"Spider-Man: Homecoming"

From the studio that still has its Marvel property in their grasp, and Marvel, comes yet another take on the spectacular web-slinger with a much more complicated back story, or lack thereof. I didn’t watch the cartoons, the Sam Raimi movies, or the Amazing reboot, but this is the superhero I know the most through the thirty-page books and sticker books I got as a kid, and I feel cheated by the studio’s decision on what can Spider-Man do.

Spider-Man doesn’t shoot webbing from his hands. In fact, he secretly makes the webbing in his chemistry class. His Spidey senses don’t seem to tingle. Instead, he just flies around swinging from building to building looking for trouble. The only thing he can do is climb on walls and be super strong. And on top of that, his suit is made by Iron Man, who is now suddenly his mentor.

This really isn’t an origin story, but more of a follow up on Peter Parker after his debut in Civil War. But that’s where it starts to go wrong. The movie opens up on his phone recording the events from him flying to Berlin to fighting Captain America to him flipping out in his hotel room. I understand that Peter is just a child, and this a childlike thing to do. But this totally derails what we saw in Civil War as this slick teenage boy in blue and red tights that just stole Cap’s shield, and now he’s a child again. This whole film is a carbon copy of the main character being worthy of the powers he’s been given. Where have we seen that before in the MCU? <cough><cough>Thor<cough>

I have said in the past that Iron Man has become a joke. Not anymore. Iron Man is an abomination and an asshole. My God, I never wanted to punch anyone more, except Shawn in I, Tonya, but that’s another story. Tony Stark has become the “parent” we all hated. Not giving the hero a chance, dodging him at every move, and when Peter tries to prove himself, he’s stripped of his suit, left with nothing but the crappy one he made himself, and when he’s made himself worthy, they’re all friends again. Tony Stark, has anyone ever told you that you’re an asshole? If not, allow me to be the first. YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE! I HATE YOU! If I were Peter, I would have told where to take it when you tried to be his buddy again. And I have a question for you, sir, the whole ordeal with and Happy and the plane leaving Avengers Tower, was that a test for Peter? Let me remind you, f*cker, that you left the fate of the Avengers, the fate of your career, and the fate of your fortune in the hands of a fifteen-year-old with basically no powers! And you hoped that he succeeded! Happy, you are on my Ex list, too! I hate you too!

(Let the record show that I love you, RDJ and Jon Favreau, you guys were awesome in these roles and you played them so well.)

Let’s talk about Vulture, whoever he is. He never really was called Vulture. And he really wasn’t a villain. He was mad that Tony Stark, once again, took over cleaning up from the Battle of New York, leaving Toomes nearly bankrupt, and he decides to steal parts from the cleanup and make weapons. The movie needs to figure out how its timeline goes. This story takes place eight years after the Battle of New York, which happened in 2012. Eight years later, it should be 2020. Does that mean this movie takes place in the future? Does that mean all installments from here on out are set in the future? Does Civil War take place in the future because this movie picks up where Civil War leaves off? Or did the Battle of New York actually take place in 2009, since this movie was released in 2017?

I’m unsure as to how to rate Michael Keaton, as I’ve seen him in good movies and bad, and he’s pretty average in both. But I feel, however, that he was squandered in this money hungry cartoon villain that also happens to be Peter’s crush’s dad.

Let’s talk about that. Peter, like all boys, is struggling to navigate high school and finding a girl to date. He likes Liz, but he also knows what she thinks about Spider-Man; we learn in an F, Marry or Kill game that she says Spider-Man is Spider-Man. So he’s lame in her eyes, and now possibly the enemy for putting her father in jail. Meanwhile, he clashes with the rebellious Negasonic Teenage Warhead-like Zendaya, who we see in the end that she wants to Rewrite the Stars with Peter though he doesn’t know it yet.

Peter and Tony do make a good pair, however, in terms of how they conceal their identities. (I’m calm now, my anger has subsided.) Tony just blatantly told the world he’s Iron Man while Peter is too sure of himself that no one was watching before he takes off his mask. Doing so, he blows his cover to his best friend, who is a literal representation of us in the sense that we become excited that our best friends secretly fights crime, and his aunt, who he tried to so hard not to tell. I’m sure that that was coming eventually, but I never thought that it would be at the end in his bedroom yelling ”WHAT THE—“ before going to credits. Was that supposed to be for laughs? Because that wasn’t funny.

I want to talk about the suit before I go. Again, Peter can’t shoot webbing out of his hands, though in other films he manages to do it just fine. The new suit given to him, by Tony, can communicate with him, allows him to see and hear his surroundings from far away, and can shoot multiple forms of webbing. The suit also comes with a drone to fly around Peter when he needs it to. Is that supposed to make up for the one power he was gifted with that he no longer has? His all-powerful, sentient, suit is a substitute to him shooting webbing? And how did he find a recipe to make his webbing? How come he hasn’t been caught yet? Doesn’t the teacher wonder why an extra beaker was dirty and some supplies are missing? Does Peter Parker watch Breaking Bad?

Oh, and one more thing. Pepper resurfaces at the end to be disappointed about Peter turning down the Avengers. Then Tony surprises her with a ring that Happy has been carrying around since 2008, to give the press something. First of all, the hell you did, Happy! You were busy taking Rolls Royces onto the Formula 1 track and taking down exploding Terminators to be watching a ring for eight years. And why did Pepper get back with Tony? They broke up because he was a handful. At least, that’s what they said in the movies. (Wink!)

Sorry, last time. The biggest question we still don’t the answer to is how Tony knew Peter was Spider-Man. I know I have my theory, but I want to hear it from the man himself.

I’m really starting to think that Marvel is more focused on how much they can get away with in a PG-13 rated film in terms of language, violence, and sexual innuendoes. The violence is implied, but it’s getting more aggressive. The language is getting more atrocious. Zendaya flips off Peter; that’s not cool. And the F, Marry, or Kill should not be in a PG-13 film for children.

I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released On: July 7, 2017
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey, Jr., Marisa Tomei, Zendaya
Director: Jon Watts Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.5/10

Awards
Saturn Awards

• Best Comic-to-Motion Picture Release - Nominated
• Best Supporting Actor in a Film Michael Keaton - Nominated
• Best Performance by a Younger Actor in a Film Tom Holland - Winner
• Best Performance by a Younger Actor in a Film Zendaya - Nominated

(Click here to view more awards for "Spider-Man: Homecoming")

Videos
How It Should Have Ended - How Spider-Man Homecoming Should Have Ended
Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers - Spider-Man: Homecoming
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Spider-Man: Homecoming

"Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Season 4

Admit it. You were hoping to see some robot boobs on national television. Newcomer Aida, an android, was changing her clothes after getting shot when she takes off her blouse displaying two gunshot wounds on her chest. Up close, they could have been nipples. But the camera pulls out to show that her bra is still on, you pervert.
But robots flashing us on television isn't the only thing we should worry about. This season of Agents brings a new level of What the F*ck! to the table.
First off, they bring in the Ghost Rider, a demon with a flaming skull and a flaming hot rod to match. He serves as a vigilante to bring evil souls to justice. This brings problems To Daisy and the others because S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to go public again, this time under new leadership. Jeffrey Mace is an Inhuman with immense strength, and he likes to do everything by books, reporting to General Talbot, classifications, not saying "Let's go" to everything.
Scottish James Cameron decides to build an android that would serve the purpose of being a human shield, hence the gunshot wounds mentioned above. When called upon, Aida is instructed to read the Darkhold, a mysterious book that will teach the readers the secrets of the universe. This is where they build a portal to other dimensions for Ghost Rider to take the souls he caught with him. First, it starts with Ghost Rider's uncle's coworkers. In the past, they were trying to create a machine that would create matter out of thin air. the result of the disaster left them looking like ghosts. Then the uncle immersed himself into the machine to make him able to create matter out of his hands. Ghost Rider had to make the hard choice by dragging his uncle through the portal.
Just when you thought they were done, Aida has other surprises. She and Scottish James Cameron captured select members of the crew and replaced them with life-like LMD models of them. The real members where put into an OASIS type of thing called the Framework, where people plugged in can live their lives without the one thing they regret in their past; that's been erased in the Framework. By the time they figure it out, it's just Daisy and Simmons. So they plug in themselves to retrieve the others and enter a literal virtual hell.
Hydra rules the land in this universe. Why are we bringing up that dead octopus again? In this world, Coulson is a school teacher that is one conspiracy away from donning a tinfoil hat. May is a Hydra with regret of SAVING the Inhuman girl from Bahrain, where she attacked students at Columbia University. Mack is living as a single father to his daughter, who died in the real world. Daisy and...sighs...Ward are Hydra agents and Simmons is dead. Fitz is the renown Doctor in Hydra where not only was he in a good relationship with his father but he's never met Simmons. Aida, calling herself Ophelia because Alice would have been way too easy considering Project Looking Glass, is Madame Hydra, and she's on a mission to create a human body for herself so she can be a real girl.
This creates some problems in this world because Fitz is almost untouchable and Mack refuses to leave because of his daughter. Luckily Daisy and Simmons have help from Jeffrey Mace, also plugged into the Framework, he is the leader of a resistance team with actual immense strength, whereas in the real world he doesn't have any; it was concocted out of a cocktail made by Daisy's father. And to our surprise, Ward is a member of the resistance. I kept waiting for Ward to narc on them but it never happened. With the help of regretful Scottish James Cameron, Daisy and Simmons make it out with nearly everyone alive; Mace died saving children from a crumbling Hydra recreation facility. But they're not done yet. The real world is in chaos now, since the LMD version of Coulson and Company have destroyed the base and Mace's body washed up on the beach. Aida has completed the project and made herself a human body flooded with emotions...and other things, like Inhuman powers.
Right when they thought they were through, Ghost Rider emerges and takes Aida with her. It should be a happy ending, right?
General Talbot is now in the hospital, and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. is wanted for questioning. We end the series with Coulson in a space prison.
The structure of this season was rather thorough and structured, like season 3, but it was all over the place, like season 2. This season was meant to be three different sagas that are connected. If you look on Wikipedia at the episodes, they are sectioned off with "Ghost Rider", "LMD", and "Agents of Hydra". The title sequence changed four times this season. I knew Ghost Rider would return by the end of the season, and yet, I completely forgot that Ghost Rider would return at the end of the season.
It was ironic and wrong that Mace would lie about his Inhuman status just because the government wanted an Inhuman director for S.H.I.E.L.D. Daisy may have not been in the game since she went rogue at the time, but what about Yo-Yo or the dude that can bend steel? I think Yo-Yo would be more qualified. It's kind of expected to see Mace be confident in front of the cameras but feel useless leading S.H.I.E.L.D., especially after they found out he's not an Inhuman. But it proves the compassion we are accustomed to in Coulson by keeping him as the director, even though he's still sore from being removed.
At this point, the series is in the hands of Fitz and Simmons. Every season there's some new reason to keep the two apart, and we have to fight alongside them to come back to each other. First, it was Fitz having brain damage, then it was Simmons leaving for Hydra, then Simmons gets sucked into a magic rock to another planet where Fitz jumps in after her to save her, and now there's an alternate reality where Simmons is an enemy of the state and Fitz can kill her if pleases. Watch, next season Simmons will get amnesia and Fitz will have to learn how to fall in love with her again, like The F*cking Vow.
Also at this point, Daisy is no longer the center of the story. I don't know who is, but it's definitely not her. What started as a fearless hacker recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D. is now a bitter war-torn agent, just like the rest of them.
And why are still fighting Inhumans? Is it bad enough that I'm comparing them to the X-Men? There should be a Men In Black scenario where they neuralize people and make them forget Inhumans exist. I am tired of the Inhuman fight. But it'll never go away, will it?
I never really get to talk about the series fitting into the MCU. There are no movies that connect this season, so now would be a good time to talk. It's interesting to see how the mysterious organization, that only comes up in conversation in the movies, really functions behind the scenes. However, it's a little confusing sometimes when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell in season 1; since then, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell off the map in the movies. Well, that was their intention, I guess because S.H.I.E.L.D. is now off the map. But there has got to be some mention in the movies like a wanted poster of Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider in the Avengers meeting room just casually in the background, or have Tony Stark watch the news and General Talbot is shouting about stuff that goes on in S.H.I.E.L.D. But maybe "it doesn't work that way." It doesn't this way either if you don't watch the movies, which would make the people at Marvel Studios explode.
I'm starting to lose steam on this show, but I don't want to quit just yet. I'm hoping that season 5 will shock me with what it will bring.

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I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return on Friday with another movie. See you then.

Aired: September 20, 2016 – May 16, 2017
Rating: TV-14
Stars: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, John Hannah
Directors: Billy Gierhart, Vincent Misiano, Magnus Martens, Brad Turner, Kate Woods, Jesse Bochco, Kevin Tancharoen, Garry A. Brown, Nina Lopez-Corrado, Wendey Stanzler, Jed Whedon, Oz Scott, Eric Laneuville
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
IMDb Score: 8.8/10 (Average)

Awards
Saturn Awards

• Best Superhero Adaptation Television Series - Nominated

(Click here to view more awards for "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Season 4.)

"X-Men: First Class"

I felt like I was experiencing déjà vu when the movie opened up because the first X-Men movie started out this way. Young Erik Lenscherr was being taken to a concentration camp where he gets separated from his family. While he was being dragged away, the X gene in Erik triggers his ability to manipulate metal and bend the gates until they were inoperable. At the same time, Young Charles Xavier wakes up hearing a crash in the kitchen. He investigates to find his mother in the kitchen. This was suspicious because his mother set foot in the kitchen in her life. His mother transforms into a little blue girl with red hair. It was Mystique, only she was called Raven at this time. Charles smiled realizing that he isn't the only one anymore. He adopts Raven and calls her his sister.
We flash forward twenty years, Charles and Raven are graduating college, or at least Charles is; Nothing was indicated on what Raven was studying. Charles tries to pick up women at the bar by calling their mutations, auburn hair, one blue and one green eye, beautiful until Raven ruins the moment by existing. She asks him if he would date her; he says he never thought of her that way. The plot finally kicks into gear when a CIA agent, Moira McTaggart, comes to Charles for help. She discovers that a US military general is influenced in placing nuclear missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The Influencers are Emma Frost, a telepath with impenetrable diamonds for skin, Riptide, who can produce cyclones, Azazel, a red Nightcrawler with fire and teleportation, and Sebastian Shaw, not the actor, a man that can absorb energy who is also linked to Erik's past.
Erik was spared because of his abilities. The B story is him hunting Shaw down.
Erik and Charles meet up while staking out Shaw private yacht. After Shaw gets away, Oliver Platt, a mutant believer and supporter, takes Charles, Raven and Erik to his secret facility where they meet Hank McCoy, a brilliant scientist with hands for feet. He and Raven immediately hit it off, which doesn't concern Charles one bit. Together, they use Hank's machine, the Cerebro, to amplify Charles' telepathic powers to find all the mutants they can, and they pick up Angel, a fireball breathing "fairy?", Havok, who creates cosmic rays of energy, Darwin, who can adapt to any situation, Banshee, who can harness soundwaves by shrieking, and almost Logan, but he told Charles and Erik to f*ck themselves. I agree that was Logan's best moment in the X-Men franchise ever. EVER! It was so quick you have to question yourself whether or not it happened. But it was so awesome, you almost forget that the rest of the movie is so terrible.
Just when the mutants were beginning to get to know each other, they get ambushed by Shaw, and he recruits Angel to his army. Darwin almost goes too but it was a ruse to stop Shaw, and Darwin gets killed.
Knowing they have to do better to beat Shaw, Charles opens up his childhood home to train the new mutants to harness their powers.
Hank and Raven continue to bloom until it crashes and burns when Hank says he's finished with the serum, he was creating, to attack the X gene and hide the appearance. Raven becomes offended that he wants to hide Raven's blue skin. Erik, however, wants her to show off her appearance.
The ultimate battle comes in full swing as the Soviet ships carrying the missiles approach the American blockade in Cuba. They were about to cross the threshold when Charles influences a Russian general to fire on a stray Russian ship to stop it from crossing the threshold. Erik was able to use his new strength to lift Shaw's submarine out of the water and crash it on the beach. The mutant battle commences while Erik searches the sub for Shaw. He finds Shaw, but Shaw pushes him around with the energy he harnessed breaking the glass and allowing Charles to breach the void. Charles freezes Shaw But Erik throws the coin, Shaw gave him as a child, and drills it into his brain, killing him.
Meanwhile, Both the Russian and American ships are given orders to fire on the beach. they fire their missiles, but Erik stops them. He turns them and fires them back. Everyone fights Erik to stop him from flying the missiles, and it ends with Moira firing her gun at Erik, who now is deflecting the bullets. Then a bullet hits Charles and he now can't feel his legs. Erik, though feeling remorse, decides to build his army to fight back at the humans.
So, Erik is responsible for Charles' paralysis, the mutants are responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Charles knew Logan long before they meet in the first X-Men. Emma Frost was weirdly placed in this movie. in Origins, she was a prisoner of Stryker before Logan sets her free. She was a prisoner of the CIA until Erik releases her in the end. At some point Stryker captures Emma and Logan saves her. But I can't tell where Origins fits into the franchise. Logan served in Vietnam, so Emma had to be captured in the late sixties or early seventies.
I think this movie was trying to center around Raven and how she was able to learn to accept who she is and find someone who likes her for who she is. Unfortunately, it drags everyone else along with it. That's where it goes down. A team movie that is centered around one person, the team is distracting for the person, and the person is distracting for the team. You can't be both.
Hank tries the serum, and it does work. But then it amplified and he grew blue hair. I stand corrected on how Hank mutated. I always thought that he just mutated that way. When the movie began, I thought the feet was just a side effect; he's just hiding his blue hair. I guess not. Also, I thought Professor X was always paralyzed or his gift caused him to be paralyzed. Does anyone remember the X-Men lore anymore? I know I'm not a fanboy, and I shouldn't be allowed to ask that question, but the gene is triggered through puberty. Erik was still the right because they reused footage from the first movie, but Charles and Raven had to be at least ten.
Also, watching Magneto tear up a ship with its anchor is nothing compared to the action sequence set in the movie Titanic. Just saying.
I can see that they are trying to restart the X-Men and give it new life, but it doesn't replace what happened. I still think the first X-Men is the best film of the franchise.

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I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return on Friday with another movie. See you then.

Before I Go See It: If you're wondering what happened last week about a new post, I was busy. You can check now my newest post on Dark Phoenix as well as others.

Released On: June 3, 2011
Rating: PG-13
Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, January Jones, Kevin Bacon
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.7/10

Awards
Saturn Awards

• Best Science Fiction Film - Nominated
• Best Make-Up Dave Elsey, Fran Needham & Conor O'Sullivan - Winner

Videos
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong with X-Men: First Class in 8 Minutes or Less
How It Should Have Ended - How X-Men: First Class Should Have Ended

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"

The MCU takes another commercial break by bringing us on another adventure with the Guardians. People of the Sovereign, led by Jordan Baker, fires her completely disposable CGI army, made of the set of Ready Player One, at the Guardians after Rocket steals some really important batteries, which is heresy apparently. Then they are miraculously saved by Ego the Living Planet, who is Peter’s legendary father.

After a nearly deadly crash landing, Rocket and Groot stay behind to repair the ship but get captured by Yondu and the Ravagers, or ex-Ravagers because Rocky Balboa cast Yondu out and I’m pretty sure they are too. However, for fear of getting cast out by the people of Xandar, Yondu had no intentions to turn over the Guardians of the Galaxy, so the ex-Ravagers take Yondu hostage as well.

Ego tries to reconnect with his estranged son and almost succeeds. He teaches him how to harness the power of a Celestial, and they throw a lightning ball like catch. Meanwhile, Drax is telling Mantis how ugly she is, and Gamora is uncertain about Ego. Mantis finally tells them that Ego is after his children, especially Peter. Ego tells Peter he wants him to join him in his Expansion to take over the universe. Peter was almost on board until Ego had to go and ruin the moment by saying he killed Peter’s mother.

Rocket, Groot, Yondu, and Kraglin escape the ex-Ravagers, in a battle that was better portrayed by How It Should Have Ended, and come in to save the others. Rocket builds a bomb to blow up the planet, and he succeeds despite the funny misunderstanding with Groot.

Yondu stays behind to rescue Peter from the exploding planet, gives him the space suit, and dies. My God, I nearly cried. Then the sentimental moment was ruined by four separate end credits scenes that don’t make any sense: Kraglin trying to harness Yondu’s arrow, The Space Expendables band together once again, Groot is now a teenager, and Stan Lee is given more cameos in this movie than perhaps any other Marvel movie, may he rest in peace.

This was better than the first movie on some occasions. The adventures are more fun. I recognize two of the songs, “Mr. Blue Sky” and “My Sweet Lord.” The saving the world banter is hilarious.

Ego may be the best villain because it was easy to hate him. He says he tried to be as human as he can. After admitting he killed Peter’s mother, Peter’s reaction was to shoot him in anger. Any dad on Earth would have laughed it off and said, “ Yeah, I deserve that.” But Ego doesn’t; instead, he’s mad that Peter dared to defy him. I hated him for that. And he dared to bring David Hasselhoff into this too. I also think he watched too many bad comedies to get the idea of what an Earth dad looks like. Everything he does, from “gotta take a whiz,” to relating over Looking Glass by singing it but not really singing it, that’s not what a father does. That only happens in movies.

Rocket acted like Captain America for a second in saying that he and Groot need to talk about his language. He’s the one to talk. He also swears like a sailor.

Let’s list how many movies this one rips off. I saw The Empire Strikes Back in the asteroid field. I saw Blade Runner in the snowy planet where Yondu gets cast out of the Ravagers. I saw a combination of Alice Through the Looking Glass and Frozen in Nebula and Gamora’s estranged relationship. I saw Starman at the beginning of the film. If Jeff Bridges already didn’t play a Marvel villain, he easily could have been Ego.

While you guys are wondering why Peter's Walkman still works after thirty years, I want to know a few things about the rest of the galaxy. How come it never occurred to Star-Lord to return to Earth to visit? How come he never Space Googled Earth and checked up on current events? How can he keep his sanity from hearing the same twenty songs over and over again for thirty years? I can’t hear a tape more than twice in a row. Why do the residents of the galaxy speak English? Is English the first language of the galaxy? Are there no other languages spoken in the universe except for the Elven language in Thor 2 and whatever the hell Ronan spoke? Why is the profanity the same as ours? Is there a hell? What is their version like? Is Botticelli’s Map of Hell the stuff of legends or do they have it displayed in a museum?

The Guardians of the Galaxy still haven’t made their entrance into the MCU. I’m starting to wonder if the Guardians storyline is just a side project. It just seems we're farting around at this point. Civil War was a waste of time, even though I said it was a genius movie. This movie exists because it does. Ant-Man is basically Everybody Hates Scott. So, I guess this is a loss for me. There is no reason for this movie to exist other than to pass the time.

I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released: May 5, 2017

Rating: PG-13

Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Kurt Russell 

Director: James Gunn 

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83% Certified Fresh

IMDb Score: 7.7/10

Awards

Academy Awards

• Best Visual Effects Christopher Townsend, Damien Carr, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner & Dan Sudick - Nominated

Billboard Music Awards

• Top Soundtrack Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2 - Nominated

Videos

CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers - Guardians of the Galaxy 2

How It Should Have Ended - How Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Should Have Ended

How It Should Have Ended - Here Comes My Arrow - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 PARODY

How It Should Have Ended - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - HISHE Review (SPOILERS)

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

I don't know about you, but this movie sucks!!! I guess you already knew that, so what's new?

Logan, or James, or Weapon X, or whatever his name is, is back with an origin story that is far from satisfactory. When he was a sickly child, in 1840s Canada, his father was gunned down for reasons I guess involve the next ten seconds. Little "James" develops bony claws and sinks them into the man who killed his father, except the man who killed his father WAS his father. Having no home to go to, James and his brother Victor journey through history becoming heroes in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. However, the war in 'Nam where they begin to rub shoulders. Victor is a trigger happy moron raining fire on villagers while Logan fights to keep his brother in tow. A senior officer gets killed, sentenced to a firing squad, and sat in jail after surviving the firing squad.

This calls the attention of Colonel William Stryker. He's baaaaaack. The dumbass from X2 recruits Logan and Victor to his team with special abilities. The team involves a mouthy martial artist named Wade, will.i.am in a cowboy hat that can teleport, and some blonde dude with an accent so terrible I can't tell if it's German or Russian; he can take a punch, I think, and he can punch harder. This adventure gets shortlived because Logan comes to his senses from terrorizing local villagers about a mysterious rock that fell from the sky. Logan ups and leaves.

Six years go by, Logan is working in a logging company, he has a hot girlfriend, he is happy. Until Stryker shows up asking for Logan's help. Someone is killing members of their team. Logan turns him down. Very soon afterward, he discovers his girlfriend dead on the side of the road with deep claw marks on the side of his car. Angry, he accepts helping Stryker and goes under a torturous treatment program that will make him indestructible. The magic rock they were looking for, when Logan, was filled with adamantium. The adamantium is injected into his skeleton which molds in with it. The side effect includes steel claws replacing his bone ones. Then, Logan's supersonic hearing picked up that his memory was to be erased and he escapes.

Logan teams up with his old buddy will.i.am to the location of the hidden rebel base to take down Stryker. First, he interrogates the weird German dude, who now has gained a lot of weight, and learns that the only person who knows the location of the base is an escaped convict. Then he and will.i.am travel to New Orleans to find Gambit, a mutant that can turn poker cards into throwing stars and uses a bo staff to create shockwaves. He pilots Logan to Three Mile Island, where the base is hiding among the nuclear power plant set there. Logan walks in to discover that his hot girlfriend was not only alive but a mole. Logan had figured out that Stryker had played him and was working with Victor, but he was shocked to find the woman he cared about was involved too.

Logan was about to walk out when the hot girlfriend turns to him in private and tells him she has feelings for him, too, but she only did it because her sister was a captive prisoner of Stryker's. And she's not the only one. The movie introduces us to a young Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops. He gets taken by Victor; Victor has been rounding up mutants so Stryker can create the ultimate mutant in the martial artist, Wade, who was thought to be dead. Wade was being injected with a number of superpowers to become Deadpool, the ultimate mutant killing machine with no mouth to say anything. In an ultimate battle, no one dies, except for the hot girlfriend. Logan gets two adamantium bullets to the chest and loses his memory. We were treated with two post-credits scenes that really don't matter anymore since the Origins series was canceled.

The movie had potential but it really failed to deliver. Is the PG-13 rating holding them back? I've seen way worse sh*t in the MCU movies, and they are PG-13. There was no development for any of the characters. Logan needed no introduction since he starred in three previous chapters. Sabretooth is suddenly Logan's brother for some reason. Stryker's a d*ckhead; no need to tell us twice. The hot girlfriend was there to make us forget about the Jean Grey debacle. Cyclops and Deadpool were just there.

Deadpool was my first superhero movie, with the exception of Fantastic Four, which I have no memory of what happened. Seeing Wade in this movie was really sad actually. So he's good with swords. That's not an ability, that's a skill. Until he was experimented on, I don't think Wade had any powers at all. That really should've raised some questions when a non-mutant was recruited onto a mutant team, but it didn't.

Is this Gambit? The legendary, mythical Gambit? So he counts and smacks the ground with a stick, who cares? I like Taylor Kitsch and all, and he brings charisma to the character, but he's all talk and no walk. And when he walks, it's away. He engages in the fight unless the script says so. And he just taps the ground and everything is reset or something. 

The hot girlfriend told Logan some bullsh*t story about how the Wolverine was tricked into getting flowers for the moon and leaving the spirit. When she died the first time, he called himself the Wolverine because of that story. That's BULL SH*T! That's how bad it is. I split a word into two. There's got to be a better story behind the name. Ororo is Storm because she controls the weather, makes sense. Wade is Deadpool because he is a cessPOOL of superpowers, m'kay. Tony Stark is Iron Man because he flies around in an "iron" suit, whatever. Logan is Wolverine because he heard it in some story, well la-di-freaking-dah.

I think the X-Men are cursed; they will never be seen on the big screen properly because they are struggling to find a balance of how cool they can make their fights and how to deal with their smaller issues.

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I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return on Friday with another movie. See you then.

Released On: May 1, 2009

Rating: PG-13

Stars: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schrieber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds

Director: Gavin Hood

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 37%

IMDb Score: 6.6/10

Videos

Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers - X-Men Origins: Wolverine

CinemaSins - Everything Wrong with X-men Origins: Wolverine in 14 Minutes or Less

"Doctor Strange"

I’m just going to say it. This was really cool. I’m still baffled at the effects they pulled off for this movie. Like that multi-dimensional New York City? I can’t get my head around it.

However, I believe that this is an Iron Man remake with magic instead of super genius tech. Let’s think about it. Arrogant billionaire genius with a taste for music, fast cars, and a dresser drawer just for watches, check. A love interest played by an actress we can love to hate, check. Arrogant billionaire genius gets cut down in his prime and forced to live with his life-threatening condition, check, check, check.

Benedict Cumberbatch trades his Sherlock cloak for scrubs to become the brilliant neurosurgeon, Dr. Stephen Strange. One rainy night, he was speeding along the highway to a neurosurgeon conference, and he gets into an accident, he caused himself, and it ruined his perfect hands. And, yes, dude, you ruined you. Not Nic, you. After months of searching for a cure to the insane tremor in his hands, he travels to Kamar-Taj, a Nepalese temple where, little did he know, people can heighten their intellect beyond the physical realm. After one language-riddled trip that got all handsy (SHUDDERS), he begins his journey. Soon enough he discovers missing pages from an ancient text that can summon the spirit Dormammu, an evil being bent on consuming Earth into the Dark Realm, and Steven Seagal (not really) stole the pages. In a failed epic battle, that flipped New York on its head, the Ancient One was mercilessly killed despite any effort from Strange and his girlfriend to save her. I actually have a problem with how she died. I’ve already seen a partial bit of this scene where she faded, from the Guardians 2 Honest Trailer, and I was expecting her to finally be at peace and just go. But, no, she just went out like a White Witch. Maybe she gets stabbed, gets put on life support until Dormammu is silenced, and then she goes. I don’t know.

I got off track. In the final showdown, Strange introduces Dormammu to an endless cycle of violence that we’re accustomed to by getting him caught in the time loop. To break it, Dormammu promises to extract Steven Seagal and his Zealots from Earth. And that’s how he’s defeated! What the hell? Then Strange goes on to protect New York from any other interdimensional beings.

This opens a new set of questions for me that I’ve been bouncing around in my head. In The Winter Soldier, Sitwell mentioned Stephen Strange being a potential threat. Did Dr. Zola know he was going to get into a life-altering accident and become an all-powerful sorcerer? Was the accident completely his fault or was he nudged by a thought dead HYDRA agent and he lost control? Was Obadiah Stane working for HYDRA when he put a hit out for Tony or was it for his own selfish reasons? Did Nick Fury know about HYDRA infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. longer than we knew, and that’s why he recruited the Avengers? I want answers.
I understand London and Hong Kong being good places to build sanctums to protect the Earth; they are thousands of years old. But why New York? New York is barely four hundred years old. It’s a teenager compared to the other two. St. Augustine, Florida, is easily a hundred years older. Is it so Dr. Strange is conveniently in the city with the Avengers and Spider-Man for when something big goes down?

Strange’s friend, Mordo, left Kamar-Taj after learning where the Ancient One got her power, and, in one of the end credits scenes, goes on a rampage to destroy sorcerers, claiming there are “too many.” Does this mean Mordo will bring evil into the world? Is he Thanos’ link to Earth?

The other end credit scene is a sneak peek at the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok, in which Dr. Strange provides some possible answers to what the hell happened at the end of The Dark World.

One last thing I want to talk about. The Eye of Agramotto, a medallion Strange used to control time. It’s an Infinity Stone. There’s that word again. And for the first time, a character is echoing my question: What is it? I’m gonna throw something if I don’t get answers!
Even though I said this was fun, I'm calling this a win, it's starting to get tiresome. I don't know how long Marvel wants to keep this up. Even now, it feels like the end, but it also seems to be the beginning. Both Thor and Captain America want to leave after Endgame, but Guardians 3 is moving forward without James Gunn at the helm, Black Widow is getting her movie, Black Panther is getting a sequel, and Spider-Man's third-second sequel hits theaters in July. I want an indication that there will be an end to this. It was fun, all of it, but it needs to end.

Oh, and one more thing, sorry. Are you going to reference everything else the actors ever did? Strange’s address is 177A Bleeker Street, similar to Sherlock’s address, 221B Baker Street, and they cast Sherlock himself to play Stephen. And let’s not forget the Scripture on Nick Fury’s headstone in The Winter Soldier: “The path of the righteous man… Ezekiel 25:17.”

I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released On: November 4, 2016
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelson, Benedict Wong
Director: Scott Derrickson Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.5/10

Awards
Academy Awards

• Best Visual Effects Stephane Ceretti, Richard Bluff, Vincent Cirelli & Paul Corbould - Nominated

(Click here to view more awards for "Doctor Strange")

Videos
How It Should Have Ended - How Doctor Strange Should Have Ended
Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers: Doctor Strange
How It Should Have Ended - Doctor Strange - HISHE Review (SPOILERS)
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Dr. Strange In 15 Minutes Or Less