Looking Back at the Films of 2023 Part Five - Hypnotic

 

Here we go again. Another looking back at the films of last year. Only this time it's just one movie.

Why Didn't I See Hypnotic?

It's yet another case of my theater not having a showing. Which sucked because I was really looking forward to this one. Not only because Ben Affleck was gonna be in it, but because Robert Rodriguez was directing. And this time it wasn't gonna be a movie more aimed towards kids with films like his Spy Kids movies or Sharkboy and Lavagirl. But more along the lines of his grittier movies like Sin City, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and etc.

What is Hypnotic?

Hypnotic is a mystery action thriller movie, that was produced by Solstice Studios, Ingenious Media, Studio 8 and Double R Productions and distributed by Ketchup Entertainment and Relativity Media. Hypnotic was written by Robert Rodriguez and Max Borenstein and directed by Robert Rodriguez.

The story is, Detective Danny Rourke is determined to find his missing daughter. But the more he searches the more he finds himself head towards a rabbit hole involving some sort of reality bending crimes. While being aided by a psychic, Danny soon finds himself being chased by a lethal specter, one that could possibly hold the key to his daughter's whereabouts.

My Thoughts

The Good: First positive I'll give is the performances, mainly from Ben Affleck and Alice Braga. They're not doing anything award winning, but despite the okay material, they still did a pretty good job. The last thing I'll touch on for this section is Robert Rodriguez. There's no doubt that he's a very talented and aspiring directors can learn a lot from him. But I also praise him for taking a risk by directing this. As I stated previously, he's best known for gritty films like the previously mentioned Sin City, both Machete flicks, his kids movies like We Can Be Heroes, and even dipped into the horror genre with Planet Terror. But he's never done something that takes on a mystery movie with a dash of mind bending. So I appreciate his decision to step away from his usual stuff and do something different. Although I guess you could make an argument he already did with Alita: Battle Angel, but I think you understand what I mean.

The Bad: I've got nothing here.

The Okay: First let me get to the characters. They're not too bad. I thought they were pretty decent, but I will admit they could've used just a bit more personalities and slightly more development. Let me get this out of the way, I did enjoy quite a bit of this movie. It can be very fun, however it's loaded with exposition. There's just way too much time explaining this as suppose to letting us the audience piece things together. Sure it was helpful here and there, but still. We don't need ever bit told out loud to us.

Final Verdict: Okay.

So that's all for tonight. Come back on Thursday, Jun 6th, for my review of season three of The Boys. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

The Garfield Movie Review

 

The Garfield Movie is an animated comedy movie based on Jim Davis' comic strip, Garfield. It's produced by Columbia Pictures, Alcon Entertainment, DNEG Animation, Prime Focus, One Cool Group Limited, and Wayfarer Studios and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The Garfield Movie is written by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds and directed by Mark Dindal.

The story is, Garfield is living the life. He gets to sit around and do nothing, watch TV, and enjoy eating all of his favorite foods, especially lasagna. Things take an expected turn when not only is he kidnapped along with Odie, but they meet Vic, Garfield's father. Just to make matters even more complicated, they're forced to team up for a high risk adventure.

Initial Reaction

Now I fully admit I'm not a Garfield fan. I mean sure every once and awhile I'd watch reruns of Garfield and Fans, saw a little bit of The Garfield Show, and I even watched those 3D animated movies, and the live-action. So while I do have history with the franchise and was entertained for the most part, much like all of those, I decided to give this movie a chance and see what I'm in for.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

There are three gray areas when it comes to The Garfield Movie, one being the voice acting. Now, while I didn't fully get behind Chris Pratt as Garfield, I still thought he did fine. Then there's others such as Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames, Hannah Waddingham, etc. were also great with their characters. The worst though was Nicholas Hoult as Jon. Now I don't have anything against Hoult. I think he's a great (although underrated) actor, who's starred in a lot of good stuff. But I just couldn't get behind the voice he gave Jon. It just sounded bad. Then there's the story. Now it's by no means bad, it's actually pretty decent. While watching I do feel like there was some care put into it, it's just that the story isn't going to break any new ground. The last is the changes. While I may not be the biggest fan of Garfield, even I was fully aware that they made changes from the source material. For instance, Odie isn't just a typical dog, he's very highly skilled in this. But the thing for me is, while I can understand some of the complaints, I don't think the changes were too damaging. It's not even the first time they've changed something about Garfield. Remember those 3D animated movies like Garfield Gets Real, Garfield's Fun Fest, etc? In those movies he's a cartoon character who's aware he's a comic strip character who's comics get sent to the real world. So yeah, not the most drastic changes made to the character.

Pros

The two pros are the humor and animation. While the slapstick can get repetitive, I thought there was some funny lines. As for the animation, it's really good. Lots great details on the characters, nicely done backgrounds, and whenever there's an action scene, there's a lot of energy put in there.

Now this is by no means a perfect movie but, I do feel as though a lot of the negative reviews really shouldn't be treating this movie as harshly as they are.

My final rating is, Okay.

Alright that's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, May 30th, for part five of Looking Back at the Films of 2023. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Classic Film Night - 2001: A Space Odyssey

 

2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic sci-fi film that was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's 1951 short story, The Sentinel. It was produced by Stanley Kubrick Productions and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 2001: A Space Odyssey was written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

The story is, Dr. Dave Bowman and his fellow astronauts are sent on a mysterious mission. They seem to being doing just fine, but soon start to notice that their computer system HAL 9000 begins to act strangely. Soon, man and machine are locked in a showdown that'll result in a mind bending trek through space and time.

My Thoughts

Now, I'm gonna get a lot flack but one slight criticism I have with 2001: A Space Odyssey is with Stanley Kubrick's directing. Let me do some praising first then I'll explain. Now there's no doubt Kubrick was a tremendous director. All of his films were absolute winners. He had a great eye, and even if it was a horror movie [The Shining] he still made it look fantastic. One of his trademarks was very long shots. A lot of those shots have become many of the most iconic shots in cinematic history. However, I think there was quite a few times he overdid it in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Because of this two things will happen when you watch this. 1) You're gonna feel that two hour runtime or 2) the film's gonna feel longer than it already is. So because of the slight overuse of long shots Kubrick really messed with the film's pacing.

Alright now with that out of the way, let's get into 100% praising. One of those being the cinematography. Geoffrey Unsworth did an amazing job. He should be credited just as much as Kubrick for how the film looked. The "Dawn of Man" scenes alone should tell you how talented he was. Some of the backgrounds almost look like paintings.

Then we have HAL 9000. There's no doubt this is one of the many iconic movie villains. Before the Terminator, HAL 9000 was our worst fear of technology turning against. But even without the fact that HAL has unlimited power over the astronauts, it's also creepy how not once does his voice changes. He sounds cold throughout. Hell, this is such an iconic villain, that people who haven't seen the movie are well aware of HAL 9000.

The last thing I'll praise is the story. I've heard and read many interpretations. Some I agree with more than others. With that being said, I praise the movie for being a story about how aliens helped us evolve without being fully involved. What I mean is at the very beginning of the film we're introduced to The Monolith. This thing is clearly a device made by an alien race, which helped evolved from apes and then whatever our next step of evolution is. But, but, having said that, the movie does a spectacular job on not overly telling us it's aliens. Which fun fact, Kubrick did play with the idea of having a big alien reveal at the end. And me along with everyone else are grateful he didn't do that. Without a look, a name, and little to no information, they feel like something else entirely then what we're use to when it comes to extraterrestrials.

Despite my slight criticism at the beginning, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a fantastic sci-fi, where even if there are some bad spots, I believe the good outweighs the bad.

My final rating is, A Must Watch!

That's all for now, come back on Saturday, May 25th, for my review of The Garfield Movie. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Differences Between All-Star Superman (Movie) & All-Star Superman (Comic)

 

Alright, it's another Differences Between and this time it's all about Superman. More specifically the All-Star Superman story.

In the comic we're introduced to DNA P.R.O.J.E.C.T. We see them every now and then throughout the comic and learn things about them such a character named Agatha and her powers, their Bizarro worker drones, and that they have a "voyager titan". In the movie we seen them at the beginning and at the end.

There was also quite a few changes to the Fortress of Solitude. In the movie, while Lois is taking a shower she makes a tease at Clark asking if he's using his X-ray vision, this never happened in the comic. Also during this sequence, Superman & Lois look into the future, in the movie they see Kal Kent aka the Superman of the 853rd century. This didn't happen in the comic, in the comic Lois is the only one to see into the future, and she sees the Unknown Superman of 4500 A.D.

Another difference comes from Superman being challenged to an arm wrestling contest with Samson and Atlas. In the movie, Superman beats them both at the same time. While in the comic, he beats them one by one.

At one point during the miniseries' run, we get an issue with Jimmy Olsen meeting up with P.R.O.J.E.C.T. At one point Superman is turned evil because of a piece of kryptonite and then Jimmy has to stop him. This never happened in the movie.

There was some slight changes with Lex Luthor's jail. In the comic his trial is mostly the same, but during the beginning the Judge did compare Luthor to evil men such as Hitler. But the comparisons didn't happen in the movie. Also, Clark's time visiting Lex in jail does almost happen the same way. The only differences being that Parasite was behind a glass cell and then breaks out, where in the comic he was being wheeled around and then breaks out. Then there's Lex confronting Parasite. In the movie it's very tamed. While in the comic it's slightly more violent and Luthor also used that moment to scare other inmates.

In the movie, the only thing we get with Pa Kent is Superman visiting his mother at his tombstone. While in the comic storyline, we get a flashback issue to a younger Superman meeting other members of the Superman Squad including Kal Kent. During this issue not only is there an action scene, but Pa Kent sadly dies. This flashback doesn't happens in the movie.

What we also got from the comic was an encounter with Bizarro. This adventure was a two-parter where not only does Superman go one-on-one with Bizarro, but we also take a trip to Bizarro's homewolrd. This mini story arc was also used to explain Superman's two month absence. In the movie we don't get Bizarro and Superman's two month disappearance was changed to him finding a planet for the bottled city of Kandor and the reason for taking so long was because of his declining health.

One of the more iconic moments from the comics, was when Superman stopped a young girl from committing suicide. This moment sadly didn't happen in the movie. This is one of those instances where I wished a scene didn't get removed.

There are also many other changes, and you can find them yourselves by finding the comic online and also watching the movie online or retail. Whichever you prefer. But that's all for now. Come back on Thursday, May 23rd, for my Classic Film Night review of the Stanley Kubrick classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

IF Review

 

IF is a live-action/animated fantasy comedy movie, that's produced by Sunday Night Productions and Maximum Effort and distributed by Paramount Pictures. IF is written and directed by John Krasinski.

The story is, a young girl named Bea is going through a rough time in her life and then out of nowhere she can all of sudden see imaginary friends ('IFs" for short). She also learns her neighbor Cal has the same ability. Together they decide to team up and help these lost friends reunite with their former kids.

Initial Reaction

The reason for wanting to see IF was because I was curious what John Krasinski was going to do. Obviously this is very different from his A Quiet Place movies. Also, the whole thing with the imaginary friends did remind me bit of Cartoon Network's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

One gray area was the humor. I'll admit sometimes I was just watching in complete silence, but there still were some funny moments. Like how one imaginary friend who's a glass of water almost got drank out of. Then there's the characters. Our main character, Bea has this really rediscovery story. Cal doesn't get too much development, but he is entertaining enough to forgive that. The weakest definitely went to the imaginary friends. Don't get me wrong or anything, I still liked them, but they could've used more. Like we heard how much they miss their kids, but we didn't dive anymore deeper than that.

Pros

First thing goes to the performances, mainly from Cailey Fleming and Ryan Reynolds. Now I don't recall watching anything with Cailey in it. I heard years ago she played Judith Grimes in The Walking Dead, but I haven't watched that show in the longest time so I can't say anything. But what I can say about her in this movie was she's pretty good. She was great in the more happier moments, but was also really good for the more sadder stuff. I hope she gets more work after this, because she truly did good. Then there's Reynolds, typically he plays a smartass. Not here though. Sure he still has his charm, but the character he's playing this time around could be quite the grump. While I'll always enjoy him playing the smartass, seeing him in a role like this was a nice change of pace. Now typically I hate the phrase "Fun for the whole family", because sometimes that's just not the case. Sometimes a movie is strictly made for kids, not with this. I truly think this is something the whole family will enjoy. The kids will love the more whacky and colorful things, while the adults can look forward to aspect of the story where we realize at some point in our life we for one reason or another let go of our imagination. When we shouldn't have, because an imagination can be a great thing to have.

While IF does have flaws, I actually felt like there was passion put into this and wasn't something just thrown together by the studios to make a quick buck.

My final rating is, Good.

That's all for now. Come back on Monday, May 20th, for a brand new Differences Between. This time around I'll be tackling All-Star Superman. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Review

 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a sci-fi action movie. It serves as a standalone sequel to War for the Planet of the Apes, making it the fourth film in the reboot series, but also the tenth movie in the Planet of the Apes franchise. It's produced by Oddball Entertainment, Jason T. Reed Productions, and TSG Entertainment and distributed by 20th Century Studios. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is written by Josh Friedman and directed by Wes Ball.

The story is, generations have passed after the events of War, during this time apes have become the dominant species and humans have become primitive. One day ape Noa and orangutan Raka meet a human female named Mae who is nothing like the humans they know. They want to help her on her journey, but in order to do so they must survive Proximus Caesar and his army.

Initial Reaction

Now while I was looking forward to this movie I still had my doubts. Because the previous trilogy was beautifully done and had a perfect ending. So I was going into this movie 50% excited and 50% worried.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

My only slight problem with Kingdom was there are times when things can be slow. Now there's nothing wrong with that in the grand scheme of things, especially if a more slowed down moment let's us catch a breath and do things like character and/or world building. Here maybe just a tiny pick up would've helped.

Pros

One pro is Proximus Ceasar. While we sadly don't get much of him, what we do see isn't too bad. If the Ceasar part of his name isn't obvious enough, yes, he does know of Ceasar's way, but Proximus is a narcissistic cult leader. So he's taken the original Caesar's teachings and twisted them to suit his needs. It's some really good villainous behavior. Then there's the special effects. While I have taken some issues with this reboot's CGI over the course of reviewing these films to get to Kingdom, here, not too much. I think the VFX artist this time around perfectly nailed it. Now to turn the attention towards Wes Ball. I'll fully admit I didn't see a single one of his previous movies, those being The Maze Runner flicks. So I went into movie not knowing what I'd expect unless it was in the trailers and TV spots. And I gotta say Wes Ball did a really good job. There's plenty of beautiful landscapes, and there's this one shot where Noa is talking to someone in front of a destroyed bridge and the sun is setting. It's a really nice shot even if you find it very simple. The last thing I'll touch upon is the story. This was my biggest concern for this movie. I feared all it was gonna be is lazy story with the only goal being to grab some cash. Thankfully that wasn't the case, far from it actually. While the story is about Noa helping Mae, the story also has a theme of trust. Noa doesn't know if he can trust Mae and vice versa. So when these two finally meet, go on their journey, and then work together for a common goal, there's always this tension throughout. And then there's the ending. We by no means get a happy ending or even a bittersweet ending, instead you're actually left in fear of what's gonna happen next. Pretty appropriate given the story we got.

While Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes isn't perfect, I am breathing a sigh of relief that it was far better than what I thought it was gonna be.

My final rating is, Good.

That's going to do it for me. Come back on Saturday, May 18th, for my review of Ryan Reynolds' newest movie, IF. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Thoughts on David Corenswet's Superman Suit

On Monday, May 6th, James Gunn released a picture of David Corenswet in the Superman suit that he'll be wearing in the upcoming Superman (fka Superman: Legacy). There were my opinions on the design thrown out, and tonight, I'm gonna give mine.

So first off, let me show you what the suit looks like. Here it is folks, the suit we're gonna see in the upcoming film.

So there's a few things to take in, but before I get into the suit, let's talk about that background. This along with other things was just getting dragged. Some say it looked A.I. (which I currently find to an overused insult) and others made jokes saying Goku and Vegeta are fighting. My thought is, yeah this isn't a good background. I have no idea what this beam is suppose to be, some have said maybe it's Brainiac, but nothing's be confirmed or hinted at. Honestly, it looks like they just took a stock image and slapped it on at the last minute.

Then there's the pose, I understand they wanted to do something different cause the last two images we these.

You got Brandon Routh doing a classic pose and Henry Cavill looking like he's in a fight, but with Corenswet, it looks like he's bored or depressed. Which is funny consider that last one is what Cavill's Superman was called. So yeah, I just don't understand why this pose, it just seems more like a cosplay photoshoot, then something for a big budget movie. And expectedly yet still funnily enough, because of this pose the image got memed.

First let's start off with the upper half of the suit. Now at first I wasn't really big on them using the Kingdom Come logo, cause that symbol is more connected to an older Superman, not a younger one, but I've grown to like it. Then there's those lines on the suit. That's very New 52 inspired, and for any of you that don't understand what I'm talking about, back in 2011, DC Comics rebooted their entire universe, meaning new everything including costumes. That was no different for Superman, and here was his New 52 suit.

Like I said, you see some New 52 in there with the lines and the neck collar. Which I find cool (probably one of the few Superman fans who actually likes that suit). Although I think they over did it with the lines around shoulders and a bit too much on the arms. And I'm also not liking how wrinkled it looks at the shoulders and stomach. Christopher Reeve's suit might have done that but not to this extent and his suit was actually made out of cloth.

Now let's move on to the lower half. Well I like the boots, the boots look good. But if you zoom in, you'll noticed we've got...red trunks....yay. Yeah I'm probably gonna lose my fan credit for this, but I've never been a fan of the red trunks. I didn't like them as kid whether it was in the comics or with Justice League & Justice League Unlimited, and I don't like them as an adult. I hate them even more because almost everybody treats the trunks like they're the most iconic part of Superman's costume, when no. The most iconic parts are the S shield and the cape. Speaking of the cape, that's also looking great, much like the boots, I also like the cape.

So overall this first look was a mixed bag. There's things to like, but there's also things to criticize. So my feelings on this are, meh. But you knows, maybe despite being HIGHLY skeptical about James Gunn's upcoming Superman movie along with his whole DC cinematic universe, hopefully everything will look better on film.

That's all for now. Come back on Saturday, May 11th, for my review of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch - The Final Season Review

 

Well, here we are. The final season of The Bad Batch.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an animated sci-fi series and the spin-off/sequel to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It's produced by Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm Animation and distributed by Disney Platform Distribution. This final season consist of 15 episodes, and it was created by Dave Filoni.

The story is, last season Omega was captured by the Empire. Now, Clone Force 99 sets out to get her back. While they'll face dangerous enemies both from crime lords and the Empire, they'll face anyone and do anything to get her back.

• Negatives

I've got nothing.

• Mix

One gray area is the pacing. There are a few times when taking things slow works, but I did feel like something, such some of the set up to action, could've been a bit faster.

• Positives

One good, or as I should say, one great thing about the final season is the performances. I've said that before in my reviews for season one and two, but here, Dee Bradley Baker and Michelle Ang really went full force, primarily in the series finale. Which I'll touch on later.

Then there's the character development. We did get that here and there in the last two seasons, with season three other than a action, and the Empire storyline, the character development felt like a major focus, which I loved. We even get character development for people I wasn't expecting, like Emerie Karr. I thought at first they weren't really gonna do anything special with her, but no, she also gets good character development.

The last thing I'll praise is, we've got a storyline, with no annoying filler! That was always the issue people had with the previous seasons. We're given this big story arc, but next thing we know we're on a side quest. Here, that's not the case. The story is great through and through. And what I forgot to write in my review of season two is, even if you do do a filler episode, make it worth something as supposed to nothing. Cause filler can help with previously mentioned character development, chemistry with characters, and world building. Hell, Avatar: The Last Airbender had filler but it did those three things I just listed. And this season did that. Going back to Emerie she got a really good episode ("Identity Crisis"), where she's relating to the "specimen". That is filler done right. But when that's not happening we're getting good stories with of course The Bad Batch. One great example is Crosshair. We got his redemption arc, and we see him going through PTSD and see how that's effecting his sniper skills. Then there's the finale. That was great. We got brotherhood, family, and etc. We've got get stakes, and we got, and I'm not spoiling it, but we got a touching moment between Hunter and Omega, along with a good send-off to Omega. I don't think it's as good as the final episode of The Clone Wars, but it was still a great thing to watch.

While you're more than likely to find issues, I felt this was a great season, even if it's sadly the final one.

My final rating is, Great.

Those were my thoughts. Due come back on Thursday, May 9th, where I'll be giving my thoughts on David Corenswet's Superman suit. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

The Fall Guy Review

 

The Fall Guy is an action comedy movie loosely based on the 1980s tv series of the same name. It's produced by 87North Productions and Entertainment 360 and distributed by Universal Pictures. The Fall Guy is written by Drew Pearce and directed by David Leitch.

The story is, after blaming himself for a stunt gone wrong, stuntman Colt Seavers abandons both his career and girlfriend Jody. Eighteen months later, Colt is soon brought to Jody's movie set for production on her first film, Colt soon finds out that's not the true reason why he's here. His actual job is to find the movie's main star and bring him back or the movie will be canceled. The more Colt searches, the more he learns there's something else going on.

Initial Reaction

My reason is the exact same as Bullet Train. David Leitch has been doing an amazing job with the action genre, so wanted to see what he did with this.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

Now there's plenty of times when the movie is pretty funny. But you do have some jokes that aren't bad, there just more in the okay category.

Pros

One thing that works is the pacing. The Fall Guy clocks in at 2hrs and 5min, yet it really didn't feel that way. It felt like it was only an hour, maybe even shorter than that. Then we have the action. I know big surprise I'm praising David Leitch for action, but if it's done right you should praise it. Anyhow, the action is not only exciting, but can also be very funny. It was a blast to watch. I think my favorite might have been the finale. Because it incorporated both physical fights, but also had the fictional stunt crew use their props and explosive equipment as weaponry. Then there's the story. No, there's nothing sophisticated or something to analysis for your big college essay, but it's simple fun. You get an entertaining love story, something fun with seeing how the crew is making their movie, and of course a fun little mystery. The last thing I'll credit is Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. They had really good chemistry together, and you almost buy them being couple who broke up but are now trying to patch things up.

While not perfect, I still really dug The Fall Guy, maybe if you're planning to see this maybe you'll enjoy this too.

My final rating is, Good.

I just realized something, but this movie was a full circle moment for David Leitch. He started out as a stuntman and now he's made a movie about a stuntman. That's all for now. Come back on Monday, May 6th, for my review of the final season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch. I know today would've been perfect given it's May the 4th Be with You, but I was looking forward to this movie more. That's probably a blasphemous thing to say given I'm a Star Wars fan, but it's the honest truth. Anyways, until then, enjoy the rest of your day.