and has some huge spoilers, so I’m sort of required to let you know before I start discussing them that “HEY, THERE ARE SPOILERS.” All good? Great. Let’s get started. From the very beginning, the tone of the movie is established through Loki’s death and the extermination of Asgard. It’s a very dark, bleak movie. All of the characters are ridiculously outclassed, and get more and more hopelessly outgunned the further on it gets. As Thanos slowly and methodically acquires the Infinity Gems, your anticipation and dread grow. On the one hand, the stakes are getting raised higher and higher, so a massive fight is about to take place. On the other hand, your favorite characters are almost guaranteed to die. Thanos is absolutely terrifying. The strongest part of the movie, at least for me, was the fight on Titan between Thanos, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spiderman, and the Guardians. It’s absolutely gorgeous to watch, the stakes are insanely high, and it all culminates in one of the most horrifying moments from the entire series with Tony getting impaled. Possibly the other best scene has to be the acquisition of the Soul Stone, and Gamora’s death. It leads to a great Red Skull cameo, and probably the second saddest scene, as Gamora is hurled off a cliff by Thanos. But the most depressing scene is really easy to figure out. The most iconic moment from the original comic. The moment the entire movie is building up to, and you wonder if Marvel will actually be willing to do it: The Snap. When Thanos has finally acquired all 6 stones, he snaps his fingers, and wipes out half of all life in the universe, successfully accomplishing his goal. The bad guy wins, and most of our heroes crumble to ash. Watching Rockets reaction to Groot hurt, but what really was just emotionally devastating was Peter Parker clinging to Tony as he slowly fades away. The entire sequence at the end took an already incredibly strong movie to the next level, and cements Infinity War in a #2 spot, possibly tied as #1 with Winter Soldier. My rating stands at 9.5/10.

Justice League Review

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and oh boy… what a movie to jump back into this with. So, I just got back from Justice League, and I’ve got to say, I’m torn. Half of my brain saying this film was a disaster of epic proportions, and the other half saying its an incredibly fun movie. So, let’s just jump into this.

Also heads up, some minor spoilers will follow

SUMMARY:

The plot of the movie is that an alien named Steppenwolf had tried to take over the earth centuries ago, using three cubes called “Mother Boxes” to terraform the earth into a new kind of world. He’d been defeated LOTR style by all of the races and groups on the earth banding together and banishing him. Now, Steppenwolf has returned in the wake of Superman’s death to try again, and Batman assembles a team of powerful heroes to stop him, consisting of himself, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. They figure out they can’t stop Steppenwolf themselves, so Batman comes up with a plan to revive Superman. Superman is resurrected, they fight Steppenwolf, destroy his giant sky beam, and get rid of his army of generic faceless alien soldiers, tease future sequels, roll credits.

THE GOOD:

So, believe it or not, there was some stuff I really enjoyed in this movie. It’s thoroughly entertaining to watch, even though it’s not all that good. The characters have decent chemistry, and some of the action scenes are good. The characters I was most hopeful/nervous about were Aquaman and Flash. Aquaman because he’s never been adapted well onto really most any screen, and has always been the butt of jokes, and Flash because we already have a good depiction of the Flash on TV, and doing yet another version of Barry Allen feels disrespectful to the already developed one that’s been on for the last couple of years. That being said, these two were definitely the most entertaining parts of the movie. Flash has several great one-liners, and the scenes where he goes fast are cool. In the scene where Superman is revived, Superman acts more like Bizarro than himself, and has a brief scuffle with the rest of the team before remembering who he is. This scene has probably my favorite moment in the entire movie, when Flash enters, trying to get behind Superman and attack him, and Superman’s head turns following Flash in perfect time. It’s an intimidating moment, and legitimately cool. Aquaman was a huge relief to see done well. There are a few hiccups, but he comes off as a truly powerful character, and a fun one too. I’m really looking forward to seeing his solo film next year. Cyborg was cool for the most part, but I’ll get into my gripes with him in the next session. Other than that, Batman was mostly pretty cool. I think BvS did him better, but Affleck delivered again. We got to see more of Bruce Wayne this time around, which was interesting to see. Otherwise, that’s about it for my positives, so let’s get on to

THE BAD:

So, for as much fun stuff is in this movie, there’s a whole ton of garbage. First up on the chopping block is the directing. For those who don’t know, during production of the movie, Zack Snyder (the director)’s daughter committed suicide, leading to him stepping out of the director’s chair and handing over the rains to another director. Unfortunately, this director was Joss Whedon. Just a quick disclaimer, I vehemently despise Whedon, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I like some of his work, but most of it I can’t stand. My point is, Whedon took over directing, and was given more or less free reign to do what he wanted. As a result, he did major re-writes to the script, adding in unnecessary plotlines, and making it “just another Joss Whedon movie.” Don’t get me wrong, there are bits that you can tell have Snyder’s hands all over them. But with the two completely differing styles, it completely disjointed the movie. But Whedon leads me into my next huge complaint: Wonder Woman. Now, I loved the WW movie that came out earlier this year. I loved every little bit of it, even the stupid stuff. In the end, she was an awesome warrior, a good character, and a strong female lead. Joss Whedon has wanted to direct a WW movie for years. He was even slated for one a while ago, but had it taken away from him because he didn’t understand the character. I 100% see why here. All he tried to do was turn WW into Buffy. Now, I like Buffy, don’t get me wrong. But seeing a several hundred year old Amazon warrior acting like a bratty teenage California girl was infuriating. I had to remind myself I wasn’t watching Buffy getting over Angel when Wonder Woman starts whining about Steve Trevor, who died almost a hundred years before. It was stupid, and a complete injustice to an amazing character. Another trope of Whedon I need to point out that only served to pad runtime was an obvious addition of a family near Steppenwolf’s Sky Beam. Whedon likes to do this: he’ll add in a random character that has no connection at all to the plot, and no connection to any of the characters. The idea behind it being to make the audience care more about the innocent civilians. It’s annoying, and it’s pointless. Getting off the subject of Whedon for a minute, let’s get onto the overarching plot of the movie. Simply put? It’s incredibly weak. Big Bad CGI monster with no personality has a Sky Beam capable of destroying humanity. He has a big faceless CGI army, and a fancy glowing alien artifact that powers said Sky Beam destroy the artifact and the Baddie is powered down. Kill/defeat the bad guy, and his entire army disappears, and the world goes back to normal. It’s the plot of Avengers, Avengers 2, Suicide Squad, Pirates of the Carribean, and most other hollywood blockbuster films that come out nowadays. It’s lazy storytelling, and it’s boring and annoying. My next issue? The special effects. This was one of the major issues I had with the movie. Sure, parts were good, but mostly, the CG was atrocious. Like, 2011 Green Lantern atrocious. Steppenwolf and Cyborg, the two most important characters with special effects were awful to look at. For as well acted as the part of Cyborg was, I was horrified at how bad his character looked. It was so clearly fake I had a hard time watching it. The aliens were decent enough, but even then, you’ll never remember them. They’re just bland generic monsters for the heroes to kill without feeling bad. The most hilariously stupid issue came with Superman. So, by the time Joss Whedon took over and did his re-writes, Henry Cavill had already filmed his bits, and was off to work on Mission Impossible 6, so he had to be called back for reshoots. The problem with this is, he had to grow a full mustache for his role in MI:6, and wasn’t allowed to shave it off for his role in JL. So, the special effects department took over, and CGI’d his upper lip to get rid of the ‘stache. And it’s PAINFULLY obvious. Laughably so. My last big problem has to be with the dialogue. All I can say is THIS ISN’T THE AVENGERS, THIS IS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. When we have Batman and Wonder Woman quipping back and forth, and all of these characters exchanging playful banter (poorly written playful banter at that), it takes away from the gravity of the situation. I’m not saying I want a boring, emotionless film with no life or color. Some humor is fine, but make it match the universe they’re trying to set up. One of the major issues comes when they hire the guy who did Avengers, Firefly, Buffy, and a million other franchises that consist mainly of characters just snarkily quipping back and forth, don’t be surprised when you get Justice League done as if it were an Avengers film. Other than that, I think that’s about all I’ve got in terms of negatives.

CONCLUSION:

So… was Justice League a particularly good movie? No. No it wasn’t. It had a bland generic plot, bad special effects, and a complete mess of directing. That being said, I didn’t hate it. The characters were decent enough together. The action was serviceable for a DC movie. The decent thing about a plot this generic and simple is it makes it easy to follow. All in all, I think they tried setting too much up at once again, and steered the franchise in a direction I personally believe it shouldn’t have gone. I’d still say it was fine, and I’ll probably watch it again, especially if we get an uncut version, or a director’s cut version when Snyder is in better condition to finish his movie. If you aren’t a DC fan, you’ll probably enjoy it enough, and if you’re a Marvel fan, you’ll enjoy the change in tone from the last few movies. But if you’re a DC fan, this’ll be a fine/decent movie you’ll either love or hate. I’d personally rank it as better than BvS and Suicide Squad, not as good as Wonder Woman, and probably about on par with Man of Steel. 6/10

Stephen King’s “It” Review

2017 certainly seems to be the Year of the King. Stephen King, that is. With adaptations of The Mist, Mr. Mercedes, 1922, Gerald’s Game, the Dark Tower, and It, there seems to be no limit to what can and will be adapted. The most recent of these movies is “It.” “It” has become an overnight sensation, drawing in over 110 million during its opening weekend alone. And what else can I say other than I just got back from Stephen King’s “It,” and I am incredibly disappointed.

(note)

Before we get too far into this, let me just say, I am not going to be judging this based on how true it stays to the book. I will also not be comparing it to the 1990 mini-series. I will be judging the movie based on its merits as a horror film, and a movie in general.

SUMMARY:

The movie follows a group of seven kids living in Derry, Maine known as the Losers Club. When children from the town start to disappear, the kids start seeing a mysterious clown, who torments them and scares them constantly. They set out to figure out what it is, and if they can stop it.

THE GOOD:

So, before I start ripping this movie apart, let’s get the best things out of the way first. The opening scene is surprisingly effective. The way it builds its suspense, before culminating in its disturbing finish is excellent. Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the Dancing Clown is highly entertaining all the way through. When Skarsgard is given the chance to act, he’s both hilarious and disturbing at the same time. As great as Skarsgard is, the kids are the best part of the movie. They deliver great lines and humor, although the humor side is partly a flaw, which I’ll discuss in the negatives section, The cinematography is usually pretty good, and the scenes without Pennywise are probably the best in the movie. Other than that, there’s not much to say. The kids growing bonds are well handled, but that’s about it.

THE BAD:

So to start off, I’ll address the humor of the movie. If I come out of a horror movie feeling like I just watched a comedy and not at all freaked out by anything, that’s probably a sign that the movie didn’t do its job right. Although incredibly funny, the humor constantly takes away from the dark tone the movie is trying to set. The kids are hilarious, and I laughed out loud in the theater at Pennywise multiple times. But that seriously hurt the overall feel the movie clearly wanted. One moment, the kids will be cracking jokes and having fun, the next something insane will happen, and the next, they’ll get a laugh from something they said. It detracts from anything genuinely scary in the movie. My next gripe is that WOW these kids are stupid. I understand that they’re like 12ish, but no 12-year-old is as stupid as these kids. They are constantly wandering off from the group, just because the plot demands it. The movie isn’t creative in how it separates them, you just hear a voice whisper the kids name, and he/she will wander off. As good as the actors who played the kids are, another fault was the lack of development for a couple of them. The movie mostly focuses on Bill, Beverly, Ben, Richie, and Eddie. Of those 5, only Bill and Beverly get real development. Two of the kids are barely in the movie at all. So out of its cast of 7 lead kids, only two get real development. This film also has the major issue of too much CGI. I don’t mind CG. I really don’t. But when any scene where Pennywise does anything is nothing but a computer-generated puppet zooming into the camera, it’s genuinely painful to look at. It’s overused, its cheap, and it detracts from the movie. The reason classic horror films manage to draw us in so well is we can see what’s going on, and there’s clearly something actually happening on the set. When it’s GC’d, it’s easy to recognize, and it sucks you out of the moment. Although the movie has a plot, it’s very poorly told. The first half of the film is spend jumping around between the different characters in very jarring ways. Every scene in this movie feels disconnected from the others until the last 30 minutes. It’s poorly edited, and doesn’t flow well at all. Any other gripes I have, I think should be addressed in the next section:

THE STEPHEN KING CLICHE BOOK:

You know, if I were to play the Stephen King drinking game, I would have died of alcohol poisoning before the end of this movie. I know I said I wouldn’t compare this to the book or the other adaptation, but I said nothing about comparing it to King’s other works, so let’s just list some of these out, and see if you recognize these from other King stories:

Maine (bonus points for it being a small town)

An unexplained evil force without justification for existence

Antagonist with no redeeming qualities

Evil religious/oppressive people (bonus points if they die)

Animals being hurt/killed

Pervert (bonus points if they diddle kids)

Character with dependency on Alcohol/Drugs

Reference to other Stephen King Work

Gratuitous violence

Obscenely brutal bullies (bonus points if bully dies)

And this is just to name a few, because believe me, there are soooooo many more that can be found if you look at this film.

CONCLUSION:

So, I went into this with little to no expectations. I came out disappointed. While the actors are perfect, the characters are poorly defined, or not given enough chances to shine on their own. The story is disjointed and a jumbled mess, and the special effects are terrible. You’re more likely to come out of this thinking you just watched a comedy than a horror film. If it were a simple coming of age tale, it would probably be fine, but the inclusion of Pennywise rules that out, and without Pennywise, it clearly isn’t “It.” It’s fine enough to watch if you want some good laughs, and it’s definitely cheesy enough to be a “proper” Stephen King adaptation, but if you want a good horror movie, this movie clearly is not It. 7/10

The Hitman’s Bodyguard Review

What happens when you put Deadpool and Nick Fury in the same movie? Well, I guess Hitman’s Bodyguard, and my God it is glorious.

 

SUMMARY:

The plot of Hitman’s Bodyguard is simple: a Russian dictator named Vladisav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman) is on trial for war crimes, and the only person who has any evidence to get a conviction is an imprisoned hitman named Darius Kincaid (Samuel L Jackson). Unfortunately his escort to the trial is killed, and the only man who can help him is Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds). Together, they make their way to the trial, fighting off enemies and dropping one-liners.

 

THE GOOD:

I don’t really know where to begin. It’s ridiculous, it’s stupid, it’s cliched, it’s over the top, and it knows it. Every moment of this movie is drenched in cheese and a ridiculous tone you’d probably expect from a movie called the Hitman’s Bodyguard. What separates this from other movies like it is honestly its charm. There’s just something extremely likable about Ryan Reynolds and Sam Jackson, and their chemistry is perfect. There are some awkward lines here and there, but at the end of it all, it turns out for the better. The overall tone of this movie helped. It knew it was somewhat ridiculous, and it made the most of it. You can tell they knew that this movie had probably been done a million times before, and it’ll be done a million times again, so they just had as much fun with it as possible. As a result, the action scenes are intense, but funny. The characters are fairly dark, but with lighthearted humor to balance everything out. I felt like I was watching an 80s or 90s era film set in present day. It honestly felt like a weird cross between Lethal Weapon, and the Bourne films. The humor is mostly great. I haven’t had a movie to laugh this hard at in quite a while. Ryan Reynolds and Sam Jackson definitely give us some great lines, and the jokes are usually interspersed in with deeper conversations, and good plot development.  The action is solid, and very clearly influenced by films like the Bourne trilogy and John Wick. There are high speed car chases, close quarters fighting, and epic gunfights, all of which are over-the-top, but perfectly so. Otherwise, it was just a really solid film with likable characters and a well executed plot.

 

THE BAD:

I like Sam Jackson. I really do. And I genuinely don’t care about language in movies. However, I think the movie says it best itself: “This guy single-handedly ruined the word motherf*cker.” I know its a small thing to complain about, and it’s funny enough the first few times. After a while though, it just becomes unnecessary, and carries the joke on for too long. Small touch, but it got old after a while. Otherwise, there isn’t much bad about the movie. It’s got some stupid toilet humor you’d expect in a Despicable Me film, but that small handful of jokes are over pretty quick, and none of them overstay their welcome. But other than that, not much else bad.

 

CONCLUSION:

So all things considered, Hitman’s Bodyguard was a really solid, funny, well-written film. Aside from a few missteps and the occasional joke that doesn’t hit home, most everything falls right into place. It was exactly what it should be: a perfect summer popcorn film (in the good way). I definitely recommend checking it out, and am happy to give it a solid 7.5/10

The Dark Tower Review

Oh Stephen King… for decades you’ve entertained people, and for decades you’ve allowed your intellectual property to be adapted into bad movies. Well, I guess if you’ve been at it this long, why break tradition?

So I just got back from The Dark Tower. Yeah, the Dark Tower. I’d honestly not been sure how to feel about this movie from the time it was announced. I know people who love the books, I know people who hate the books, and I personally fall into the camp of I genuinely don’t care about the books. Full disclosure, I’ve never read the Dark Tower series. I’d started the first book at one point, but lost interest quickly. I know it’s reputation as an iconic series, and I went into this movie with very little knowledge about the books. I figured that because this appears to have the makings of a complete butchering of its source material, I’d judge the movie on its own merits. So, where to start?

SUMMARY:

The movie follows Jake Chambers, a boy who possesses something called the shine: basically psychic powers. He’s been having visions about a tower being destroyed by the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey), and Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), the last of the Gunslingers on a mission to stop him. When Jake learns that the world in his visions is real, he is sucked into the world of the Gunslinger where he must work with Roland to kill the Man in Black and save the Tower. The Tower is basically (as far as I can tell) a central pillar holding the multiverse together. (book fans forgive me if I’m wrong). Roland and Jake adventure through the world of the Gunslinger as well as modern New York in their effort to kill the MiB and save the world.

THE GOOD:

Dark Tower, for its faults, has some really good aspects to it. The costumes are good. The characters are well acted, (more on the characters themselves later) and the action is good. To be honest, the best parts of the film are when our Gunslinger is actually GUNSLINGING. We spend a decent part of the film hearing about how “Roland is a Gunslinger” over and over again, and so when he finally pulls out his guns and goes into combat mode, it makes for the best scene in the entire film. McConaughey is decent. He’s definitely entertaining to watch, and has one of the funnier repeated jokes in the movie. The kid who plays Jake is decent, and fortunately not bad. Jake and Roland have good chemistry in the second half of the movie. To be honest, that’s about all the good the movie has to offer.

THE BAD:

Oh boy. Oooooh Boy. The overall plot of this movie is a mess. It’s jumpy, the world is poorly defined, and the characters themselves are terrible. The story is jumpy in that it skips around from place to place in nonsensical ways, disrupting pretty much any flow the movie might have had. The world seems to just constantly be creating new rules for itself out of shear convenience for the plot. New items, powers, and rules are constantly added just for the sake of convenience to the characters. The character who does this the most is the Man in Black. He seems to be constantly gaining new powers just for the sake of plot convenience. It honestly reminds me of Scarlet Witch from the Marvel Universe. He would be far more interesting if we knew more than just “he’s a sorcerer.” His powers would be more interesting if we knew what he could do, what his powers are, and how he uses them. As for the characters? Roland’s plot is a generic revenge story. He just wants to kill the Man in Black because he killed the Gunslingers. Jake? He’s a poorly defined kid character with no real character other than “I’m here to further the plot.” The Man in Black? His entire motivation is just “I want to destroy the world.” No real rhyme or reason. It’s lazy and not at all interesting to watch. Other than that, the movie is filled with endless references to other Stephen King stories, some of which are PAINFULLY cringe-worthy. Oh, and the movie ends with yet ANOTHER giant beam shooting into the sky. Just the use of that tired trope is enough to annoy any movie viewer.

SPOILERS: (Conclusion below Spoilers)

Haven’t done one of these in a while. So, the basic idea of the Dark Tower franchise is that it functions on a constant loop. This is alluded to in the movie with a throw-away line from the Man in Black of “Don’t you know that whoever walks with you dies? That’s what happened with the old gang, and that’s what’s going to happen again.” Or something to that effect. We know that the movie takes place in a later cycle, and the line is a reference to a previous cycle, and it’s mentioned that this is not the first time the Gunslinger and the Man in Black have faced off against each other. The Man in Black’s entire idea is to use people who possess the Shine to power a weapon that will destroy the Tower. Jake is the most powerful person with the Shine, and basically serves as the typical “Chosen One” for the movie. In the end of the film, the MiB has Jake strapped into a chair powering his anti-tower weapon, and Roland has to fight the Man in Black. The fight ends with Roland getting his revenge, killing the MiB, rescuing Jake, and saving the world, then offering to allow Jake to come with him on his adventures. It’s just a boring generic ending that could have been so much more. To break from delivering spoilers, and just complaining about things I didn’t like, I’d like to try something new, and offer an alternate beginning/ending. The iconic line of the books, and mentioned in the movie is “The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” It symbolizes the end of the old cycle, and the ushering in of a new one. The movie should open with that iconic bit of Roland chasing the MiB through the desert. If they wanted Jake to narrate it, that’d be fine. But it would serve as a strong start to the film, and a nice send-up to the fans of the franchise. Then, keeping everything else in the movie the same, when the ending comes, Roland kills both the Man in Black and Jake, stopping the destruction of the world, retaining the grittiness and darker side of the character. Then the next cycle begins: The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed. It would be a good launching point for a series of films/tv show, as well as a better send-up to the fans, and a more satisfying ending for newcomers to the franchise.

CONCLUSION:

So, all-in-all? It wasn’t a terrible movie. It had some redeemable aspects. The action was good, the world-building was half-decent. The cast was good. It just tried to jam too much into one 90 minute film, and reduce an 8 book series into one movie. It came off as rushed, sloppy, and unfortunately for such an iconic franchise, an incredibly cheap cash-grab to take advantage of people. I genuinely wish I’d enjoyed it more. Unfortunately, there are only 2 ways the Dark Tower would properly work: as a massive franchise (i.e. Harry Potter/LOTR/Star Wars), which would be a massive undertaking resulting in a bare minimum of 8 films, or to give it the Game of Thrones treatment and adapt it into an HBO show. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work very well. Maybe in a few years they’ll try again, and we’ll get a proper adaptation/follow-up to the franchise. The most generous rating I can give this is a 5.5/10

Atomic Blonde Review

So I just got back from Atomic Blonde, and I’ve got to say, I’m not impressed.

SUMMARY:

Atomic Blonde follows Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), a British agent sent to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and retrieve a list of double-agents. The film takes place during the events of and surrounding the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and in fact Ronald Reagan’s famous speech to Mikhail Gorbachev is one of the first things we see/hear in the movie. On Lorraine’s mission, she meets David Percival (James McAvoy), a fellow agent attempting to recover the list. Due to this being a spy film, there’s not much more I can say without giving away spoilers, but we do get additional performances from John Goodman, Bill Skarsgard, and Toby Jones.

 

THE GOOD:

Although it has many faults, there are a few good things to come out of this film. Bill Skarsgard plays one of Lorraine’s contacts, and is probably the most interesting character in the film. James McAvoy is good, Charlize Theron is good, John Goodman is decent. The action is fine for most of the movie, but there is one scene that stands out: a fight scene on a stairwell. Most fight scenes in movies are heavily edited and cut to try to make the action more intense and jarring. In this scene, and most of the fight scenes throughout the movie, it is filmed as one long shot. What I really appreciated was being able to actually see the action, know who was who, and follow everything that was going on, and the best scene in the movie is definitely the stairwell fight scene. Other than that, there isn’t much else to say.

 

THE BAD:

So unfortunately, there’s far more bad to this movie than good. The overall tone is just off. I know it’s adapted from a comic book, and I can see where they were trying to bring the pages of a comic to life. Unfortunately, this is one of those films where it doesn’t work very well. To be honest, I found myself sitting in the theater wondering if they’d thought to themselves, “Let’s try to do something like Sin City.” But they also wanted something like the Bourne movies. Atomic Blonde felt like it didn’t know what it wanted to be. It had great potential, and I saw where it almost succeeded in being really good several times, but it fell short. Sin City worked because while every frame looked like a panel from a comic, it went all out. It knew parts of it were ridiculous, but it rolled with it anyways. Atomic Blonde tried to build a dark gritty world, but is shot like a fun action movie and it fails to pull it off. This movie just goes through the motions of a spy film, but without any of the charm that makes a spy film interesting to watch. Kingsman or Bond have humor and charm to draw their audience closer to the characters. The characters here are boring. There’s nothing here that makes me care about Lorraine, there’s nothing to make me care about Percival, they’re just there to fill a spot in a typical spy movie plot. Other than that major issue, the dialogue is terrible. If there’s one thing we should have learned from the animated adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke, it’s this: Comic Book dialogue is great on paper, but really painful when spoken aloud. It’s clunky, and it sounds nothing like how real people talk. Whenever any of these characters opened their mouths to speak, I had to repress the urge to cringe. That being said, it’s still better than stuff George Lucas would write. The last major issue I had was with the action. Yes, I know I just praised the action a minute ago, but with the exception of the stairwell scene, all of the other fights just don’t work. It felt like I was watching a VHS tape on fast-forward. The choreography is decent, but it’s so incredibly obvious that they shot the scenes very slowly, then sped them up in post. On the one hand it’s nice because Charlize Theron did her own stunts for the movie, but the poor editing is jarring enough that it takes you out of the moment. Other than that? There’s no humor in this world at all. It’s almost like it fell victim to the same flaw as the first couple of DC films: nothing lighter to balance out the dark. I’m not saying “do what this other movie is doing.” I’m saying that there’s a balance that should be struck that this fails to do. The characters (with an exception of James McAvoy) are bland and humorless with nothing to keep them interesting.

 

CONCLUSION:

So all things considered, was it a terrible movie? No. Was it good? No. It had a lot of things it did wrong, and a lot of unfulfilled potential, but it had a handful of decent things that were fun to watch. The stairwell fight was great. Bill Skarsgard was good. But at the end of the day, it was a generic boring spy thriller. It’s incredibly slow without hardly any payoff, the characters are dull, and you can call every “plot twist” from less than a half hour into the movie. All in all? Mediocre. If you want a good spy film, watch a Bond flick. If you want a good action movie? Watch Bourne. At least it’s not the Emoji Movie! I really can only recommend seeing this once it comes out on Netflix, or as a Redbox rental. 5.5/10

Spiderman: Homecoming Review

So I just got back from Spiderman: Homecoming, and it was great! I mean really great. So, where to start?

SUMMARY:

Our story begins not with Spiderman, or Spiderman’s origins, but back in 2012, directly after the Avengers. We meet Adrian Toomes, a cleanup worker who has a contract from the city to clean up from the aftermath of the Chitari invasion. He and his crew are forced out by Tony Stark’s personal cleanup team, but he steals some of the alien technology before he leaves. Fast-forward 8 years later, and we get a montage following Peter Parker from the time he’s first approached by Tony Stark, to the flight to Berlin (Civil War), to the fight in Civil War, and back home, where he’s told that Tony’s bodyguard/chauffeur/personal assistant Happy Hogan is going to be in contact with him, and will tell him when the Avengers need him next. Peter keeps his suit from Civil War, and spends the next several months stopping petty robberies, helping people, and just being a decent person in general. During this, he’s constantly asking Happy when the Avengers are going to need him again, and Happy isn’t terribly fond of Peter. Peter also has a best friend named Ned, who finds out that he’s Spiderman pretty early on. Peter has a crush on Liz, a girl at his school, and is afraid to ask her out. Then one day while he’s on his daily routine of helping people, Peter tries to stop a robbery at a bank. Upon further inspection, he discovers that the robbers are using high-tech alien/human hybrid weapons. He tracks them to their supplier, while constantly trying to convince Tony and Happy to investigate, and Tony tells him to back down. Peter encounters a winged enemy, the Vulture, who he fights with and is almost killed by. Vulture gets away, and starts setting up a heist of more alien technology. Peter discovers that Vulture’s crew have made their way to Washington D.C, where Peter happens to have an Academic Decathlon at the same time. Peter goes with Ned, Liz, and the rest of the decathlon team to D.C. and while there, hacks his suit. Upon hacking it, he discovers a security protocol that has prevented his suit from realizing its full potential, so he turns it off. After some shenanigans when he tries to confront Vulture again, Peter is defeated. He discovers that his classmates are carrying a bomb (accidentally), and saves them in the Washington Monument, gaining lots of public attention. Peter gets back to New York, and tries to stop Vulture again, but this time disaster strikes. We get the ferry scene from the trailer, where the boat is split in half. Peter fails to stop the boat, but Tony comes in as Iron Man and saves the day, then takes Peter’s suit. Peter is depressed, but finds some comfort when he successfully asks Liz to the Homecoming Dance. At the dance, he’s forced to leave to confront Vulture again, this time with his old suit (hoodie/sweats/mask/webshooters). After a pretty awesome confrontation/fight scene, Peter defeats Vulture, earns back the trust of Tony, and gets his suit back. The credits roll, and the movie ends.

THE GOOD:

So, this movie is really good, and not just because it’s a Marvel movie. Tom Holland excels as Spiderman/Peter Parker. I’ve said and heard it said that Toby Maguire was an excellent Peter Parker, but a terrible Spiderman, and Andrew Garfield was a fantastic Spiderman, but an awful Peter Parker. Tom Holland almost perfect as both. He plays a far less confident Spiderman, questioning his on moves, and acting like a teenager. This is clearly not an adult, this is a high school student trying to do some good with the special powers he has. The supporting cast is really good too. Ned feels like a young version of Michael Pena’s character from Ant Man, but in all the best ways. He’s almost the annoying side character best-friend, but he has enough personality and likablility to be entertaining. Liz is a likable character, and plays an important roll (see spoilers) in the plot, and Laura Harrier does a good job portraying her for the most part, as somewhat bland as the character is written. Aside from Spiderman, the best character has to be Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture. This makes two Marvel movies in a year with good villains. He’s sympathetic, interesting, and for the most part is just a really good villain. You can (mostly) relate to him, and can understand why he’s doing what he is. The other best part of the movie would definitely be the special effects/costumes. Vulture is genuinely intimidating. Spidey looks great. Pretty much all of the effects are believable, and the GCI doesn’t detract from the story at all. It’s incredibly cool to see Spiderman flipping around, dodging attacks, and just being overall awesome. Vulture looks amazing. I’m not the biggest fan of ridiculous CG costumes, but they did a great job with Vulture. His costume is both intimidating, and remarkably practical.

THE BAD:

While there isn’t a terrible ton of bad in this movie, there are three main things that stuck out.

1: Liz. While she’s played well, she’s written pretty poorly. She comes off as just a generic love interest, only there to suit the story. She has little personality, and isn’t that interesting to watch.

2: The plot. We’ve seen this main story a million times before. It’s done remarkably well for being such a tired story, but at the end of the day, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and hurts an otherwise great movie.

3: The continuity error. You may have noticed earlier when I said that this takes place 8 years after the first Avengers movie. This changes the Marvel Timeline. This movie takes place recently after Civil War (about 3 months, I believe). Civil War has been stated to take place in 2016, as all of the movies take place in the place in time they’re released in. We know that Civil War takes place 8 years after Iron Man, because Vision makes a comment about “Stark revealing his identity 8 years ago.” So this movie should take place in 2016 as well, and Avengers was in 2012. This would place Spiderman: Homecoming in 2020, which throws off the entire franchise, or otherwise place the first Avengers film, and the rest of Marvel Phase 1 in 2008, providing several more issues throughout the franchise. I don’t have any real problem with Marvel re-working its continuity, but it was distracting here.

***SPOILERS***

So, there are a couple of decent spoilers I didn’t put in my summary, which when put in help make the movie make more sense. Adrian Toomes/Vulture is Liz’s father. She doesn’t know about his criminal side, but it’s revealed when Peter goes to Liz’s house before Homecoming. Toomes answers the door, and Peter recognizes him. After a conversation, Tomes realizes who Peter is, and threatens to kill him if he doesn’t stop interfering with his business. When Vulture is finally defeated and arrested, Liz moves away, and Toomes (now in prison) is confronted and asked if he knows Spiderman’s identity, which he says no to. The other main spoiler would be, Pepper Potts is back, and possibly getting engaged to Tony. In the end of the movie, Tony offers to let Peter join the Avengers, and Peter says no. It turns out, Tony had a press conference set up, and after Peter leaves, Pepper comes out and asks what’s going on, we get a nice exchange between Tony, Happy, and Pepper, then we follow Peter back to New York, where Aunt May discovers that Peter is Spiderman just as the credits roll.

 

CONCLUSION:

For its faults, Spiderman Homecoming is a genuinely good movie. The characters are mostly solid, the action is great, and Spidey himself is almost perfect. I was somewhat skeptical coming in, because it’s our third Spiderman franchise in the last two decades, but it definitely delivered. It’s fun, funny, interesting, and filled with enough adrenaline-inducing excitement to keep you entertained all the way through. I’d definitely suggest checking it out in the theater, as it’s movie made to be seen on the big screen. I’m happy to give Spiderman: Homecoming an 8.5/10