Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 Review (Spoiler Free)

May 7, 2017May 7, 2017 | Rachel's Reviews

Before diving into my review of Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 let me give you some context into my feelings on the first film. I LOVED it! For me it was a new Star Wars film before we got Star Wars back. It wasn’t a typical Marvel movie but it was a space opera and I loved seeing our team of misfits form and search for their orb/infinity stone. I loved the humor, action, charismatic actors and bright color palate. Just a great movie. 9/10 or A grade from me.

So let’s talk about this sequel. Naturally loving the first film I was very excited for the follow up but I still tried to enjoy it as its own film and not compare it too much. In the end, I feel Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 is at best a mixed bag. It’s not awful but I had major problems with it.

At the outset of the movie our team is commissioned by a leader Ayesha to guard a series of batteries. This leads to a great opening that heavily features the world’s favorite adorable creation- Baby Groot! Of course, we have seen Baby Groot all over the marketing for the movie and he did not disappoint. Soooo adorable!

This scene also features everything you like about the first film. It has witty banter from the entire team, fun action as they fight a monster and a catchy song. I thought ‘Oh boy! This is going to be awesome!”

Unfortunately just a few scenes later they make a massive mistake that had a large impact on my enjoyment of the film: They divide up the team!!! Peter meets his father and half the crew go with him while half stay behind and end up with Yondu and his crew.

This was such a terrible choice for a number of reasons:

Hurts the humor- When you have a large group of characters the humor can be a mixture of all their types of comedy. So you will get one Groot joke mixed in with Drax, Peter, Rocket etc. When you have just Rocket and Groot then their type of jokes become repetitive and tired very quickly.
Hurts the emotion- It’s the same with emotion. We are with a character and they have an emotional moment. Then they leave that character for a long stretch hurting their story and emotional arc.
Hurts the team- Characters aren’t able to feed off each other and create that winning chemistry I loved so much in the first film. Sometime this can help you get to know characters better like in Star Trek Beyond but that was not the case here.
Hurts the action- Because they are all split up the action is pretty sparse. For instance, Drax is sitting talking almost the entire movie. He’s Drax the Destroyer for goodness sake, and he doesn’t destroy anything.

I guess all of this would be fine if the story was compelling but it is not. They try to set up several different family dynamics. There is Peter and his father, Peter and Gamora, Gamora and Nebula, Groot and Rocket and Yandu and Peter. While I appreciated the message of family, the film became too cluttered with relationships that they weren’t as developed as they could have been.

The villain is another surprise villain. About the 10,000th one I’ve seen in recent years and I’m tired of it. It was so obvious and the plan for world domination makes no sense unless he or she wants to be completely alone in the whole galaxy. Even if he or she did, it still strains credulity to believe this insane plan (and the way it is explained is hard to follow or feel invested in).

I was also disappointed in the Nebula/Gamora storyline. I liked Nebula in the first film when most people didn’t. I thought she had a wounded quality to her that I wish had been more developed. Well, unfortunately she is seen more here but Karen Gillan overcooks it in the villainy department. Also she flips around from good girl to bad in ways that didn’t work for me or feel authentic.

So, from all that it seems like I had a miserable experience at this movie. No. I didn’t but I’d be lying if I didn’t share those major problems I had. However, there are some things I liked.

First, like I said, I liked Baby Groot and a lot of the comedy did work. It would have worked better if they hadn’t divided the group but a lot still made me laugh. Drax gets some funny lines with a new girl named Mantis. Rocket has a lot of humor including a hilarious sequence with Baby Groot getting him things for a jailbreak.

Second, Michael Rooker is great as Yondu. I didn’t think Yondu would be the most fleshed out and interesting character in the film but he was. We learn about his association with a band of ruffians called The Ravagers. He has upset them and we get to find out why through the course of the movie. We also learn about why he took Peter and his connection to Peter’s father. Yondu also has the best action scene in the movie with an arrow thing he uses to take out a fleet of men (Sorry I don’t know what the arrow thing is called).

Third, even if it could have been more focused, I still loved the overall message about family. I think Vin Diesel might have carried this over from the Fast and the Furious movies because they are all about family. I particularly appreciated the focus on alternative families- that families are not always about blood but so much more.

Fourth, it is a beautiful looking movie. James Gunn has done it again with amazing cinematography and special effects. The planet Peter’s father lives on was beautiful and lush. I loved all the bright colors and dazzling world building. The special effects on Rocket and Baby Groot are flawless. You forget they aren’t actual talking raccoons and walking baby trees.

There also is a joyous feeling to the picture which makes it pleasing to watch. While some of the jokes grow tired it never made me angry or annoyed like other fantasy films. I mostly wasn’t bored although there were a few moments that dragged.

The soundtrack was a bit of a mixed bag. There are some great songs but a few of them felt very on-the-nose Also, I didn’t like that characters mentioned the songs so much. In the original they are this awesome background gift to enjoy (aside from Peter listening to them they don’t work into the story and he doesn’t repeat lyrics or talk about the individual songs). Here there is even one song where the lyrics are repeated verbatim and the life experience fits perfectly into the situation at hand. It makes the song choice feel uncreative and obvious when they were so great in the original. Still, there are some good songs. Cat Stevens and Electric Light Orchestra are used particularly well.

In the end, Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 is a mixed bag leaning towards the negative. I have really struggled with what grade to give it and whether to make it smile or frown worthy. Other films I have given smiles to like Ghost in the Shell feel less worthy than this film but this is way more of a disappointment and downgrade from the original film. It’s really tough…

I’m torn but I think my disappointment is going to rule the day:

Overall Grade- C (It is without a doubt in my bottom 5 Marvel movies. No question)

Also this is pretty raunchy for a Marvel movie. It definitely earns its PG-13.

You can all hate me now…

Check out my podcast with my friend Trevor from How to Love Comics where we break it all down

Where Have the Kids Movies Gone?

March 25, 2017March 25, 2017 | Rachel's Reviews

I have a bit of a bone to pick with movies today! That’s right I’m just going to say it-

WHERE HAVE THE MOVIES FOR KIDS GONE?

I’m not talking about movies you can take kids too. I’m talking about movies that are designed with kids in mind, specific for their intellect and to inspire their creativity. These are such a rarity that most families have consented to taking their kids to more mature films or not seeing movies at all.

The most obvious case of this problem is in superhero movies. Gone are the days when a child could play superman, batman or spider-man and then live those stories at the movies. These days Superman is murdered, Batman is a killer who sleeps with Batgirl and we will see what Spider-man is but it won’t be PG. I can tell you that much. I get that the new thing is R rated superhero movies and that’s fine. But I wish the other end of the spectrum was also having time and thought put into superhero movies for them. The latest Ghostbusters movie tried to do that a little bit but it was ran out of town on a rail.

What really made me think about this is the recent Power Rangers Movie. I enjoyed it and gave it a positive review but if ever there is a franchise which should be for kids you’d think it would be Power Rangers. However, the new movie earns its PG-13 rating with crude humor, violence, adult themes and a skimpy bikini. Why was this necessary? I get we need to update film to a modern audience but why does always mean excluding children?

The Transformers movies are another example of a franchise which should appeal to kids but fails spectacularly in doing so. It’s about freakin toys and yet it is loaded with gratuitous shots of women and mind numbing visual destruction.

In animation we see this trend all the time. In a desperate attempt to entertain parents studios often throw in adults only jokes or content and I hate that so much. For example, in The Minions movie we get an extended sequence with a Minion wearing a thong and having a threesome of sorts with fire hydrants in a spa. Why is that necessary?

And I’m not saying movies for children can’t be dark. My cousin was just telling me that her 3 year old daughter loves Song of the Sea– a movie about a boy mourning his dead Mother. She loves it! I’ve known many kids that love deep movies like Bambi, Wall-e or Dumbo much more than their adult parents. It’s all about balance and creating compelling characters/worlds. I feel the recent Beauty and the Beast sucked a lot of the joy out of the film by having the household objects be responsible for the curse and them dying and all. It’s hard to enjoy Be Our Guest and songs like that as much when this gloom is hanging over the proceedings. I need the humor and happy scenes to balance out the darkness

The only family film from a major studio to my knowledge getting a G rating this year is Disneynature’s Born in China. Everything else is PG or PG-13. Granted the MPAA has made it extremely difficult to get a G rating because of what they call “mild thematic elements” but still so few even come close. It’s very frustrating. The Peanuts Movie is a lone example I can think of recently that got the G rating.

It’s not even about ratings but the quest for the family film hurts movies because no movie can be everything to every audience. Some movies should be made for children. Why is that such a foreign concept?

Dreamwork’s Home is another example of a movie that awkwardly smashes together themes for adults and children creating a very unpleasant experience. If they had just focused on making a cute alien movie for kids it would have been SO much better. The Angry Birds Movie would also have been much better if they had abandoned the crass adult humor and just stuck with a cute movie for kids.

I’m not even a parent but I would way rather watch something like Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh that is carefully made for children than most movies which try to please the entire family.

Will nobody think of the children? Sigh…

Power Rangers Movie Review

March 24, 2017April 7, 2017 | Rachel's Reviews

Last year seemed to be the year of going to super hero movies with high expectations and leaving feeling frustrated. Well, today I had the opposite experience. I went into the new Power Rangers movie with low expectations (secret to happiness in life!) and walked out having had a pretty good time. It’s not a perfect movie by any means but on the whole I was entertained by it.

I should state going into this review I have never watched an episode of the Power Rangers shows. My younger siblings got into it but it was well past my time of enjoying them. So I have no nostalgia for or bias against the film and can only judge what I see on screen (something I try to do anyway). I did try and watch the 1995 Power Rangers Movie last week and fell asleep because it was so boring. I don’t know what hard-core fans will think of this film. They will either be super hard on it or really love it, but I can only speak for myself.

First off, the casting takes Power Rangers a long way. The 5 fairly unknown leads all do a good job and have a nice chemistry together. I particularly liked RJ Cyler who you might know from Me Earl and the Dying Girl. He plays Billy who becomes the blue ranger and is “on the spectrum” of autism and he makes this work. I think a lot of kids on the spectrum will get a kick out of seeing someone like him as a superhero. Also, Becky G as Trini, the yellow ranger, is good and is a lesbian without making a bit hullabaloo about it.

Also is it just me or does Dacre Montgomery, the red ranger, look exactly like Zac Efron? He was fine, and I liked Naomi Scott and Ludi Lin as the remaining pink and black rangers. They were all good.

The first half of the movie plays like Chronicle, and I think that’s when the movie is at its strongest. The second half starts to have more problems as we start to meet our villain and have more of the conflict but it never turned me off too much.

Elizabeth Banks plays Rita Repulsa and she’s pretty over-the-top and surprisingly violent for a children’s film (it earns its PG-13). She wasn’t the worst villain I’ve ever seen but she kind of reminded me a little bit of Enchantress from Suicide Squad which is never a good thing.

Like Enchantress, she creates a Gods of Egypt-like sphincter who stomps around and destroys stuff. It was pretty bland, but I think kids will have fun with this type of action. I didn’t like that there is very little hand to hand combat. It’s mostly in transformer-like machines and bots. It’s hard to feel tension when CGI creatures are fighting each other.

You also don’t see them morph into the rangers until well into the movie, so that may be a disappointment to some fans. I liked them much better as humans so it didn’t bother me.

Bryan Cranston appears as their mentor Zordon and has a lot of fun with the role and I enjoyed Bill Hader as a robot named Alpha 5.

There is also the most blatant product placement I’ve ever seen. It’s not just in background shots or billboards. No, Krispy Kreme Donuts feature heavily into the actual plot of the movie!

So, there are some negatives. It’s not a masterpiece but I walked away having a pretty good time. It has an engaging and diverse cast. It doesn’t overstay its welcome like the Transformers movies and it keeps the fan service from being distracting. If kids can handle the violence I think they will like it and it should start up a nice little franchise for Lionsgate.

Overall Grade- B-

Lego Batman Movie Review

February 10, 2017February 10, 2017 | Rachel's Reviews

Back in 2014 there was a surprise little movie that took the world by storm called The Lego Movie. Going into it I thought it would be a pun-filled toy movie but it actually was a visually gorgeous, funny, heartfelt treatise on the way children play and think. The Lego Movie showed the randomness of a child’s brain and it had an emotional story between a father and a son that nobody was expecting. It was also so beautiful the way everything flowed like a world of legos really would. In my opinion, The Lego Movie is one of the best animated films of the last 5 years.

So, it was with great anticipation that I went to see the spin-off film The Lego Batman Movie today. The trailers have been hilarious and as I am not the biggest Batman fan I was looking forward to seeing everyone else’s sacred franchise taken down a few pegs. And the result? While I do not think it is as good as The Lego Movie, it is still an entertaining spoof comedy movie that I think any animation or comic book movie fan will enjoy.

The best thing about Lego Batman Movie is the pacing. The jokes start literally before the WB logo and they never stop. This version of Batman is dry, sarcastic and lonely. Most of the movie is various characters like Robin, Barbara Gordon and Alfred trying to get through to him and make him lower his pride to admit he needs help. Robin voiced by Michael Cera is Bruce Wayne’s ward Dick Grayson and is energetic and clingy. Of course, this rubs Batman the wrong way!

But the main thrust of the film is from Zach Galifianakis’ Joker who is upset with Batman because he won’t admit they are arch-rivals and need each other. You get some especially good jokes about Batman v Superman and other Batman versions within the interactions with Joker.

The jokes come quick in Lego Batman Movie and Will Arnett is amazing in the role but they also pack in quite a bit of story into the 104 minute run time. There’s a lot of action and literally every Warner Bros character I could think of.

The animation was also bright and colorful and a lot of fun to watch. The only problem is it lacked the flow of legos that we had in the Lego Movie. When Emmet in Lego Movie would dive into water the waves looked like legos. You don’t really get that here. I guess that’s fine because it is a comic book world where Lego Movie was more of a fantasy world, but I was more dazzled by Lego Movie’s animation.

Also, there’s something about The Lego Movie that felt more memorable. Maybe it’s partly me not being that big of a Batman fan. It felt enjoyable but not something that will stick with me for years to come like Lego Movie did. It’s more of a solid entertaining animated comedy rather than a game changer.

But those are a small criticisms to a very good film. Your entire family will like it and it was certainly nice to see something self-aware and humorous from the world of comic book films and DC.

If you see it let me know what you think. How does it compare with Lego Movie to you?

Overall Grade- B+

Doctor Strange Review

November 6, 2016November 6, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

In some ways the latest Marvel movie, Doctor Strange, has been quite revelatory for me. You see, over on my youtube channel I had a special podcast with a comics expert friend of mine named Trevor at HowtoLoveComics.com.

This forced me to dive into the comic books of Doctor Strange before seeing the film, something I have never done with a comic book movie. I was impressed with how understanding the lore and comics helped add to the moviegoing experience. It’s something I hope to continue to do for future films.

I don’t think reading the comic books make you excuse flaws in the movie but it helps you understand the characters on a bit of a deeper level than may be explored in one particular movie.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience that I would recommend to all of you.

As far as the movie, Doctor Strange, I enjoyed it very much. There are 2 reasons to enjoy Doctor Strange:

First, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange. I am a huge Benedict Cumberbatch fan and feel this is the best use we have seen for him in the movies yet. He manages to capture the brilliance of Doctor Strange while also getting a desperate humble side of him. I’ve heard many people compare his character to Tony Stark in Iron Man but I think he spends more of this movie humbled and weak than we get from Tony for many movies. He’s also much more awkward than Tony ever is.

Iron Man also has more substantial supporting characters than Doctor Strange gets. Pepper is a more active character in the first Iron Man than Rachel McAdam’s Christine and Rhodey is certainly more important to Tony than Wong is to Doctor Strange.

So, it is up to Benedict Cumberbatch and his character to carry the movie, and I think he does so very well. He’s charismatic and likable despite being arrogant and over-confident at times.

The second standout is the amazing visuals. I saw this film on IMAX 3D and it was pretty awe inspiring. Doctor Strange learns from the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) that there are multiple dimensions. The mystical realms are accessed when we learn to manipulate and control these dimensions.

The movie does a great job showing these dimensions and not explaining them to us or the magic that goes along with them. We see it and that’s good enough without understanding the background or mechanics.

A lot of people have compared the visuals to Inception and I can see their point. However, I think they are more dreamlike than Inception. There is something a bit more grounded in Inception’s graphics and something more ephemeral about them here in my opinion.

The one caution I will give about the graphics is as spectacular as they are, they did make me a little motion sick. Some of the sequences towards the end I feel went on a little bit too long, and I started to feel a little nauseated. I have a very sensitive stomach when it comes to such things, so it is probably just me. You will have to make your own determination. That was just my experience.

A lot of people have complained about the casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. It is a tricky thing because casting an Asian man like in the comic book could come across as reinforcing stereotypes, so which is the greater sin? Regardless, I think Tilda Swinton does a great job in the role as there is something other-worldly about her. Also her character has a bit more of an arc than I was expecting or was in the comic books I read.

All the rest of the performances are good but they are pretty brief. This is Doctor Strange’s movie and it is his origin story. Some will roll their eyes at another origin story but I didn’t mind it. The movie is well paced, clipping along quite nicely and the tone is carefully controlled. I enjoyed the more thoughtful moments along with the humor.

I don’t know if I liked Doctor Strange as much as Captain America: Civil War, but it is a very enjoyable origin story. I liked the character of Doctor Strange, and I liked the world we were given. That’s about all I needed to be happy. The story was good enough to engage me

I look forward to seeing how Doctor Strange works within the MCU going forward and how the new dimensions of mystical magic help add a new layer to the storytelling at Marvel.

Overall Grade- A-

Here is my youtube review

Suicide Squad Review

August 6, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

I’ve never been the biggest superhero movie person, but over the years movies like The Avengers and X-Men Days of Future Past have won me over. These movies have clever stories, great scripts and charismatic performances by Oscar level talent. 2014 was a particularly memorable year with only 2 bad superhero movies and 4 outstanding films- Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Big Hero 6 and X-Men Days of Future Past. These movies had everything I could want in a superhero movie.

WE WERE SPOILED!!!

Aside from Captain America: Civil War the superhero movies of 2016 have been kind of sucky and unfortunately the latest entry, Suicide Squad does not change that trajectory. Suicide Squad is the latest offering from DC Comics and Warner Brothers and despite promising trailers it fails to deliver on its potential.

After Batman v Superman frustrated many moviegoers in March, Warner Brothers clearly took all the wrong lessons out of the feedback. ‘Make the movies more fun’ is what they heard. So, they rushed David Ayer to write Suicide Squad in 6 weeks and then hacked it to pieces creating a mess of a movie.

That’s not to say there aren’t any redeeming values to Suicide Squad. There are mainly with the casting. All the roles, with 2 exceptions, are well cast. The problem is the script doesn’t give them time to grow as characters or to gel as a unit. Will Smith and Margot Robbie are the standouts as Deadshot and Harley Quinn and I’m curious to see more of them in future films. Viola Davis is also great as Amanda Waller who is an agent forming the Suicide Squad. She is ruthless and you kind of see why she would be interested in super villains.

The story of Suicide Squad is you have this group of villains that are called upon to fight evil metahumans. This is all supposed to be after the events of Batman v Superman but there is never any talk of using the good metahumans like Flash and Wonder Woman (despite briefly seeing Flash in a cameo). And the fact that only 2 of the Suicide Squad are actually metahumans which makes you scratch your head?

The first act of the film starts out clunky with Davis sitting at a table looking through a binder of each of the squad members. Then we see flashback introductions to the characters. It’s kind of like the gossip montages in Ant-Man but repeated over and over again.

But even with that certain characters aren’t introduced at all like Katana. She just walks onto a helicopter and they say ‘oh look it’s Katana. She’s a crazy ninja” (I’m paraphrasing but you get the drift).

So what are they called upon to do? Well, they are supposed to stop an evil being named Enchantress who kind of needs to be worse than the squad in order for the story to work but she’s just not. I normally don’t care about lame villains but she did nothing for me and I felt the special effects were very poor. She creates this ‘brother’ that looked right out of Gods of Egypt. Again, I wouldn’t have cared about a bad villain if I had cared about the rest of the film.

For a movie like this to work it relies on the charisma of the stars and a witty script (this is not a gritty crime drama like The Dark Knight). And the problem with Suicide Squad is the editing is so poorly done that just when characters are starting to interact it cuts away to something that doesn’t matter.

You are supposed to believe that the characters are becoming a family but I didn’t buy it for a second. There’s a moment where Deadshot has to decide whether to hurt Harley Quinn and their relationship wasn’t near built up enough for me to buy his decision. They had one very brief conversation and they are supposed to be big baddies. It didn’t work.

There’s another scene where they are fighting these glob creatures of Enchantress and the creatures stop coming for some reason and they stop fighting evil and have a drink. If the movie had effectively established them as not caring about the mission or stopping the badder guy than I could have bought it but the way it sits it feels random and jarring.

The other confusing part about the movie is why have Enchantress when you have DC’s greatest villain in the film for like 6 minutes? You could have made the Joker the villain and instead you have a lame villain. That would be like Marvel having Loki as a villain for a 5 minute cameo. It makes no sense.

But speaking of the Joker…Jared Leto goes for it as this new take on the character and I personally was not a fan. The Joker is an agent of chaos. He thrives on creating disorder. He is the last person in the world that would want to be an organized crime boss like in this movie. It felt too outright bad-guy where the Joker is supposed to be a believer in the philosophy of chaos. He should be more complex than having damaged tattooed on your forehead!

All that said, if you can go into Suicide Squad and ignore the script and just enjoy the charismatic performances and the fun soundtrack I think you may have an enjoyable time. It’s a lot like Batman Forever. There’s some engaging performances in Batman Forever, some decent music and production design but the story and script are terrible. So if you can enjoy Batman Forever than you will enjoy Suicide Squad.

At the very least I didn’t feel as manipulated as Batman v Superman and it isn’t as gloomy (although the forced fun added by the studio is so obvious). To me the two movies are about equal in quality but it is a case of picking your poison and what types of problems bother you more than others.

It’s probably very generous but I did like it better than X-Men Apocalypse which underserved all of the characters I love and became destruction porn. I gave X-Men Apocalypse a D+.

So for Suicide Squad Overall Grade- C- for Will Smith and Margot Robbie but I’d say it’s a definite skip.

ps. Those people who started the rotten tomatoes takedown petition are morons.

Batman: Killing Joke Review (Spoilers)

July 26, 2016July 26, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

Is there some kind of Batman writers strike I’m unaware of? I have to imagine there are hundreds of thousands of writers penning Batman scripts right now, dying to be made into a movie. And yet out of all that we get two such poorly written scripts as we got this year in Batman v Superman and now Batman: the Killing Joke. That’s right. Unfortunately the animated Batman movie everyone was hoping would redeem the franchise sadly did not. In fact, in my opinion it is even worse.

I sincerely wanted this to be good because I love Mask of the Phantasm and list it as one of my top 50 favorite animated films of all time. To read that post click here. I had reason to be hopeful. They were going with an R rating which could mean they were taking some creative risks (I checked it out and it isn’t too hard an R so I decided it was acceptable for me). They had a really strong trailer and most importantly the original cast of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are back as Batman and Joker with great voice actress Tara Strong as Batgirl. This sounded great!

What a letdown!

Ok. Let’s talk about Batgirl aka Barbara Gordon.

The first 30 minutes are actually her story. The trailer is very deceiving in that regard. Joker does not appear in the film until the 37 minute mark and it is only a 75 minute movie. I’d love to see Batgirl but alas we have another poorly written female superhero character. Barbara Gordon is a character out of a soap opera (please don’t do that to Wonder Woman DC. please!). When her and Batman interact it didn’t feel genuine or earned at all. I didn’t even like her design which is very boob-focused. I know why artists design female characters this way (look at the rebooted female Power Rangers designs which are also very boob-focused). But it’s such a cheap way of making a character sexy. Batgirl should be sexy because of who she is not because she has a ridiculously large bosom.

She’s also a throwback to female characters I thought we had moved past. She’s basically a plot device for the male characters to trick, manipulate, encourage and rape (you read right) whenever the story needs her. She makes no plans herself aside from looking in a mirror and saying ‘Barbara what are you doing?’. Sigh. Give me a Mary Sue any day over this kind of convenient woman. Batman’s character is once again very flat and we get almost no Bruce Wayne. I mean next to nothing. So any kind of hiding who he is or struggles with how he is treating Batgirl are completely lost in a gruff bland guy wearing a mask. I think you may see Alfred once but it’s mostly just Batman grumbling about Batgirl getting in his way and other bland things. He might as well have been made of cardboard.

It’s called Killing Joke and you’d think that Joker and Batman would be together a lot. At least the trailer would leave you to believe that. Alas, just like Batman v Superman the title fight is very brief (about 7 minutes) and it resolves in a completely nonsensical way given the character development we’d seen so far. Then they give additional endings after the fight and I didn’t buy it for one second.

The animation isn’t even that good with nothing really special about it. It all feels like images we’ve seen before with amusement park rides and shadowy figures. When will they learn that just having a dark color palate doesn’t make something dark. You could have something truly disturbing in the sunlight. I mean Jaws creates fear and it is on a sun-dripped beach. It’s the characters that we get to know when they are taken to dark places that it becomes dark. Come on Hollywood- do better!

We also get another origin story because that’s exactly what we all needed right? Sigh…And it’s not even an interesting origin story but one with more corny melodrama. There have been like 30 animated Batman movies let alone the live action. Does anyone in the world not know how the Joker became the Joker? or how Bruce’s parents are killed? (I’m talking to you Batman v Superman). We all get it. Move on to something interesting in a story!

I’m so disappointed. At this point my hopes are on Lego Batman to save the character. I get that those who love the comic book may love this. I can’t say one way or another. All I know is I didn’t like it and was very letdown by it.
As far as the adult content it’s there but nothing really shocking or interesting done with it. No pencil in the eye moment for people who like that kind of thing. Blast…

The only really good thing I can say about this film is that the voice cast is strong as expected. I just wish they had been given something strong to do. It feels like they kind of decided last minute to make it R rated instead of it being an integral part of the design and story.

Maybe other people will like it but I thought it was a soapy mess and I really hated the way they portrayed Barbara Gordon. Next time make her an actual character that makes choices and then has a real story arc instead of a cog in your dopey movies timeline.

Overall Grade- D+

X-Men Apocalypse Review

May 27, 2016May 28, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

You guys I am so disappointed. Going to see X-Men Apocalypse I had heard the negative reviews but as a big X-Men fan I was hoping they were being too hard on it. After seeing it I actually think they are being kind. It’s current 47% on Rotten Tomatoes is a lot higher than I would give it. I liked it less than Batman v Superman and that is saying something…

I almost don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with what I want out of an X-Men movie. At their best X-Men movies say something about class and the way we treat those that are different. Unlike most franchises where bad guys and good guys are more one-note X-Men characters feel well-rounded when they are done right. Magneto, for instance, is a villain but only because he has given up on humanity. There’s a hopelessness about his villainy that can actually be quite moving.

X-Men Apocalypse had a few moments showing Magneto being conflicted and once again losing something dear to him (evidently the Holocaust isn’t enough of a motivator. They have to keep piling it on for the poor man). Unfortunately the film keeps moving away from Magneto for long stretches and gives us instead Apocalypse who I thought was power rangers worthy bad guy and spouting the Bible to sound important which was just annoying.

The biggest problem with X-Men Apocalypse is that it is completely fragmented. Days of Future Past had a lot of characters but it was focused on 2- Wolverine and Mystique. Everyone else was peppered in where needed. They also had a clear goal, to get Mystique to change her mind. This is muddled. Sometimes it is Scott’s story, sometimes Magnetos, sometimes Charles, sometimes Mystique, the list goes on. None of them are executed in a satisfactory way and none of them really matter in defeating Apocalypse. They all kind of throw stuff at him hoping it will work.

This leads to a lot of epic shouting and destruction with no momentum or sense that anything was being accomplished. You just knew they would find a way out of it because more movies are coming. Honestly I thought it was shouty, self-important, annoying and insufferable.

The female characters that I love in X-Men are all underused especially Storm and Psylocke. There is a fun scene when Quicksilver does his thing but since it’s a copy of what we saw in Days of Future Past I won’t give it too much credit.

The final battle has a few good moments and all the actors try but I really didn’t like it. The broader metaphors aren’t really there so it is at best a dopey 90s style superhero movie. Sorry, it was my third most anticipated movie of the year and it really let me down. And people are criticizing Jennifer Lawrence for her performance but that was the least of this movies problems.

Oh and Wolverine shows up for like 3 minutes just to remind us of all the better movies he is in.

I know other people liked it but I’m sorry it really didn’t work for me.

Overall Grade- D+

It’s also very violent and there is some profanity so I would not recommend it for kids.

My youtube review and rant

Captain America: Civil War Themes (Spoilers)

May 12, 2016May 13, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

Hopefully most of you have watched my initial reaction review to Captain America: Civil War. If you haven’t here it is again.

Now I’ve had the chance to see the movie twice and have more detailed thoughts. This is a spoiler filled post so stop now if you have not seen the film.

Captain America: Civil War can certainly be enjoyed on a base level. It’s fun, has great action and quipy dialogue that keeps things from feeling too morose. You have engaging actors and their characters who we have gotten to know over 12 films and some new presences in Black Panther and Spider-man. However, I am going to dig a little deeper and talk about themes of friendship and agency within the movie. If you want to just enjoy the movie then that is great but this might not be the post for you.

cap and bucky — Steve’s friendship with Bucky has been a part of his story from the beginning.

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship is probably the more obvious theme within the film. We even heard in the trailer Steve saying “he’s my friend” and Tony replying “so was I”. Clearly there is a dynamic of friendship that is tested between the 3 main characters- Bucky, Steve and Tony. However, you also have other friendships that are explored- Rhodey and Tony, Natasha and Clint, Sam and Steve, Steve and Peggy, Steve and Sharon, Scarlet Witch and Vision, Natasha and Steve etc. All of these friendships are tested with the Sokovia Accord.

Aristotle said there are 3 types of friendship (yes I am going to relate Marvel to Aristotle deal with it). There are friendships of utility, pleasure and virtue. A utility friendship is one “that can be easily dissolved and done away with when a more useful version comes into place”. You could argue that Ant-Man and Spider-Man are friendships or relationships of utility in the film. They are helpful but not essential to any of the other players.

Then we have friendships of pleasure. “These types of friendships are built around love or passion for similar things”. Most of the Avengers relationships are this type of friendship. They love similar things- mainly avenging- and that bonds them together. I venture to say most of your friends are friendships of pleasure. They are very valuable and are an essential part of a happy life. Black Panther is kind of an outside observer given he doesn’t really have relationships with any of the other characters.

Here’s where things get interesting. The top level of friendship is one of virtue. “This is that rare friend which supersedes friendships of pleasure or utility. This is that bond which is practically sacred it is so special”.

This is where we get the main conflict of Civil War. At the beginning of the film Steve has had to see his most treasured friendship of virtue die. This leaves him with only one left and that is Bucky. Everybody else it turns out is a friendship of pleasure. He values Tony and even Natasha but when push comes to shove he values his friendship with Bucky more.

The same thing can be said for Tony and his parents. It might sound odd to say a parent is a friend but when it comes down to it Tony is willing to do anything to avenge his parents. They are more valuable than any other relationship. Steve even tries to explain to him that Bucky didn’t know but his love or friendship for his parents is stronger than any such logic. You can also tell from his heartbreak that Pepper is one of those virtuous relationships. Rhodey is but not as much as the others.

Steve has had to see all his friendships of pleasure die, and that is why he is so focused on saving Bucky. It’s a survival instinct in a way. By saving Bucky he is in a way saving part of himself.

When Tony and Steve come to blows at the end it is especially heart breaking because they are two people who have lost everything. It’s what makes it so gripping and emotional.

Tony begins to lose control and doubt his decisions early on in his story

AGENCY

The other main theme of the film centers around agency. When I first heard that Tony was going to be signing the Sokovia Accord I didn’t know if that made sense with his character. Shouldn’t it be Cap who goes along with the government with Tony being the fast-talking outlaw? This is where looking at their films comes into play.

Tony starts out Iron Man not caring about the ramifications of his choices. He sells arms to terrorists. He lives the high life at others expense and he doesn’t care. Then he is imprisoned and becomes Iron Man. In the second movie he has let the fame go to his head but he has started to take more accountability for his choices. He stops producing arms and is trying to make a difference. Then in the Avengers he faces Loki and has a team to support his choices, but Coulson dies and the battle is only narrowly won.

Iron Man 3 comes next and the stresses of making heroic choices is starting to get to him. He has panic attacks and starts to doubt his abilities. Pepper is hurt and he is fooled by the Mandarin. Then in Ultron he see’s the vision of his dead friends and mass suffering all around him. This inspires him to make Ultron and it goes disastrously wrong. So, think about it. You have a man who’s agency has led to disaster.

It starts to make sense now. A man who has a history of panic attacks and bad decision making wants to let other people make the choices. That sounds great! He even tries to limit Scarlet Witch’s choices in the guise of ‘protecting her’. In his mind choices are dangerous and prison is safe.

Let’s look at Steve. His growth is a bit simpler. He started with the morality of a soldier. There are good guys and bad guys and he wanted to be a good guy. He volunteers for the experiment and helps defeat Hydra. But not before he saw how governments can be used to control and manipulate- even his own government in some ways.

Then in Winter Soldier he saw a stalwart organization like Shield get infiltrated by Alexander Pierce. No wonder he doesn’t want to give his decision making ability over to the accord. It makes perfect sense.

You can even see how Tony’s decisions in Age of Ultron creating Ultron would make Cap suspect of even his own organization, the Avengers. He says at the end ‘the Avengers was always more yours than mine” speaking to Tony. No, Captain America must be allowed his agency, and he will not give that up to any group or person- even the Avengers.

Why? Well, that’s where we bring it back to Bucky and friendship. Steve has had to see his one remaining friend lose his agency. As the Winter Soldier, Bucky has essentially become a robot and as his friend of virtue that would be incredibly painful to watch. Of course, Steve is going to do anything to save his friend and that means protecting him and bringing back his agency.

CONFLICT

And so this is where we get our conflict for the film. We have two friends of pleasure that are motivated by deeper friendships of virtue that they will not put aside, no matter what. Then you also have Tony’s history of panic and his poor choices making him seek for control; where Steve has only seen that control go awry.

The two gather friends to their side and punch it out with Steve basically winning because it is his movie after all. 🙂 Now the Avengers are basically a pack of vigilantes which is what Secretary Ross said they were to begin with. It should make the future with Infinity Wars Pt 1 and 2 very exciting.

What do you think of my analysis? Did you see these themes of friendship and agency within the film? Am I overthinking it? Let me know what themes you saw. Thanks!