So as I focused more on my writing these days and less on gaming, I have fallen into a pattern of writing during the day and watching films and TV shows in the evening. Anyone who follows this blog knows I like to do something called Rants & Raves: Quickies which collects all my reviews and normally after I see it; I leave a quick review. Like Snap chat tho, none of these reviews are archived after I update it... until now. I will repost all my thoughts about all the media I have watched this month and I'll use my LIST blog format to rate them from my least to my favorite. I also give them my typical rating of RAVE, Rave, OKAY, Okay, RANT which goes from the highest to the lowest rating. Without more to say.
8. The Predator - 6.5/10 - Okay
On certain days; my bottom 2 are actually inter-changeable. I, however remembered how much I disliked how much of the key Predator lore was changed with this film and the whole scene when the kid was wearing the Predator helmet took it over the top as my least favorite. The supporting cast was not needed and while Sterling K Brown is an amazing actor (more on him later) he was really working with what he had with this film and it was not much. The ending was weird and obvious sequel bait which it did not need.
Shane Black is a good director, unlike some people I like his approach to Iron Man 3 and the fact he was part of the original film and he made the film like this? Nope. Not only this is the bottom of my list, this film gets the second lowest possible rating from me and my least favorite Predator film in the entire franchise and yes that includes both Alien vs Predator movies. Move over AvP: Requiem, we have a new stinker to occupy your spot. Thank goodness for the course correction by Prey because if The Predator was where the franchise was heading, it would have been only downhill from here.
7. The Old Guard 2 - 6.5/10 - Okay
I will happily admit I enjoyed The Old Guard. It is a solid 8/10 film with interesting world-building, likeable characters and a strong female lead in Charlize Theron. I remembered how excited I was when the sequel was finally announced and given a release date. I told my wife we were so going to watch it opening weekend on Netflix. Unlike The Predator which I knew wasn't a great film after I watched it, my dis-like for The Old Guard 2 has increased over time. I initially gave it a 7.5 after I first viewed it and the score kept dropping.
What is wrong with this film? One of the people we thought was going to be the major antagonist (and rightfully so) was pushed aside for a big name and Uma's performance just felt phoned in. She truly was not a threat and all the time building up her up ended with a decent fight at the end and more sequel baiting again. What has happened to the art of telling a complete story? Much like The Predator, the supporting cast felt bloated and even the addition of an actor I like in Henry Golding, seemed to added just to be an exposition guy. The fight scenes which was a highlight of the first one seemed bare-boned in this one and the only real good fight was the un-armed between Andy (Charlize's character) and person who should have been the villain for this one, Quynh. On top of that, it seemed they filmed it as cliffhanger and from all the promotion press I have seen, a third one has not even been greenlit. It reminds me of a TV show purposely ending on a cliffhanger but it has not been renewed yet so they try to fish for interest and hope people change their minds and then renew it. I hate that. If you know the writing is on the wall for a project, just write with a finale in mind.
6. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom - 7.5/10 - Rave
Aquaman 2 was good. Very paint by the numbers and some cool scenes but it was not anything else. By MCU standards I would call it the 'Thor: The Dark World' type of film which itself is a very serviceable film but also pretty forgettable. Also funny is how much it shared with The Dark World, a powerful God-like hero but acts like a everyday man, a villain who never really exuded any real menace, a basic plot of waking a bigger evil and even the Thor and Loki half-brother dynamic revisited by Aquaman and own half-brother Orm.
On the rating scale, it was much better than the two movies above it and the actors all did a great job but you could tell this movie felt like it was filmed to fill a quota and some moments really slowed down the pace of it. It is sad to say, this was the film which ended the original DC film universe and it was a whimper not a bang.
5. The Hobbit (The Trilogy) - 8/10 - RAVE
This is a review for all three films of the Hobbit trilogy which I watched in one night. Yes, I was crazy to watch almost 9 hours of Middle-Earth but you can blame Amazon Prime because they are going to remove it from their service and I wanted to see it before it was too late.
I come to The Hobbit sharing a lot of thoughts that the fandom have, why 3 movies when the source is a short children's novel? Why the over-use of CGI when the original trilogy had much better creature design especially the Orcs. Why Legolas and his endless aura farming and taking time away from the actual characters from the novel?
I love the Lord of the Ring movies, they have a spot in my top 10 movies of all time. The Hobbit however was just... good. Almost great at times especially in the scenes with Smaug but this film just reeks of studio influence and now knowing now how Warner Bros. operates; greed. At time I lost interest with these films while I was still watching it which I have never done in any other Tolkein adaptions. I can't even blame the fact they got a different director because Peter Jackson came back and he still does a good job but I felt with a bit of restraint and sticking closer to the source material, these movies could have been another classic. As it stands, it was a good distraction for one night.
4. Alien Romulus - 8/10 - RAVE
Okay, now we actually get to the good stuff. Alien Romulus was really good. As a mild Alien fan (I have always preferred Predator more) I enjoyed the back to basics approach Romulus had. It functioned as a sci-fi film, it functioned as horror film and it functioned as a Alien film. Like Prey for Predator, Romulus understood the assignment and after stripping away all the excess of Prometheus and Covenant lore, we actually had a thrilling story with great co-leads in Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson. There is a scene in the film which maybe one of the best Alien-related scenes I have ever seen and is worth the price of admission alone. Some of the callbacks felt un-necessary and cheesy and I am happy they cleared the legalities behind a certain actor's appearance.
Based on this film, I am actually excited for Alien Earth and will actually give it a try now because I want more stories told in this world especially if they are done this well.
3. Superman - 8.5/10 - RAVE
Anyone who knows me knows I am a dedicated Marvel stan. 85% of the comics I read are Marvel. I love Marvel games, I love Marvel movies and I love Marvel characters. True story, I only watched this film because it was a part of a church outing. So I am saying all this to say, I really enjoyed this film. Like really, really. I loved how we basically skipped the origin story we have been told numerous times and we were dropped into the action of a already established Superman. He was already dating Lois and he had already revealed his identity to her. He has already made enemies and friends and we finally brought in elements we have never seen before. Here is Krypto! Here is the Engineer! Here is Mister Terrific and he was... Terrific. Mr. T stole the show and I know a lot of people agree with me. All the actors did a great job with one of the best portrayals of Lois, Jonathan and Ma Kent and Clark I have seen in awhile and Nicholas Hoult killing it as Lex especially after the last dismal attempt from the Social Network kid. This is the Lex we all signed up for.
The message was timely about acceptance and how all of us despite being called aliens by others are deep down, human. I love how anti-MAGA crowd this film was and not so subtle nods to other issues in the real world. James Gunn is going to be a core piece of the new DC film universe like how Kevin Feige was for Marvel and if this is what he has planned for us, I am impressed. Now lets hope DC keeps up the momentum and continued to put out good films like this one. Supergirl for example looks... interesting. Also it is ironic that I watched the end of the old DC universe and the birth of the new one in the same month.
2. The Sandman Season 2 - 8.5/10 - RAVE
So remember I said everything above about being a Marvel fan? Yes? So why is Sandman, a DC property my favorite comic book show outside of maybe Invincible. Well it is because it is really damn good. The first season of The Sandman was art and the second season kept the pace, mostly. It introduced the remaining cast of The Endless, Dream's eclectic family and each person was perfectly casted like Dream, Death and Desire. For once, a massive ensemble cast did not hurt a show, it helped it.
My only gripe is the first half of Season 2 felt much stronger to me compared to the second half. The second half did drag a bit for me and the final showdown with the Furies (don't call them that- watch the show and you'll get it) was rather anti-climatic. Also *SPOILERS* they went with the K-drama ending where the story ended just when it really picked up with the new Dream meeting his new/old family, something that was teased endlessly (pun intended) through out the episode and we just get a glimpse of it. Ugh. *SPOILERS*
1. Paradise Season 1 - 9/10 - RAVE
So me and my wife are big fans of the TV show This is Us. My wife calls it one of her favorite shows of all time and I definitely put it in my Top 5. One of the best parts of This is Us is the how well Dan Fogelman, the creator of the show understood Sterling K. Brown's strengths and he played to it. So when me and my wife heard that the two will be re-uniting for Paradise, we were hyped. Then the trailer dropped and we were even more hyped. We do not have Hulu tho so we had to wait for Disney Plus to air as part of their relationship with Hulu. Needless to say, when it became available, we devoured all the episodes in a couple nights and we were not disappointed.
Part thriller, part cautionary tale, part murder mystery and filled with some incredible acting , this is the best TV show I have watched this year. I do not want to spoil it because it is still a relatively new show so people are still getting into it but when I say 2 episodes of this show top my favorite episodes of a TV of all time, I am not lying. If you watched you will know what one of the episodes is because everyone has said the same thing. I will not say much more because I want people to enjoy with the same fresh eyes I did, however, have no doubt, this is my favorite show for July and possibly the year so far.
AV
