Category Archives: 20’s movies
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man: No Way Home 2021
I ended up missing the past couple movie releases due to the arrival of a little bundle of joy that’s taken up much of my time lately. But I just couldn’t miss out on the latest Spider-Man movie especially with the multiverse aspect coming into play. And I’m very glad that I was able to see it as soon as I did. I’m not big on the anti-spoiler culture that has permeated a lot of the nerd fandom lately, I was just excited to see it as soon as possible. Plus I signed up for the latest Lambcast discussing this and every other Spider-Man film so I had an extra reason to see it. I’ve enjoyed every Spider-Man movie to some degree or another with my least favorite: Amazing Spider-Man 2 still being ranked as a fun-but-very-flawed film so I was happy to see them all come together in this film. There was plenty of fanservice to be had, but for the most part, it was all done with a degree of reverence, plus it all made sense to further the story or the characters. There were some more changes to this MCU Spider-Man timeline to help differentiate Tom Holland’s Peter Parker even more from the others than they already have but I loved this entry in this long-running and varied franchise. And as there are plenty of spoiler fanservice elements, beyond this paragraph will definitely be spoilers.
Read the rest of this entry
Invisible Sue
Invisible Sue 2018
It’s been a little while again since I’ve been able to watch and review a superhero movie here, pretty much all of my free time is split between work, a newborn, and the podcasts which I’ve been sharing on this site. But I did find this movie on DVD at the dollar store a couple months back with absolutely no information about what the movie is outside of the name of the film and the fact that the cover has a girl in a superhero mask. Apparently it’s a German film, but similar to the Antboy release, the only available audio track on the DVD is the English dub. At least partially due to the fact that it’s more of a family friendly film. I would be curious to see this in the original German as I remember that it helped out my viewing of the Antboy sequels. As it is, it’s a pretty basic kids adventure movie with a little bit of super powers and gadgetry thrown in the mix. It doesn’t do anything badly, but it never really pushes the excitement level past the halfway point.
Read the rest of this entry
Shang-Chi
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 2021
This is only just the start of the squeezed MCU timeline as this is the second of four MCU films coming out this year that started with Black Widow just a couple months ago, Eternals in a couple more months, and Spider-Man: Far From Home to end out the year. Many of these MCU films are generally split down the middle more or less. Half of the film follows a more or less typical Marvel movie format with light comedy mixed throughout and a big end battle filled with explosions. The other half of the film gets to branch out into many different genres like spy thriller, war movie, sci-fi comedy, what have you. This does that to a certain extent, but it feels like the split was closer to 70-30 in favor of a martial arts/Wuxia film and I am all on board for that shift. After Black Widow’s moderate disappointment in that it followed the Marvel format a little too much, I absolutely loved every minute of this film from his audience surrogate friend slash potential love interest to the sympathetic villain to the fantastic-yet-still-unique CGI-filled climactic final battle sequence. And as this is a new release, as with all my reviews there may be spoilers ahead so if you want to go in fresh be warned.
Read the rest of this entry
Secret Society of Second-Born Royals
Secret Society of Second-Born Royals 2020
As I was browsing through the new content on Disney+ I did find two superhero-esque movies on there that I hadn’t reviewed yet. One of them was Flora & Ulysses and the other was this movie. Both feel very much like Disney Channel Original Movies like a slightly modern update of something along the lines of Up, Up, and Away and for the most part, that’s exactly what this one feels like. While I was watching it, I was reminded of a dozen other movies that played out scenes very much like this one only the other movies did them way better. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this film or its characters, but everything just felt very generic and uninspired. On top of the cliche of making royalty seem like something that’s magical or mystical rather than a simple power grab that in modern times has largely evolved into celebrity figureheads with no real power yet cash in on their heritage.
Read the rest of this entry
Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman 1984 2020
Even though not a whole lot of films came out last year, this was the biggest one that I overlooked. The reception was very mixed, with some people enjoying the new take on Wonder Woman, but many people weren’t very fond of this movie which is a very different version of Wonder Woman as her first movie. And this is despite having practically the same creative team behind both movies. Instead of taking place in World War I, it’s taking place in the 1980’s and all the kitsch and nostalgia associated with it. The tone is much lighter and there is a stronger undertone of magical reality than what was present in the first film. And even though I watched it several days ago, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the film as a whole. I generally enjoyed many parts of it, but I severely questioned several decisions throughout the film.
Read the rest of this entry
The Suicide Squad
The Suicide Squad 2021
It still feels kind of good to be going back to theaters despite the returning dread for the unusually large group of unvaccinated masses that may force the rest of us back into some form of lockdown or at least a return to mask wearing. But besides all of that I did make it to my local theater rather than spending the $15 or however much it is to get a month of HBO Max and watch this film at home like so many people out there decided to do. I did quite enjoy the experience and I even shelled out the extra cash to see this on an IMAX screen though I was slightly underwhelmed as well as slightly nauseated from the opening scene. The picture was very clear and sharp, but I didn’t feel that much of a difference between a regular digital projection, and at least this specific IMAX screen. It’s also unclear as to how well the movie is doing in terms of popularity as most of the critical reviews as well as most personal reviews from people I know have been extremely positive, but the actual box office numbers are quite low. It’s likely largely a factor of the HBO Max availability at no extra charge with small contributions from the Covid resurgence and the poor reception and unclear differentiation from the previous Suicide Squad film. But all of that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, what really matters is that I had a grand time watching this film and am ready to discuss it in full, including the large number of gruesome deaths that take place. So if you’d rather be surprised by who lives and who dies, read no further. The rest of you, enjoy.
Read the rest of this entry
The New Mutants
The New Mutants 2020
Of all of the superhero movies of the past few years, this one was probably talked about more than it was actually watched whenever it eventually came out. It had a hugely trouble production as the studio seemingly didn’t have a lot of faith in it compared to Fox’s other mainline projects Deadpool 2 and Dark Phoenix so it got pushed back, they did some reshoots, Disney bought Fox so it got pushed further, the pandemic happened so it got pushed back even further, they wanted more reshoots but too much time had passed for their younger cast. And the articles around the project are confusing, as some say that the director wanted more horror, yet the first round of reshoots were supposedly to add more horror. And yet what the movie really could have used was, you guessed it, more horror. In the end, it didn’t fail at the levels of something like Fant4stic, but this was clearly a result of studio meddling that left us with a B- movie when there is the skeleton of an A movie.
Read the rest of this entry
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising 2020
Despite enjoying the first My Hero Academia movie Two Heroes a couple years ago, I still never got around to watching any of the series. Instead, I’ve been slowly making my way through Hunter X Hunter and Eden on Netflix. I’d still like to catch it at some point in time but who knows when I’ll ever actually get around to it. I was a little bit more familiar with some of the main cast, but there were still plenty of them that I either didn’t recognize or didn’t remember. And while the movie doesn’t waste too much time on exposition, there’s enough there if you’re coming into this movie fresh like me. And this film had a much better flow and a more comprehensible storyline than the previous film so it was an enjoyable ride from start to finish rather than just having a high point at the end.
Read the rest of this entry
Flora & Ulysses
Flora & Ulysses 2021
I’ve been keeping my streaming subscriptions down by only subscribing to two of them and rotating them every few months. It’s been a while since we’ve had Disney+, I let it lapse right before the Mandalorian season 2 finale. So now with three whole MCU series to catch up with, I figured it was a good time to get it back and catch up with everything. And meanwhile, they also released two different kid-friendly superhero movies on there. Look for my review of the Secret Society of Second Born Royals within the next couple weeks. But I thought this one sounded a little more tolerable so I gave it a shot. I knew going into it that it was mostly a movie about a family coming together and just a little bit about a superhero squirrel. It actually made me laugh pretty hard several times, but at the same time it was full of family movie cliches that felt pretty tired. Once again, since this is a relatively current movie, there are spoilers ahead, though as I mentioned, most of them are pretty obvious.
Read the rest of this entry
Black Widow
Black Widow 2021
First off I just have to start out with holy crap it’s good to be back in a movie theater. Granted things are very different than they were when I saw Birds of Prey which I’m pretty sure was the last movie that I saw in theaters. We just survived a pandemic, at least everyone who has decided to get vaccinated has survived a pandemic but I won’t go further down that discussion right now. I’m living in the Atlanta suburbs after spending the previous six years in the Chicago suburbs, and this is the first Marvel movie to come out since Spider-Man: Far From Home back in the summer of 2019. So yeah, things are quite a bit different. But kicking off the theater going with the latest MCU movie felt like falling back into old patterns. It was definitely enjoyable with great action beats and enjoyable humor, but the climax felt rather uninspired and I just wish they could have done something a little bit different than falling right back into the MCU formula that I often like to think doesn’t really exist. And as this is the latest MCU movie, if you haven’t seen it yet from here on out there may be spoilers so be warned.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 