Blog Archives
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023
I’m doing what I can to keep this blog alive. It took an extra week but I did go out to the theaters to see the latest MCU movie and I have a few opinions. Even though this was the worst critically performing movie after the Eternals (which I still haven’t seen but plan to… eventually) it has a high audience score so I was fairly certain I would still enjoy it. I did, though there were a few issues that bothered me after the fact, but not while watching the movie. I think some of the character complaints were valid and the ending was a little weak but the visuals were fantastic and the humor has its own little niche that’s similar to Guardians of the Galaxy while still having its own tone unique to Ant-Man and Peyton Reed despite the rocky start. Like with many of the middle MCU films where it’s a superhero film crossed with another unique genre, this still gives us something new with a revolution story mixed with a sci-fi twist. I thought it was a fun continuation of the Ant-Man character and I hope we get some more down the line. And as with every new movie reviewed here, I will be diving into spoiler territory beyond this point so you have been warned.
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Black Adam
Black Adam 2022
This is the first new set of DCEU movies even though they’re still connected to the first set of DCEU movies with a couple of the characters introduced in cameos. While the term “Phase One” has been thrown around here and there, it would make more sense if this would be considered the phase two of the DCEU or go with some terminology that’s not obviously derivative of Marvel’s release strategy. The early reviews for this movie were slightly below mediocre but I still had high hopes that I would enjoy the film. I had very little knowledge about Black Adam as a character outside of a brief appearance “Superman/Shazam the Return of Black Adam” where he was very clearly a villain and as it was a short film he was a villain with no real motivation or back story outside of someone who is a match for Superman and Shazam. The same was true for the Justice Society and the characters used in this version of the Justice Society outside of a few vague appearances of Hawkman. But besides all of that, I did quite enjoy this introduction of Black Adam as this non-heroic character who makes the decision to become a reluctant hero. And as with all recent releases here, there will be spoilers ahead so be warned.
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Werewolf by Night
Once again it’s been a bit since I added something here but I managed to watch the first Marvel Special Presentation on Disney+ and while it’s only 55 minutes long, at this point I’m considering it a TV movie rather than a TV episode as there are likely more of these special presentations coming. As long as they’re longer than 40 minutes, I will likely continue to include them here as long as my subscription to Disney+ holds. This is the directorial debut of Michael Giacchino and he really comes out swinging with a visually interesting look and the MCU introductions of several lesser known characters. The mostly black and white with splashes of color really give this “special presentation” a different feel along with an excuse to add some additional gore that wouldn’t have been allowed in full color. Overall, I really enjoyed it though since this is a new release here’s my obligatory warning for spoilers ahead.
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Thor: Love and Thunder
Thor: Love and Thunder 2022
It’s time for yet another new Marvel movie and while I did manage to get out to see this movie opening weekend, I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write about it until now. I did however speak my thoughts on a recent Lambcast so you can hear more of my opinion along with 4 other Lamb members. I went into this movie hearing a fair mix of things, several people compared it negatively against Ragnarok so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to get into. For the most part, I loved this film in a similar manner as Ragnarok and while I do see the complaints, they didn’t detract from the film too much for me. Not only that, but I felt like this had a much better emotional throughline for several of the characters. And since this is a new release, I’m always compelled to issue a spoiler warning and there are several things to spoil that have been left out of the trailers so be warned.
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The Batman
The Batman 2022
It hasn’t been easy trying to resume a normal schedule here. With a ten month old daughter at home and two podcasts that I’m actually keeping on schedule (for the most part) it’s been a lot harder to find time to watch a 3 hour movie. But several months after it coming to HBO Max I managed to watch it over the course of two evenings. I had already heard a lot of mixed-but-mostly-positive things about this film so I was ready to enjoy it. And for the most part, it was quite enjoyable. I’m not fully on board with the emo teenager vibe to Bruce Wayne when he has to be in his late twenties minimum if not mid thirties like Robert Pattinson who is playing him. The rest of the cast is fantastic, the decision to make this more like a detective story rather than an origin or straight up action film is a good one. There’s really a lot to love in this film and while there are plenty of nits to pick, they don’t detract from the overall enjoyment of the film.
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 2022
I keep telling myself that I’m not going to let this site lay fallow, and yet this is the second big release after The Batman that I’ve sat on. Of course not nearly as much as I’ve sat on The Batman as I still haven’t blocked out the three hour block of time to watch that at home on HBO Max. I managed to see this film in theaters on the second Sunday of release which as of writing this first paragraph was over a week ago. Meanwhile, I am hard at work on season 3 of It’s Time to Rewind and my new musical show Lyrical Innuendo. Despite all of this, I did enjoy the film. One of the biggest complaints that I had heard about the movie before I saw it was that it was “too Sam Raimi”. And while I can understand that argument, that’s honestly what I enjoyed the most about this film. It was that Sam Raimi horror with a little bit of comedy sensibility that permeated throughout the entire film along with some of that Spider-Man 2 pathos that helped endear us to the often self-important Doctor Strange. The new characters were nice, the Easter Eggs were occasionally surprising and I will be discussing them in the main portion of the review so if you somehow haven’t heard about them by now, you will be spoiled if you keep reading.
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Behind the Mask
The Shadow: Behind the Mask 1946
This post is part of our Patreon program where for just $1 a month, you can vote for one of the movies that I review on this site. This is another one of the series of older Shadow films and the second of three released in 1946 with Kane Richmond as Lamont Cranston and Barbara Reed as Margo Lane. The two of them are engaged and about to be married when the murder of a newspaper columnist is pinned on the Shadow and it’s up to Lamont to solve it. Similar to the previous film The Shadow Returns, this is filled with a lot of sitcom-esque humor that honestly gets in the way of the film more than it enhances it. While The Shadow Returns had some fun moments and was generally entertaining, this one felt much more like a chore with an outdated sense of humor and aimless storytelling.
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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.
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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.
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Superhero Podcast Review: Reel Comic Heroes
While I have decided to forego doing random searches for superhero related podcasts to review, when I happen to discover one that I hadn’t reviewed before while listening to various podcasts on my own I thought that it doesn’t hurt to give it a proper review here on my site. I discovered this podcast as I have started going through more Movies by Minutes podcasts and the hosts of this podcast have appeared on the Groundhog Minute podcast. If you’re not familiar with my style of reviews for this series, I give you the basics of the podcast, a brief review, and my own personal rating based on whether or not I decide to: subscribe, unsubscribe, or listen to selected episodes. That said, I’m still happy to accept submissions if you host or listen to a superhero or comic book movie podcast that you think I should review, leave me a comment and I will take a look at it.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 