New Year's Eve 2023 Recap
Well everyone, we made it through this year mostly and alive. Sure, there were low points as there are every year, but compared to the last three years, this was pretty good all things considered. Now, it's time to finally say goodbye to 2023, and what better way to do that than discuss all of the movies that I saw this year. I saw about 12 movies this year until the year's end, and I managed to see about 9 of them in theaters, which is way more than the last three years.
I wrote individual reviews for about 7 of them, which you can read on DeviantART or on my new blog. Yes, that's right. I managed to fulfill my New Year's resolution from last year to create my own website. I mean, it's not exactly a full website, it's just a blog, but it's something. At least, I can post my writings somewhere other than DeviantART, and can gain wider audience hopefully.
I really don't know which movies are coming out next year other than Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Dune Part II, Transformers One, Civil War, Ballerina 🩰 maybe, that weird cat spy movie 🐈⬛ from Matthew Vaughn called Argylle, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, The Garfield Movie, the Mad Max prequel/spin-off, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (yes, they really did just make another one 😒), Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web 🕸️, a pointless sequel to Joker with a really stupid and pretentious title, Joker: Folie à Deux, and that Beekeeper 🐝 movie with Jason Statham.
Oh, and Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, the second part to Zack Snyder's space opera epic, that's coming out next year, along with the R rated cut of the first part, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire. I have not seen that movie yet, but I will see it and write a review in time for Part Two. Hopefully, there are some good ones next year like there were this year. Which ever movies I end up seeing, I'll be sure to write about them in the New Year's Eve recap for 2024. With that out of the way, let's get on with it. Please keep in mind that I wrote a lot of these in advance, right after I saw them in a lot of instances. So, if I got something wrong, or if I said something that's out of date, then that's why.
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Plane ✈️🇵🇭
The first new movie I saw in 2023 was a little action movie called Plane ✈️🇵🇭. It starred Gerard Butler and was produced by him too. He had a lot more creative control over this movie than I even realized, which I learned about after I watched the special features on the Blu-Ray 💿. Now, Gerard Butler has become quite an action star ⭐️ over the past decade. He used to mostly be known for romcoms ❤️ and 300.
But, ever since Olympus Has Fallen, he's been starring in a bunch of mid-to-low budget action movies 💵 of varying quality, theatrical and direct-to-video 📀💿; that includes both sequels to Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, and Angel Has Fallen. In fact, I think the biggest budgeted movie he starred in after Olympus Has Fallen was Geostorm, and that movie was a box office disappointment. So, he's been just sticking with what has worked for him so far. He's kind of like Liam Neeson in that way.
Now, normally, I wouldn't have gone to see a movie like this, especially not during January, which is when this came out; it came out on January 13, 2023. I only decided to see it because my grandma and I wanted to see a movie in theaters, and this one was the only one that even remotely interesting. And boy, we were both pleasantly surprised 😁. This is a really good movie 👍. It's suspenseful, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it makes really want to root for the good guys, and see them succeed, which is something that a lot of action movies these days struggle to do.
You just want this pilot, and all these passengers to get off of this island, and get back home to their families safely. It helps that the pilot, Gerard Butler's character, Brodie Torrance is a really likable guy and a really good leader. If they had made him an unlikable asshole like a lot of movie airline pilots tend to be, this movie wouldn't have worked nearly as well. I also liked that Gerard Butler used his real Scottish accent 🏴 for this role. He usually has to put on an American accent 🇺🇸, but in this movie, he gets to use his real voice basically.
Mike Colter was also really good in the movie. He was a great partner and foil to Gerard Butler, like they start out as enemies, and distrust each other because Mike Colter's character, Louis Gaspare is a convict being transported on the plane ✈️; and is later revealed to be a former Legionnaire. But, over time, over the course of these events, they learn to trust each other and depend on each other, and become true partners, in saving the passengers and making sure they get out of there safely.
Despite the fact that the movie takes place in the Philippines 🇵🇭 and deals with Islamic terrorists ☪️ (presumably), it wasn't as political as I was expecting it to be. From watching the trailer, I thought this movie was going to be a much more politically driven movie and was going to be a repudiation of Islamic terrorism ☪️ in the Philippines 🇵🇭. But, it wasn't that. I don't think they even specify whether the bad guys in the movie are Islamic militants ☪️ or not.
But, they are separatists, and they control an island in the southern part of the country that is under the control of an ISIS-affiliated Islamic terrorist group ☪️ called Abu Sayyaf in real life; or at the very least, it's used as a headquarters for Abu Sayyaf. And they take hostages, and hold them ransom, and then kill them if they don't get the ransom they want. So, I assume they're supposed to be apart of the same group. But, the movie never gets into the ideology of these separatist guys, or what they motivates are behind holding the passengers of the plane ✈️ hostage for ransom, or even how they came to rule over Jolo in the first place.
This movie doesn't teach the audience anything about Islamic terrorism ☪️ in the Philippines 🇵🇭 or Southeast Asia as a whole, or try convince the audience that Islamic fundamentalism ☪️ and Salafism is bad; that's beyond the scope of the movie. The only real takeaways are that the Philippines 🇵🇭 is a lot more dangerous and complicated than most Westerners think. At least, if you go into the southern islands of the country, which are Muslim majority ☪️; the Christian parts ✝️ of the country in the northern islands are a lot more safe and peaceful. Oh, and the Filipino military 🇵🇭 is slow and incompetent, and is unwilling to save the stranded crew and passengers of a crashed plane ✈️ that landed on one of their islands just because it happens to be controlled by terrorists. That's the other big takeaway of this movie.
But, speaking of the Philippines 🇵🇭, it should be noted that this movie was not actually shot there. It was actually shot in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷, a US territory 🇺🇸 vying for statehood. My guess for why the movie was shot there, and not the actual Philippines 🇵🇭 is that it was cheaper to shoot there than the real Philippines 🇵🇭 would've been; the movie only had a budget of $25 million 💵 after all.
Which is ironic because the Philippines 🇵🇭 used to be the "cheap location" for low or mid budget movies to shoot in, in the 1970s and 80s. It used as a stand-in for Vietnam 🇻🇳 in a lot of Vietnam War movies 🇻🇳 of that era. Now, in this movie, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 is the "cheap location" being used as a stand-in for the Philippines 🇵🇭. I guess they must've thought that Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 was hot and jungle-y 🥵🌴 enough to convincingly be passed off as the Philippines 🇵🇭, I mean, it is an island after all.
The movie uses its smaller budget well, and never looks or feels cheap, except for the number of passengers on the plane ✈️. But, I feel that's a matter of the filmmakers wanting to have a smaller cast of characters for the audience to latch onto, and get to know. If the plane ✈️ had hundreds of people like on a real flight, then it would be difficult to make the audience care because there are just way too many people to pay off and try to get to know. With this more reduced number of passengers, the audience can really get to know them, and the filmmakers can cut down on costs, win/win 😁.
I was actually surprised at how many people online actually liked this movie. After I saw this movie, I was under the impression that this would be one of those movies that I would like, but everyone on the Internet would hate. But no, everyone else online seems to like it as much as I do. The Wikipedia page for the movie says that it received mostly positive reviews from critics, and all of the review I've seen of the movie were also fairly positive.
A lot of critics said that this movie was like a 90s action movie, a throwback to a bygone age of action movies, and I tend to agree with that assessment. Not very people are making these low budget or mid budget action movies anymore, especially as the movie landscape has become fully dominated by superhero comic book movies, and by other big budget franchise movies. Gerard Butler is one of the few guys still making them. Thank goodness for him 🫡.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 🐜
Next is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the first of three MCU movies released this year. Oh boy...Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where do you even begin with this one? Like, does this one even need any introduction? This movie was supposed to open Phase 5 with a bang, introducing us to the new big bad of the franchise, Kang the Conqueror. Instead, it opened Phase 5 with a dud. Not only did this movie underperform big time at the box office, only raking in $476.1 million 💵 against its $200 million budget 💵 😞 (Marvel was probably expecting and hoping that it to make a billion 💵), but it was also panned by critics, audiences, and fans alike 👎. It has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 critic score of any MCU movie thus far, at a dismal 46%, not that I care that much about Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 in the first place. It is widely considered to be one of the worst MCU movies ever made, along with the likes of Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 (I know Iron Man 3 isn't considered a bad MCU movie by most people, but it is to me), Avengers: Age of Ultron, Eternals, and Thor: Love and Thunder.
I mean, I enjoyed the movie well enough when I saw it. Maybe, that's just down to me not having watched an MCU movie in a long time. But, looking back on it...yeah, this movie is pretty bad, and it could've a whole lot better. I was actually intrigued to see this movie from the trailers. The entire marketing of the movie was built around Kang, and how much of a threat he is. He was said to be the biggest threat the Avengers had ever faced since Thanos, in fact, he was a bigger threat than Thanos. I remember reading the Wikipedia page where they said that what Iron Man/Tony Stark was to heroes in the MCU, Kang would be to villains in the MCU. And I'll admit, I fell for it. It got me pumped.
So, I saw the movie, and it was underwhelming 😑. Kang is supposed to the biggest threat to the multiverse, one of the most powerful and unstoppable beings in the MCU, and yet, he's taken out by a bunch of ants 🐜 😑. Sure, they were giant, human-sized, super-intelligent ants 🐜, but still, this is supposed to be the next big bad of the MCU. You can't have him be easily defeated by giant ants 🐜. So, underwhelming and embarrassing. The threat level and menace is now all gone. How we supposed to care or fear this guy in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty? I know I sure don't. I'll probably skip out on that movie anyway when it comes out.
They should've had Kang win at the end, and the movie end on a dour note, instead of having him and his army get defeated by Scott Lang, the Quantum Realm rebels, Casey Lang, and Hank Pym's ant army 🐜; I still can't believe that's actually a thing. The trailers made it seem like Scott might actually lose the fight with Kang, like there's that line, "I don't have to win. We both just have to lose." That line is still in the movie, but it rings hollow because Scott ultimately defeats Kang in the end, and gets out of the Quantum Realm safe and sound. If they really didn't want Kang to win in the end, they should just had him stay trapped in Quantum Realm, but at the cost of Scott Lang. Like, Scott should've been trapped in the Quantum Realm with Kang, while the others managed to escape. That way that line about them needing to both lose would've actually meant something, instead of it just being there for the trailers.
That's another thing, the trailers were incredibly misleading. I know that's not necessarily a new thing. MCU trailers have always been kind of misleading, but the trailers for this movie were especially misleading. They made it seem like the movie was going to be about Scott making a deal with Kang to go back in time, and relive all the years that he missed with his daughter, and all the consequences that come with making such a deal with a guy like Kang. Like, it was essentially Scott making a deal with the devil to be the one with he loves most, his daughter. That sounds interesting, that has potential. But no, it was all a lie.
What the movie's actually about is that Scott and the gang get trapped in the Quantum Realm thanks to Casey's new invention that allows to you communicate with people in the Quantum Realm malfunctioning; yes, Casey is a super genius who can invent devices that can communicate with the Quantum Realm; I did not realize that super genius kids was like a common trope in the MCU, but I guess it is. They all get separated, and try to navigate their way through the confusing and inconsistent world of the Quantum Realm until they all kind of bump into Kang and his goons.
Kang then forces Scott to retrieve this device that Janet grew so that Kang couldn't use it anymore. Hope tries to stop Scott from doing this, but Kang gets the device anyway. He opens a portal to the atomic world, as in our world 🌎, but Scott and the gang assemble an army of all the Quantum Realm rebels that they met to stop him. And the rest of the movie is just your typical bland cookie-cutter MCU action sequence. They all fight until all of the bad guys die, and everyone gets back to the regular-sized world safe and sound, and they live happily ever after...for now. There's also a mid-credit scene that shows the Council of Kangs, and a whole stadium of other Kangs since the Kang in this movie was killed. And there's also an after-credit scene, which I didn't see, which is just a clip from the Loki show, yawn 🥱!
I have never seen a more egregious bit of false advertising in a really long time. They sold us a completely different movie than what was actually released in theaters. And I don't think it's matter of there being an alternate cut or anything. They just lied to us in the trailer, they made it all up. Still, the movie shown in the trailer looks and sounds way more interesting than the one that debuted in theaters on February 17, 2023.
I also did not know that Casey was recast. I didn't see Avengers: Endgame, so I just figured that Casey was played by the same actress that was she was played by in that movie. But, as it turns out, no, she's played by a completely different actress in this movie than she was in Endgame. I don't know why they did that. Maybe, the other actress didn't pan out, or wasn't good enough in their eyes, or maybe she just didn't want to return. But, the fact that they recast Casey makes it even more baffling why they decided to keep Jonathan Majors on as Kang.
If you didn't know, Jonathan Majors got into some controversy when he was arrested and charged with domestic abuse, like he was beating up his girlfriend or something. As you can imagine, that put his future in the MCU into question. Would they fire him? Would they recast the part? As it turned out, no, they decided to keep him on because I guess he was cleared of all charges or whatever. Just like how Kevin Spacey was by that one British court 🇬🇧⚖️ 🙃. Why they do that? It's not like Jonathan Majors is irreplaceable. He's perfectly replaceable, they all are. They demonstrated this by recasting Casey, a pivotal part of the Ant-Man 🐜saga. I mean, some people didn't even like his performance as Kang, so it's not like he would be missed. I liked his performance. I thought he did fine with what he was given, but I still wouldn't be broken up about it if he were recast.
Casey is probably one of the worst aspects of the movie. They made her into more of blazing activist type in this movie. Like, when we first meet her, she's in jail before using the Pym particle abilities on some cops that were trying to enforce a protest 🪧 or something like that. Then later on, when they're in the Quantum Realm, she decides to help out the rebels as she sympathizes with their plight, without really knowing anything about them or their cause in anyway.
I get that they wanted Casey to a really good person who does the right thing no matter what, even others around question her. But, the way it was executed just made her seem kind of obnoxious. Like, when that rebel encampment was being attacked, and Scott was trying to get her to run, she kept disobeying him, and kept wanting to fight. And the fact that she's the one who redeems M.O.D.O.K. AKA Darren Cross makes it even worse. Like, she just tells him to stop being a dick, and that's enough to turn him to the side of good 🤦♂️.
Speaking of M.O.D.O.K., oh man, where to even begin with him? Everyone seems to agree that this was a poor adaptation of the character, completely misses the point of the character, and ruins everything that made him remotely cool or interesting in the first place. The fact that they decided to make him Darren Cross is a bit baffling. I get that they wanted to conclude Darren's character arc, and bring some closure to that, but did they really have to make him M.O.D.O.K.? They could've just kept him as Yellowjacket, and I don't think anyone would've minded. Or better yet, just keep Darren dead, instead of retconning him into being alive. It probably would've been better if M.O.D.O.K. was a separate character from Darren.
On top of that, they also turn him into the butt of jokes (no pun intended). Like, they make him a comedic funny guy who's always quipping, and doing something stupid and silly. And the other characters always make fun of him, mostly for the fact that he's Darren Cross. Like, there's this running joke in the movie about how everyone who knew Darren Cross is surprised that he's M.O.D.O.K. now. There's nothing threatening or imposing at him whatsoever. And his design doesn't help matters either. He looks pretty terrible. I mean, he looks cool with his mask on, but with mask on, it's just, no way. The CGI on his face looks awful. It just goes into this Uncanny Valley way too deep. And like I said, all it takes for him to switch side to the side of the heroes is Casey telling him to not be a dick, and then he dies. What a waste 😑.
On last thing, I heard that this movie was written by a writer from Rick & Morty, and boy can you tell. Especially all the stuff with that one mind-reading guy ♂︎ and that red gelatinous guy that's always talking about holes (way too much about holes), and had a red liquid inside of him that allows people from the normal-sized world (the atomic world I guess ⚛️) to understand people from the Quantum Realm. That guy was probably the most annoying character in the movie for me, and I wish he had died, but he didn't, and we got to hear him talk more about holes. I gave up on Rick & Morty a long time ago, so the fact that a Rick & Morty writer was brought on to write this just makes glad that I stopped watching that show when I did.
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Update:
Actually, yes, it did turn out that Marvel Studios (AKA Disney) did ultimately decide to fire Jonathan Majors after he was found guilty of domestic abuse or physical assault or something like that in the court of law ⚖️🧑⚖️ earlier this month or last month. So now, they've got no actor to play Kang anymore. Whether they'll recast the part, or completely write him out, and change course, I don't know. But, this development has put a hamper on their plans for Phase 5 and probably Phase 6 too. Like, if it were me, I would just move on from the Kang character entirely. Don't even bother with recasting. It's not like Kang was even that good of a villain any way, and Quantumania definitely proved that without a shadow of a doubt.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
The next movie I saw was Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. This movie is notable because it was Josh Harnett's big comeback as an actor. People like to say that Oppenheimer was his comeback movie, but no, this was, it came out first. He hadn't been in a movie in a very long time, and this movie was his big return to the world of acting. He was great in this movie, as the bumbling and hapless movie star ⭐️, Danny Francesco, who gets pulled into this adventure because Fortune and the other spies need to infiltrate Greg Simmons's charity party, and needed him to get on his good side, so they can infiltrate his villa in Turkey 🇹🇷 to get even more information about the item they're after, the Handle. It's a ruse de guerre, which is a French phrase 🇫🇷 meaning "ruse of war," they're trying take down Greg Simmons and his foil his evil schemes with deception and elaborate trickery. That's why the movie's called Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre.
And as it turns about the thing that they were looking for, the Handle is this AI that can disable security systems I guess. I don't remember exactly what the Handle did, and even after reading the Wikipedia page, I'm still not exactly clear on what it actually does. It's a macguffin, and the bad guys want it so that they can collapse the global financial system, and enrich themselves in the process 🤑; because I guess they bought a bunch of gold reserves to stave off the collapse when it happens, at least from what I remember.
So, not good, and our heroes have to stop them. But, speaking of AI, Aubrey Plaza's character uses an AI program to disguise Fortune (Jason Statham's character)'s voice so that he can he intercept the deal, and steal the Handle with the buyers being none the wiser; which is something that people have used AI (or to be more accurate, language model programs) for, to recreate someone's voice, and have it be indistinguishable from the real thing. So, this movie is topical in that way.
This movie is just fun. It's just a really a fun movie that you can sit back, and have a good time. Guy Ritchie brings his signature slick comedic and action style, and it works perfectly in this movie. This is the second Guy Ritchie movie I've seen. The first one I ever saw was The Man from U.N.C.L.E., that movie based on a 60s TV show starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer. I really enjoyed that movie, and I really enjoyed that movie. I know that people were kind of starting to doubt Guy Ritchie because he directed that King Arthur movie, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and directed the 2019 live action remake of Aladdin, you know, the one with Will Smith as the Genie 🧞♂️. No body really liked either of those movies, even though Aladdin (2019) did make $1 billion 💵 at the worldwide box office 🤑.
But, this movie is back to Guy Ritchie true to form. He really excels at these crime and spy comedies. And funnily enough, I actually thought that this movie was going to be a crime movie. Like, I thought it was going to be heist movie of some kind, but then it turned out to be a spy movie 😄, a really good spy movie. Jason Statham was awesome in this movie, you really can't go wrong with him; unless you're Uwe Boll of course. I mean, his character, Fortune is not really a character, like he's just playing himself. Like, he's just Jason Statham, and there's really no point in calling him by his character's name in this movie, even though his character's name is in the title. Fortune really isn't all that different from Jason Statham's other characters, whether that be the Transporter guy, or Turkish from Snatch, or Nick Wild from Wild Card, or John Crawford from War (2007), or Chev Chelios from the Crank movies, Deckard Shaw from the Fast & Furious franchise, or Lee Christmas from the Expendables franchise, or Jonas Taylor from the Meg 🦈 movies.
I guess you could say that Fortune is more of a diva and more "high maintenance" compared to his other characters, like he always has to fly on private jets 🛩️, he has to drink the most expensive wine 🍷, and he always has to have a paid vacation 💷. Like, he's determined to bleed the UK 🇬🇧's coffers dry 💷 in to suit his own needs and make himself comfortable. He's using taxpayer money 💷 to live in luxury. He gets mad at his boss, Nathan (Cary Elwes) for interrupting his vacation in Morocco 🇲🇦 when hires him to go on the mission to locate and retrieve the Handle.
That's another thing too, Fortune isn't actually a spy working directly for the British government 🇬🇧, like he isn't a member of MI6 or MI5. He's actually a contractor that's hired by Britain 🇬🇧's intelligence department to carry out missions that MI6 doesn't really want to do themselves. So, he's basically a mercenary. Or at least, that's the sense I got from watching the movie because they talk about how they had to hire him, and Nathan was trying to persuade him with patriotism, but it wasn't working. Why would they need to hire him or entice him to be more patriotic if he already an official government spy? Plus, his main rival in the movie is also a mercenary, and it's very clear that they're in the same business, and they do similar things, even if the bad guy mercenary uses more unsavory methods, and turns out to be evil in the end.
Fortune upset when that one hacker he liked on the team was replaced with Aubrey Plaza's character, and he keeps harping about it for a while until he finally sees Aubrey Plaza's worth and accepts her a valuable member of the team; BTW, that other hacker he liked switched sides and join the bad guy mercenary's team. You almost get the sense that he doesn't want to go on these missions, and that all he wants to do is drink, and relax and do whatever he likes to do. He's one of the most reluctant spies I've ever seen in fiction.
Aubrey Plaza herself was a standout in this movie. As I've already quite alluded to, she's the tech girl ♀︎ of the group. She's the hacker, and the intel gatherer, and she can do all these amazing things on the computer 💻. Like, she's the one that finds dirt on Greg Simmons, which they all use to blackmail him into helping them to defeat the actual bad guys of the movie: these two Millennial Silicon Valley tech billionaires 🤑, and this mercenary guy ♂︎ that's rivals with Nathan and Fortune's team. She becomes one of the most indispensable members of the team. Without her, this mission would've completely fallen apart.
She's also the comedic relief, her and Josh Harnett, like she provides a lot of the laughs in this movie, all of the sarcastic quips, zingers, and sick burns 🔥. A lot of the fun of this movie was just seeing her interact with Fortune and Danny Francesco and banter with them, especially since Aubrey Plaza did confirm that her character has a crush on Fortune 😍, and a lot of her dialogue towards him in this movie is her attempts at flirting with him ❤️. And they do get together by the end, when they all ditch Nathan in Doha, and decide to go off on a paid vacation 💷, and then start a production company and start making movies in Hollywood with Danny as their main star ⭐️.
The supporting cast is pretty good too, like they also succeed at saying that snappy Guy Ritchie dialogue that we've come to expect, especially Cary Elwes and Hugh Grant, like Hugh Grant was great in this movie. I loved his character, Greg Simmons. He does a good job at playing that sleazy arms dealer that Greg Simmons is, and he makes him somehow oddly likable. I mean, Greg Simmons is not a good guy, like the movie makes it very clear that this guy's an asshole, and he's done a lot of terrible things.
But, the character's just so funny, that you can't help but like him. And he easy has the most badass moment in this movie when he threatens the two Silicon Valley tech bros, and just put them in their place while Fortune and the rest of the team wipe out all of their security detail on the outside. And the mid-credit scene where Danny recreates that scene, but in one of his movies while Greg watches is pretty funny also. So, I would definitely recommend this movie. If you just want to watch a movie to have a good time, you can't go wrong with this movie.
Also, you got to love how Guy Ritchie did all his interviews for the behind-the-scene featurettes on the Blu-Ray special features 💿 at the grill, like he's literally grilling steaks while he's talking about the movie, and the actors, and all the usual stuff you talk about in a behind-the-scene featurette. I'm sure a lot of Guy Ritchie fans who are really familiar with his work would say that's the most Guy Ritchie thing ever, or it's just Guy Ritchie being Guy Ritchie. I'm not that familiar with his work, I've only seen like three of his movies, and I don't know much about the man himself, so I wouldn't really be able to say. But, I thought it was pretty funny and cool 😄, I've never seen any other director do anything like that in behind-the-scenes documentaries or featurettes.
John Wick Chapter 4
This was a pretty good movie I would say. Was it overhyped? Yeah, definitely, but it was still a treat. I still like John Wick Chapter 2 over this one, but I do like this one more than John Wick Chapter 3 – Parabellum, my least favorite film of the series. Is the movie too long? Yes it is. 169 minutes (2 hours and 49 minutes) is way too long for a movie like this, especially one that's as thin on story and characters as this one. Like, no one really goes to see a John Wick movie for the story or the characters. The story and the characters aren't really all that important in a John Wick movie. Most people watch these movies just to see some cool, stylistic shootouts, some cool, stylistic and well choreographed martial arts fight scenes, and some satisfyingly gruesome deaths. And this movie gave us 2 hours and 49 minutes of that. It's a bit over indulgent.
This movie could've been a lot shorter than it was, like it could've just been 122 minutes (2 hours and 2 minutes), same length as John Wick Chapter 2, my favorite of the entire series, it would've been perfect. I feel they only made it as long as it is because it's the finale, and they think that finales have to be super long, even if there isn't much justification for it. Like, there aren't a bunch of character arcs and plot threads that need to be resolved, there aren't a bunch of loose ends that need to be tied up. There's just a bunch of action scenes that go on way longer than they probably needed to.
Like, the entire last third of this movie is just one big action scene, like it's John Wick trying to get to this church in Paris so he can duel with Donnie Yen's character (I don't remember what his character's name was), while the Marquis puts a bounty on him, and tries getting every assassin in the city to kill him. And John Wick is just gunning down all these assassins that keep coming after him, and the Marquis tries to throw more obstacles in his way to keep him from making it to the church. That whole sequence takes up the entire third act of the movie. Like, once they get to Paris and once the radio DJ announces the bounty on John Wick, it's nothing but action, nothing but shooting and fighting. Granted, the action is way better than the action in John Wick Chapter 3 – Parabellum, like the actual shootouts and fight scenes within the finale of this movie is better than the finale of Parabellum. But, it's still a bit long, and a bit too much, it gets exhausting after a while 🥱.
I didn't feel or notice this movie's length on my first viewing when I saw it in theaters. But, definitely felt the movie's length on my second viewing when I watched it on Blu-Ray 💿. I was nodding off constantly, I struggled to keep my eyes open, like my eye lids were just really heavy. I might have dozed off for a moment while watching the movie 😴, I don't remember. Maybe I was tired that night, but that shouldn't be a problem if this movie's actually engaging, and is the perfect length.
I think that whole middle section where John Wick is in Germany 🇩🇪, and is trying to get that "re-adopted" by his Russian "family" 🇷🇺, and is dealing with Scott Adkins in a fat suit is a bit less interesting. Like, when I was watching this movie for the second time on Blu-Ray 💿, and that scene came on with them playing cards ♠️♥️♣️♦️, I just kind of tuned out. I was even tuned out of that nightclub with all that water 💦 falling down, but I tuned back in when Scott Adkin's character fell down and broke his neck on the concrete below. That was nice. And as much as I like Japan stuff 🇯🇵, especially the stuff involving Hiroyuki Sanada, that went on a little too long as well, especially the fight scene where the Marquis's goons shoot up the place, and John Wick, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Hiroyuki Sanada's daughter fight back.
But, besides the over indulgent runtime, the movie is still really good, and the praise it got, for the most part, was well deserved. I kind of hope that they don't make anymore after, at least ones with John Wick. Like, if you really have to continue this franchise, just do those spin-offs, like that Ballerina 🩰 movie starring Ana de Armas that's coming out soon. Just don't bring back John Wick. He's dead, keep him dead, don't bring him back to life, or say that he faked his death. I would roll my eyes 🙄 if they did something like that to justify a John Wick Chapter 5. This is the finale 👇, let it be the finale, and move on.
Knock at the Cabin
I really did not like this movie at all. I watched the initial trailer, I thought it looked interesting, and I had high hopes that it would be good. Not just because of the cast, but also because of the director, M. Night Shyamalan. This was still kind of his comeback era, when people were starting to like him again, and when he was churning out movies and TV shows that people actually liked. Like, before this movie, he made a show for Apple TV+ called Servant, which also had Rupert Grint in it, and I heard genuinely good things about it. And I remember when the movie came out, people were raving about Dave Bautista, and how good he was in the movie.
So, I had high hopes, but as it turns out, my high hopes were misplaced. This is genuinely one of the most disappointing movies I've ever seen. I am so glad that I did not see this in the theater, otherwise I would've been more upset by this movie 😤. By the end of the movie, I was just sitting there, like "That's it? That's all we get?" Like, it just leaves you completely unsatisfied by the end. I feel like this movie would've been more interesting if the home invasion was a home invasion, and these people were just crazy, and weren't the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (spoiler alert ⚠️). By making these people right, and by making the apocalypse real, they made this movie significantly less interesting.
I don't how it was in the book 📖, because this movie is based on a book 📖. If the apocalypse is real in that book 📖, and the family still has to sacrifice one of their own to stop it, then I feel that the book 📖's probably uninteresting too. Even the whole sacrifice thing was a bit underwhelming and predictable. Like, of course Jonathan Groff was going to be the one that's sacrificed 🙄. They weren't going to kill the girl ♀︎, or the main guy ♂︎, it was always going to be Jonathan Groff because he's the disposable one. Like, of those three characters, Jonathan Groff is clearly the most disposable out of all of them.
I think that it would've been more surprising and more shocking if the main guy ♂︎ died, and Jonathan Groff's character survived along with the girl ♀︎. It would've made sense because the main guy ♂︎ is the one who was the skeptic the whole time, and doubted the Four Horsemen at every turn, and thought they were just crazy homophobic people 🚫🏳️🌈⚣. He's the one who almost caused the world to end because he kept denying the Four Horsemen's request to sacrifice one of their own. So, it would've been fitting for him to be the one who gets sacrificed and dies.
Speaking of homophobia 🚫🏳️🌈⚣, Jonathan Groff and the main guy ♂︎'s gay relationship 🏳️🌈⚣ does factor a lot more into the plot than I expected. At first, after I saw the first trailer and when I went into this movie (watching it on Peacock 🦚), I thought they were just going to have these guys ♂︎ be a gay couple 🏳️🌈⚣, and just not address it, or make a big a deal out of it at all. Like, these two are just a couple, and they would treat them no differently than they would a straight couple ⚤, as in: never mentioning their sexual orientation once. But no, the movie didn't do that. Not only did they mention that the fact that these two are gay 🏳️🌈⚣ multiple times, but they made it a significant factor in the story.
Like, one of the main reasons why the main guy ♂︎ doesn't believe the Four Horsemen when they tell him that the apocalypse is about to happen, and they need to sacrifice one of their family members to prevent it, is that he thinks that he saw Rupert Grint at a bar once, and Rupert Grint was an asshole toward him. Which is something that they show to us in flashback. Every important plot point and character detail in this movie is conveyed to us in flashback, just like Christopher Nolan did in Memento and Batman Begins. Zack Snyder did it too in Man of Steel since Nolan produced that movie.
So, because he thinks Rupert Grint is the same homophobic guy 🚫🏳️🌈⚣ who he got into a fight with at a bar, he automatically doesn't trust the invaders, and thinks that they're all just a bunch of homophobes 🚫🏳️🌈⚣ that are just there to commit a hate crime against him and his husband, or boyfriend (I'm not exactly sure if they were married 💍 or not). Not what I was expecting, but it does make sense for the plot.
Like, a gay couple 🏳️🌈⚣ is hanging out at a cabin in the woods with their adopted daughter, and then their cabin gets invaded by these four strangers, and they tell them to kill one of their own. What they supposed to assume from that? If you were a LGBT person 🏳️🌈, something like this happened to you, you too would probably think at first that these people were homophobes 🚫🏳️🌈 that wanted to commit a hate crime against you and your loved ones. And with anti-LGBTQ+ 🚫🏳️🌈 hatred on the rise in the US 🇺🇸, it's even more believably why an LGBT person 🏳️🌈 would think that as their first thought.
I don't know. I genuinely don't think this movie's good, and I really don't recommend it, unless you too want to be let down by a home invasion thriller. The only positive things that I can ask about the movie is the acting was good, like everyone put in decent performance, especially the little girl ♀︎, Dave Bautista, and the main guy ♂︎. But, the writing was bad, so that really doesn't matter at all. It completely negates the good performances. And I also thought it was neat that they used the old Universal logo at the beginning, you know the one from the 1970s, the same one that was on Jaws 🦈? Other than those two things, pass 👎.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie 🇮🇹🇺🇸🍄🪠
Now, we come to the second most successful movie of 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. With a box office gross of over $1.359 billion 💵, it remained the highest grossing movie of 2023 🤑 until Barbie came along 😒. But, it is the highest grossing video game-based movie of all time, and the third highest grossing animated movie of all time. And it managed to do it with a $100 million budget 💵. You hear that Pixar? You don't need to spend $200 million 💵 on every movie to look good or turn a profit. Just $100 million 💵 will do the trick. Maybe then, all your movies won't be box office disappointments.
Everyone pretty much doubted this movie from the moment it was announced, and from the moment Chris Pratt was cast as the voice of Mario. Everyone was predicting that this movie was going to be bad just like a lot of other video game movies, and was going to underperform or flop just like a lot of other video game movies. Even if people thought that it would make money 💵 and be successful, they didn't think it would ever reach a billion 💵. But then, the movie actually came out, and blew everyone's expectations away. It not only made a billion dollars 💵, but it was also a lot better than most people were expecting it to be. In fact, I'll go as far to say that it's one of the best, if not, the best video game movies ever made; which might not be saying a lot, but it is an achievement.
This movie was faithful to the games, a lot more faithful than the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie with Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper. There were so many easter eggs that the fans were able to spot and appreciate, they featured many of the themes from the games in the movie upgraded with a full orchestral score. The voice acting was actually pretty great, the majority standout (in my opinion) being Jack Black as Bowser, and even the ones people doubted like Chris Pratt were pretty great. I actually don't mind Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario after seeing this movie. And the animation was pretty good, nice and fluid, crisp, clean, colorful, and beautiful, all things you want in 3D animation.
Another reason why you don't necessarily need a $200 million budget 💵 to have good looking animation. Illumination managed to make a movie with animation just as good as any Pixar movie, and yet with less of the cost of an average Pixar movie these days. I would even go as far as to say that the animation in this movie is better than a lot of modern Pixar movies, because at least it's going for a more cartoony and exaggerated look as opposed to a more realistic look like a lot of Pixar movies nowadays try to do.
And the movie's short too. In an age where every major film release is over 2 hours or 2 and a half hours long, it's refreshing to have a nice 92 minute, hour long movie that's long enough for its premise, and doesn't overstay its welcome. It just gets in, and gets out. A lot of movies nowadays don't do that.
I came out of this movie actually wanting a sequel, which doesn't happen that often. It's not often I come out of a movie these days, and think that it should have a sequel. And because of how much money 💵🤑 it made, a sequel is pretty inevitable. And judging from the after credit scene, that sequel will likely involve Yoshi in some way. I don't know what they're going to base the sequel around.
The story of this movie was based around the plots of the first three main series, Super Mario games, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3, and also a bit of Super Mario 64 as well; just the basic plot of Bowser attacking the Mushroom Kingdom 🍄, and kidnapping Princess Peach, and Mario needing to stop him, and go rescue her; only it was Luigi being captured instead of Princess Peach. My guess is that the plot of the second one will probably be based around Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Odyssey; perhaps even taking elements from both games.
I wouldn't mind if they based the plot on Super Mario Sunshine ☀️, I love that game, I feel like it gets way too much shit. It would kind of be fitting too, like Mario and Princess Peach go on vacation on a tropical island 🏝️, along with Luigi, Princess Daisy and some Toads, after the events of the first movie; and yes, Princess Daisy is another character that wasn't in the first movie that people want to see in the sequel, and probably will be in the sequel; they'd be stupid not to include her. But, it all goes wrong thanks to the meddling of Bowser, and his secret son, Bowser Jr..
I also think the sequel should be called The Second Super Mario Bros. Movie, I mean, people are probably just going to call it the second Super Mario Bros. Movie anyway. Might as well as cut to the chase, and make that the actual title. And if there's a third movie, then call it, The Third Super Mario Bros. Movie. And if the Super Mario Bros. Movie sequels don't end up doing that, then maybe, The Loud House Movie sequels can do it, because they are making another Loud House movie. Why wouldn't they? It's the second most successful cartoon show on Nickelodeon. Most successful cartoon shows on Nickelodeon get at least three movies. The Loud House shouldn't be any different. And the second movie should be called The Second Loud House Movie, and the third movie should be called The Third Loud House Movie. And make sure you release them in theaters, not just straight to streaming like the first movie.
On a side note, they are making another Loud House movie, but it's going to be in live action and it's only going to be released on TV and streaming just like the Christmas movie 🎄 🤦♂️. Nickelodeon really is keen on bringing The Loud House into live action for some reason. They just keep shoving all this live action crap down our throats, and yet, no body asked for it. No one who is a Loud House fan wanted live action movies or a live action series. They just care about the cartoon.
People like The Loud House because it's animated, that's the best medium for it; especially since it was inspired by newspaper comic strips 📰. But, here we are, we got a live action series, and a live action movie with another one on the way 🙄. I don't care about live action! Just give me another animated movie 😠! And make sure it's released theatrically! I think most fans will like that more than another pointless live action movie that no one asked for.
Anyway, back to Mario. The success of Super Mario Bros. has opened the door for other video game movie adaptations of other mascot video game characters. One I would like to see is Rayman, I would love to see a Rayman movie. Not just because I think he's a cool character with lots of potential, but also because Ubisoft hasn't really been doing anything with the character in recent years; much to the dismay of fans of the series. So, if Rayman can't have a life in video games, maybe he can have a life in movies. There are other video games and video game series that could be adapted in movies like Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Star Fox, Bubsy, Gex 🦎, Glover 🧤, Frogger 🐸, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Tonic Trouble 🧪, or even Scaler 🦎. A movie based on Zapper: One Wicked Cricket 🦗⚡️ would be pretty interesting too 🤔.
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Note:
They are not technically making an another animated Loud House movie, they're making an animated Casagrandes movie. Yes, the failed spin-off series centered around Lincoln Loud's maybe sort-of love interest ❤️, Ronnie Anne. I'm just as baffled as you are that they're making Casagrandes movie instead of a Loud House Movie sequel. Maybe, it'll be like the Puss in Boots: The Last Wish of the Loud House franchise in terms of quality, but I kind of doubt it. I wrote a whole thing about it if you want to check it out.
Link:
https://jedithescribe.blogspot.com/2023/12/they-made-casagrandes-movie.html
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Guy Ritchie's The Covenant 🇺🇸🇦🇫
As the title suggests, the movie was directed by Guy Ritchie, who also directed Operation Fortune, which in and of itself is amazing to me. The man can go from making a slick, fun, spy action comedy like Operation Fortune to making a movie like this, a movie that's more serious, more somber, and more earnest. And to top it off, these movies were released months apart from each other. Operation Fortune was released first on March 3, 2023, and this movie was released on April 21, 2023.
Of the two, Operation Fortune is definitely the more commercial one. It's the one that definitely has a wider appeal, and was able to have an international reach. Which makes sense since it's a globe trotting movie that takes place in many different picturesque locations such as Marrakesh (or Casablanca, or Rabat, whichever city it was supposed to be) in Morocco 🇲🇦, Madrid in Spain 🇪🇸, Cannes in France 🇫🇷, Antalya in Turkey 🇹🇷, and Doha in Qatar 🇶🇦 . Whereas this is really only for a domestic audience in the United States 🇺🇸. Specifically for veterans of the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫, and more specifically, veterans of the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 that worked with Afghan interpreters 🇦🇫, or at the very least, people who are into war movies or just really kickass action flicks, which this film definitely is. It's both a war movie and a kickass action flick with a lot of pathos as well.
I really liked Jake Gyllenhaal, he's great always. This guy always gives a great performance in everything he's in. I mean, he gave a great performance in Ambulance 🚑, a Michael Bay film I really enjoyed from last year. He was great as this US Army Sergeant 🇺🇸 who is skeptical of the new Afghan interpreter 🇦🇫 because of his sketchy past, but learns to appreciate and love him overtime as the two of them are on the run from the Taliban, and are pretty much all they've got. The rest of their team was wiped out by the enemy, and all they have left is each other. And he grows to love him even more when he wakes up from being in a coma I guess (that's the best way I can describe it), and learns that the interpreter singlehandedly dragged him all the way back to the base, and saved his life.
This man ♂︎ risked his life, and put himself and his own family in danger just to save his life, and make sure he got back to the base, and received proper medical attention. For that, he's eternally grateful, and feels very in-debt to him. He starts feeling guilty that he just left this guy behind in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 without getting him a special immigrant visa to come to the United States 🇺🇸, and he tries everything he can to get him and his family some through the conventional channels, but fails. That's ultimately the reason why he decides to back to Afghanistan 🇦🇫, with the help of some US defense contractors 🇺🇸 (or mercenaries, if you prefer that term), and rescue the interpreter and his family before the Taliban find them and kill them. While making sure to secure some special immigrant visas for them to come to the US 🇺🇸 as refugees.
The actor who played the interpreter, Dar Salim was great as well. I don't know if the actor is actually Afghan 🇦🇫 or not, but he did a great job. He does a great job at making you sympathize with the interpreter, Ahmad right away. Like, you're pretty much rooting for him right away. I feel like this movie would not have worked at all if this guy wasn't as likable as he was. Like, Jake Gyllenhaal's character arc in this movie would have worked at all if Ahmad was unlikable asshole.
Like, we wouldn't have cared that his family was in danger, and we wouldn't have been on board with Jake Gyllenhaal's character risking his life to go back into Afghanistan 🇦🇫 to rescue him. Sure, he has a sketchy past. It's very implied, and even stated that he's a former drug dealer or drug runner. But we the audience never distrust him for a second, especially when he turns out to be right most of the time, like when he sniffed out that traitor amongst their ranks. So, it was very nice to see him get the happy ending he deserved after all he had been through, and after all he did for Jake Gyllenhaal's character.
One more thing I like to mention before I wrap this segment up is that this movie does take place during the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. You might think that I'm just stating the obvious by saying that, and that goes without saying, but hear me out ✋. I mentioned that Jake Gyllenhaal's character gets back into Afghanistan 🇦🇫 and rescues Ahmad with the help of American mercenaries 🇺🇸, and it was only possible during the war itself. The last US contractors 🇺🇸 pulled out before the Taliban took over in 2021.
I know in my review I compared this movie to Vietnam War movies 🇻🇳 like Rambo: First Blood Part II and Missing in Action, where they where they were about veterans of the war going back to the country they once fought in to gain some sort of closure or catharsis. Like, it was about them getting to win the war that their country didn't allow them to win the first time around.
This movie is like that, but with the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. The only difference is that whereas those movie took place after the Vietnam War 🇻🇳 ended, and Vietnam 🇻🇳 was under the full control of the communists ☭, this movie takes place DURING the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫, when the control was under the control of a US-backed secular democratic government 🇺🇸🇦🇫, and when the Taliban were still just an insurgent force, the entire time. It's not like the first half is set during the war, and the second half is set after the war ended and the Taliban won, no, the entire movie is set during the war while the war was still going on.
So, don't expect a revenge fantasy where one damaged US vet 🇺🇸 goes back to Afghanistan 🇦🇫 and massacres a bunch of Taliban fighters post-2021 takeover like Missing in Action and Rambo: First Blood Part II were with Vietnamese soldiers 🇻🇳 post-1975 takeover. This is still when the Taliban were still a legitimate enemy combatant force for the United States 🇺🇸, and the rest of the NATO-led coalition.
Speaking of which, it was cool that they added the little detail of the US soldiers 🇺🇸 wearing ISAF insignias in the film. A lot of Afghan War movies 🇦🇫 don't even acknowledge the ISAF at all, even though it was the main force fighting in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 for most of the war. So, it's cool that they included that for any war or geopolitics nerd like myself. It feels makes it feel more authentic and more "historically accurate."
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The ISAF, or International Security Assistance Force, was a NATO-led international military mission that was established by the UN Security Council 🇺🇳 after the 2001 invasion. Its main purpose was to help stabilize the country by facilitating the creation of a new government that was more secular and democratic, and staving off the Taliban insurgency that resulted after the Taliban were removed from power by the NATO invasion, at least until they all felt that the new government was sufficiently militarily powerful enough to defend itself. That was the idea, but as we can see, that didn't happen.
While it did feature a lot of NATO countries, since it was NATO-led, the ISAF featured many countries that weren't in NATO at all like South Korea 🇰🇷, Japan 🇯🇵, Australia 🇦🇺, New Zealand 🇳🇿, Finland 🇫🇮, Sweden 🇸🇪, Ireland 🇮🇪, Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦, Austria 🇦🇹, Azerbaijan 🇦🇿, Georgia 🇬🇪, Armenia 🇦🇲, Switzerland 🇨🇭, Jordan 🇯🇴, Bahrain 🇧🇭, Mongolia 🇲🇳, Singapore 🇸🇬, and even Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦, among many others. Most of these countries were not involved in any combat, and were most likely just providing security or peacekeeping, or medical and humanitarian assistance.
And some countries provided more troops than others, with the biggest contingents being obviously the United States 🇺🇸, the United Kingdom 🇬🇧, and Australia 🇦🇺; those same three countries were also the ones the most heavily involved in combat operations in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 during the war. And yes, I aware that Finland 🇫🇮 is in NATO now, and that Sweden 🇸🇪 is currently in the accession process, still waiting to be approved for membership by all existing members. But, neither of them were in NATO, or were in the process of joining NATO when the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 was still taking place, and when the ISAF was still active.
They stopped being a factor in 2014, but NATO itself still stayed in the country afterwards, and so did Australia 🇦🇺 and New Zealand 🇳🇿, until 2021 when the disastrous withdrawal took place. That's why New Zealand 🇳🇿 spoke about the withdrawal and the (second) Taliban takeover, because they still had troops in the country by that time, and they were involved in the withdrawal. And that's why the Australian SAS 🇦🇺 were in the country in 2016 and allegedly committed war crimes, Australia 🇦🇺 was still involved in combat operations during the Afghanistan War 🇦🇫, and didn't leave until Americans 🇺🇸 and NATO left. Oh, and uh, this movie also had a twin movie. Another Afghan War movie 🇦🇫 called Kandahar starring Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler was in two low-to-mid budget action movies this year. I haven't seen it, but I'd be willing to check it out.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
This movie was pretty good, it did not disappoint. That's probably not the most groundbreaking statement to make since it seems like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was the only Marvel movie released this year that people seem to universally like. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 🐜 was an absolute bust 👎, and The Marvels received mixed-to-negative reviews, with the most negative reviews coming from fans of the MCU themselves. I knew that this movie was going to have mixed reviews just from its subject matter alone, but I didn't expect the movie to received with such a unanimous shrug 🤷♂️. Like, the movie was just so generic and by-the-numbers, that not even most die-hard MCU fans or most strident MCU apologists could defend it. It was just that underwhelming and bad. The fact that it kept getting delayed and changing release dates, should've been a huge red flag 🚩 for everyone, and was ultimately indicator of its quality.
It was originally supposed to come out on February 17, 2023, then July 8, 2023, then July 28, 2023, and then November 11, 2023. McDonald's already started selling Happy Meal toys for the movie back in July when it still had a July release date. Finally, the movie came out on November 10, 2023, and received the worst reception of any MCU film, including Quantumania from 10 months ago.
From it seems, this movie is even worse than Quantumania. I didn't think that was possible, but here we are. A lot of the delays and shuffling of release dates probably had to do with the strikes 🪧 that were been going on throughout the summer. But, the movie's release date was already pushed back to a later date before either of the strikes 🪧 started happening. So yeah 😬, this wasn't a very good sign, and the movie was pretty dead on arrival.
Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers is probably the most divisive character that's been introduced into the MCU so far. You know, at least until She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters came along. A lot that has to do with Brie Larson, and the fact that conservatives and other far-right type people (white supremacists, alt-righters, anti-feminists, you know the deal) don't like her at all.
They feel that she's part of Marvel's push to become "more woke," whatever that means 🙄. A lot of that belief has to do with this video that was posted online of Brie Larson at some conference or something where she gave a speech about how there isn't a lot of diversity in the movie critic space, and how there should be more women ♀︎ and "people of color" (that term kind of feels offensive to me) in the film critique business.
I mean, to be fair, she didn't help much either with her demeanor and overall attitude during the promotion of the Captain Marvel movie, which every anti-SJW pop culture YouTube channel was predicting, hoping, and praying would bomb 💣. But, it didn't, instead it made $1 billion 💵 at the worldwide box office 🤑; a lot of that was likely due to it being released in-between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, when hype for the MCU was at its all time high.
I actually don't hate Brie Larson that much anymore. When I was all into this anti-SJW stuff, I did hate her a lot because those videos conditioned me to hate her. But, ever since I've renounced anti-SJW content, and have permanently distanced myself from it, my hatred for her has decreased to the point of nonexistence. Now, I just kind of think that the hate for her is way overblown, and kind of unwarranted. I mean, she's beautiful, she's very good-looking, and she's not even that bad of an actress. I thought she was alright in Kong: Skull Island.
Sure, there wasn't that much to her character in that movie, she was just the photographer 📷, but that had more to do with the writing than her performance. I guess she was good in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but I've never seen that movie besides a few clips on YouTube, so I can't really say. And I know she was in another big budget summer blockbuster this year, Fast X, the tenth movie in the Fast & Furious franchise (eleventh if you count the spin-off movie, Hobbs & Shaw), but I didn't see that because I'm kind over Fast & Furious at this point, and so are a lot of other people. Unless they fully go back to street racing, I want nothing to do with that franchise anymore.
Putting aside Brie Larson herself, Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers still has not won over most of fans of the MCU, or Marvel in general. Like, there are still a lot of MCU fans that have not warmed to the character, even after Endgame. A lot of that has to do with the way the character was written, both in her solo movie and in Endgame. Like, she's just kind of this OP character who can do anything, and no body can actually defeat her or pose any real challenge to her in any way. They bring her in so that she can kill Thanos after he snapped away half of all life in the universe, and she just decapitates him after he's given up the fight after accomplishing his main goal, and is just a defenseless gardener 🪴.
She also has this kind of cocky attitude or like this "I'm better than you" kind of quality, like she isn't very humble at all. And why would she? She's one of the most powerful beings in the universe (or multiverse I guess since the MCU is now a multiverse). And the way Brie Larson plays her doesn't help matters much at all as she kind of plays her as kind of stoic and wooden, while also infusing her own quirks into the role, quirks that many people (men and women ♂︎♀︎) find obnoxious.
So, a movie with her, and two other characters that people don't care for that much at all probably won't be received all that well. I mean, people didn't hate Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel all that much, she was received better than Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, but she's still not the top of most people's favorite MCU characters lists. And Monica Rambeau is just kind of there. She really didn't make any impact on viewers or fans when she was introduced in Wandavision. So, people had a very lukewarm feeling when it was announced she was going to be in The Marvels along with Carol Danvers, and Kamala Khan.
The Marvels ended up being one of the most underwhelming entries in the MCU thus far. Like I said earlier, even people were much more forgiving of the MCU even when they put out subpar work couldn't really defend this movie. The fact that it was delayed that many times didn't bode well for its quality, and I feel I was vindicated when I saw all the critical and fan responses.
But, still, even though I expected the movie to get mixed reviews, and I expected it to be typical MCU slop, I didn't think the reception would be this bad. I also didn't expect it to perform as badly at the box office as it did. So far, it has only grossed $187.4 million 💵 against a gross production budget of $274.8 million 💵, making it the lowest grossing MCU movie and a box office bomb 💣. It is the first MCU movie that could actually be considered a bomb 💣.
I don't think I've ever seen a time when a MCU movie was met with such apathy, like "Whatever, it's just more of the same, why should I go see it?" Or "God, this movie was so generic, boring, and cringy. Are they just out of ideas or what?" Or "This was the worst MCU movie I've ever watched." I remember a time when people thought the MCU was the hypest thing in the entire world 🤩, and were excited about every new movie coming out, and praised nearly every new movie that came out for it. But now, about 4 years after the Infinity Saga wrapped up, people are starting to get sick of it. I know I am.
But enough ranting about The Marvels and Brie Larson, let's talk about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the best MCU movie of 2023, and the best MCU movie in the past four years, which really isn't saying a whole lot; I mean, there's not much competition. I don't have a ton new to say about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. I said most of what I wanted to say about this movie already in my review, which you can go read if you want.
The best thing about this movie, for me, is the soundtrack. In fact, I think it's fair to say that at this point, I like the Guardians movies more for their soundtracks, than the actual movies themselves. Not to say the movies are bad, they're not. They're easily some of the best the MCU has to offer. But, the thing I always more excited for is the soundtracks, and what songs James Gunn will chose to include this time.
They mostly have 90s and 2000s music this time around, since they're no longer limited by a cassette tape, and have MP3 player. Sure, it's the Zune, a MP3 player put out by Microsoft that was supposed to compete with Apple's iPod, but failed, but it's still something. But, there is at least two 70s song and two 80s song. The 70s song in this is Heart song, "Crazy On You," which plays when Adam Warlock flies towards Knowhere, and Earth, Wind & Fire's "Reasons," which plays during an action scene at that OrgoCorp place that they go get records on Rocket Raccoon 🦝.
And the two 80s songs are "This Is the Day" by The The (yes, that is the band's actual name), and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" by Beastie Boys. I don't know if "Poor Girl ♀︎" by X is an 80s song or not, but if it is, then throw it in there. The standout songs for me, and the ones I listen to most often are "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips (which was used in the trailer for an indie sci-fi romance movie ❤️ that also came out this year called Landscape of the Invisible Hand), "Reasons" by Earth, Wind & Fire, "This Is the Day" by The The, "San Francisco" by the Mowgli's, and "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence+the Machine.
I didn't stay to watch the mid-credit scene with Rocket 🦝 and his new Guardians team discussing music while on a mission, or the after-credit scene showing more of Peter Quill on Earth 🌎 with his grandfather, but I did at least watch the mid-credit scene on YouTube; and I saw it again in better quality when I rewatched the movie on Blu-Ray 💿. And I read up about the after-credit scene, and saw it on my rewatch on Blu-Ray 💿; the one that ends with that text that says "Star Lord Will Return" 🙄. I like that in the mid-credit scene, the play the song, "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone. That was a nice way of bringing this trilogy full circle since the first movie's opening credit sequence also had "Come and Get Your Love."
I didn't really touch on this in my review, but I like that James Gunn is the only Marvel director that seems to realize that these movies are rated PG-13. You know, these movies aren't rated PG. And yet, almost MCU movie tries to be as kid-friendly or family-friendly as they possibly can: having minimal swearing, no nudity or sexual content (nothing suggestive at all), and having blood-less violence that isn't that brutal or gruesome. You might say that's because of Disney's influence, but still, for PG-13 rated movies, most of them are pretty tame. They didn't start out that way.
The first Iron Man not only had a sex scene at the beginning, but also scantily clad women ♀︎ all over the place. And Iron Man 2 had even more scantily clad women ♀︎. Black Widow's introduction in that movie, and to the entire MCU partly involves Tony looking at photos of her wearing nothing but a bra and panties; Yes, Black Widow/Natasha was the most sexualized in her first ever appearance in the MCU in Iron Man 2. They were true PG-13 movies. The Incredible Hulk also fits into that category, as it was a lot more intense than a typical modern MCU movie, it has more violence, and Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth's character) gets pretty injured and bloody 🩸, and it had suggestive elements as well: mainly the scene where Bruce Banner and Betty Ross try to have sex, but Bruce stops, and tells her he can't because if he gets too into it, he'll Hulk out.
I remember that when Eternals came out how everyone made huge deal out of the fact that it had a sex scene, like entertainment news media was saying it had the MCU's first sex scene; completely forgetting or ignoring that the first Iron Man exists. But, it's the tamest sex scene you've ever seen. It's not even like PG-13 level sex scene, it's like PG level sex scene, like it's that tame. Even the sex scene in Iron Man (2008) was more steamy than that one. And of course, Thor: Love and Thunder had some gratuitous nudity, where Thor is stripped completely naked, and you see his butt. Those are few examples of MCU movies that remembered that they were PG-13 movies and fully used that.
But, James Gunn is like the one director who's worked with Marvel Studios so far that actually realizes that these movies are PG-13, and uses that to his advantage. He not only takes advantage of the PG-13 rating's one "fuck" rule, and has Peter say "Fuck" in one scene, but he also packs in more brutal violence than a typical MCU movies. Yes, all MCU movies have violence in them, they're all action movies after all, but most of the violence is tame and not that intense.
But, this movie has more intense violence than a lot other MCU movies, especially ones so far in Phase 4 and now Phase 5. Like, characters get vaporized in this movie, they get decapitated, they can eaten alive, you name it. And there's actual blood 🩸, like when Rocket 🦝 gets fatally injured by Adam Warlock, he almost bleeds out 🩸. And then we see the High Evolutionary's disfigured skin-less face, from when Kid Rocket 🦝 tore off his face with his claws.
Speaking, there's this whole thing in the movie about the Guardians not killing anyone. Like, Rocket 🦝 decides to spare the High Evolutionary's life at the end after he tore off his mask, his fake face hiding his disfigurement underneath, because the Guardians are "better than that," killing a man when he's down. Only for them to just leave his ass to die inside the ship when it explodes. Then, earlier on in the movie, Drax gets into an argument with Peter (it's in the trailers) about killing people. Peter doesn't want to kill anyone, while Drax wants to kill everybody, or at least one stupid guy that no one loves 😉.
But, then after this little interactions, the Guardians proceed to kill a lot of people, including Peter himself. I get that the reason why they're able to have Guardians of the Galaxy kill is because they're outlaws, or at least, former outlaws. So, they're bit roguish, and act a little bit outside the law, and act outside of the normal moral bounds of other superheroes and superhero teams. But, why have scene where the characters discuss the morality of killing people, and then completely negate that conversation in the next scenes? It's a bit late to establish a "no kill" rule for the Guardians.
I saw a lot of people say that this was the most violent MCU movie and that was the darkest and bleakest MCU movie, but it's really not that. Yes, it is more violent than your average MCU movie, but it isn't that much violent. There are other PG-13 movies that are more violent than this movie. Like, Kong: Skull Island, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Alita: Battle Angel are all way more violent than this movie. And darkest and bleakest MCU movie? Nah. It's a little bit darker than a lot of MCU movies, especially lately, and it's a bit darker than the other Guardians movies, but not by that much.
People made it seem like this was the most depressing movie ever, but it really isn't. This is still a comedy, it's still funny (or at least tries to be), and it never becomes too miserable to watch. People were exaggerating big time how dark and depressing this movie is. It isn't that dark, and isn't not that depressing. The only reason people think this movie's depressing at all is because of the Rocket stuff 🦝, all of the flashback scenes showing his origin story. Those are emotional scenes, sure, they're not enough to make the movie "depressing." This is still a fun MCU movie that you can just put on, and have a good time with. You know, this isn't Plague Dogs 🐕, this isn't going to scar your kids for life, calm down people 🙄. Not all the jokes land, some of the humor is a bit forced just like in any MCU movie past 2011, but enough of the jokes do land for this movie to be good.
And indeed one issue I had with the movie upon my rewatch is that the characters were all a little too stupid. Like, James Gunn's method of making a character more likable, funny, or "good" seems to just be making them more stupid. Drax is stupid, Mantis is stupid, Peter Quill is stupid, Adam Warlock is stupid, you get the idea; even Gamora is kind of stupid. I was kind of getting tired of the characters' stupidity throughout the film, and it seemed like there really weren't any intelligent characters at all. The only smart characters are Rocket 🦝, Groot, Nebula, and the High Evolutionary (minus the crazy, megalomania, and God complex).
It's a solid finale to the trilogy. I really hope they don't make any more Guardians movies, at least, not without James Gunn. But, even then I would say, lay off of them. Not everything needs to go on forever, let at least one part of this massive multibillion dollar 💵 franchise have some sort of finality. Besides, I doubt the cast would even want to make another Guardians movie without James Gunn. I mean, they all refused to do this one unless Disney rehired him, which they did. Plus, I think Dave Bautista and Zoë Saldaña are both over this whole superhero thing. They came back to do this one just to fulfill their contracts, and now they're done.
They're no longer contractually obligated to appear in anymore MCU movies. And I think Bautista and Saldaña are both ready to enjoy their freedom, and do other projects that are superhero movies, or even big budget action blockbusters in general. Bautista in particular doesn't want to do anymore action movies, and instead wants to do more dramas and comedies. He even talked about wanting to do romantic comedies ❤️.
And Zoë Saldaña is tired of being in superhero movies and science fiction movies all the time, and doesn't want to be typecast. That's why she starred in that Special Ops: Lioness show on Paramount+. I don't know about Chris Pratt, but I imagine that he's starting to get tired of being in the MCU too, and probably wants out too. It's not like he won't have any work either, like he has plenty on his plate to keep him busy, like Super Mario Bros., which will no doubt become a franchise since first one made over a billion dollars 💵 🤑.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
The next movie I saw after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the sequel to Bumblebee 🐝, which in and of itself is a reboot to the live action Transformers film franchise; a completely justified reboot I might add. Yeah, yeah, sure, the long time producer of these movies, Lorenzo di Bonaventura keeps insisting that Bumblebee 🐝 and Rise of the Beasts are prequels to the Michael Bay Transformers movies, and the Wikipedia pages for both movies say that they're prequels.
But come on, they're reboots. Everyone knows that they're reboots, and everyone accepts that they're reboots, except for di Bonaventura; and the editors of Wikipedia I guess. He's the one that's still clinging onto the Bayverse movies, and still wants them to be connected to the Bayverse. But, no body else does. Everyone else wants these movies to be reboots completely disconnected from the Bayverse entirely. Anyway, with that preamble out of the way, let's talk about Rise of the Beasts.
June was an absolutely bad month for movies, especially for both Disney and Warner Bros., and even Universal with their DreamWorks division. All of their major releases that month either flopped or seriously underperformed. The Flash, Elemental, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny were all financial busts 😞. And most of them didn't fair much better with critics or audiences, except for Elemental for some reason. Even when Pixar fails, and makes an absolutely by-the-numbers and cookie-cutter movie, there are still people willing to jump to their defense 😒, and say their mediocre movie is good.
When Elemental flopped, I remember a lot of people saying they felt sorry for Pixar, SORRY! Well, I'm sorry, but I don't exactly feel sorry for a multimillion dollar company 💵 that's owned by a multibillion dollar company 💵 that's creatively bankrupt and utterly greedy 🤑. Pixar is overrated, always has been. I don't care if they made a few childhood favorites of mine and other people, they fully deserved to be brought down several pegs.
The main thing people seemed to like about the movie was the animation, and a few heartfelt moments involving the fire dad 🔥. If this were any other animation studio like Illumination, or DreamWorks, or Sony Animation, or even Disney Animation, then people would not be giving it this much of a pass. I think the worst thing about Elemental bombing at the box office 💣, besides all the Pixar simps jumping to its defense, is Pixar themselves have not learned anything from it. They greenlit a sequel to Inside-Out (the last Pixar movie I ever saw) 🥱, and a fifth Toy Story sequel. There's going to be a Toy Story 5! 🤦♂️
It's just like that one video said, every time one of their original animated films flops, Pixar just greenlights more sequels that no body asked for. How will that work out for them if any of those sequels flop? People are just getting sick of it all. They're sick of the sequels, and they're sick of the mediocre originals. Or at least, I am. There was a time when Pixar was viewed as something special. Like, every Pixar movie was seen as an event. Like no matter what it was, if it had the Pixar name on it, you just had to go see it. Plus, it helped that they were really the only game in town as far as quality 3D animation was concerned, at least until Disney, DreamWorks, Illumination, and Sony all stepped up their games.
Now, Pixar is just another part of the Disney machine, and not a particularly profitable part either. They lose millions of dollars 💵 each time one of their movies flops. All of their recent movies have had $200 million budgets 💵. The Toy Story spin-off from back in 2022, Lightyear had a budget of $200 million 💵, and only made $226.4 million 💵, which isn't good because you also have to factor in marketing costs and other expenses. And this year's Elemental also had a budget of $200 million 💵, and only made $480.1 million 💵 yeesh 😬. This is not sustainable. But anyway, enough ranting about Pixar and Pixar fanboys/fangirls, let's get back to Transformers, a movie I actually saw, and actually enjoyed.
So, the only movie that actually made any money 💵 that month and received fairly positive reception was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Besides you know, that Jennifer Lawrence raunchy R rated romcom, No Hard Feelings. And when I say "fairly positive reviews," I mean more positive compared to the Bayformer sequels. Like, Bumblebee 🐝 got better reviews than this movie did, and I've seen a lot of people online hate on it. They said that it was a step down from Bumblebee 🐝, and even some said that it's just as bad, if not worse than the Bay movies. Which, I don't agree with at all. Like, I don't see how anyone could look at this movie in a fair and balance manner, and say it's as bad as the worst of the Bayverse films.
I think this movie was really good, and I think that it is an improvement over the Bay films, like a huge improvement. Maybe, it is a step down from Bumblebee 🐝, sure, I'll give you that, but "as bad as the Bay films" or "worse than the Bay films?" Nah. I mean, have you seen Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight? This movie isn't as bad as either of those. And what's even funnier and stupider to me is that I saw some video essayists say that they want Michael Bay back. Like, they thought this movie was so "empty" and "lifeless," that it needs Bay back to give it more energy. Like, they tried to make a Transformers movie without Michael Bay, and it failed.
Like, what!? For the past decade, people were talking about how much they hate Michael Bay, and how much they hate these movies. And they just whined and complained about how he ruined the Transformers franchise, and he shouldn't direct anymore Transformers movies. And now that he's gone, all of a sudden they want him back after just two movies into this reboot series? Huh? You spent the last decade saying that Michael Bay was sucking the life out of the Transformers franchise, and now you're saying that it needs him to be successful? That doesn't make any sense. To be fair though, the only two video essayists I've seen online express that opinion are the two worst video essayists in my opinion, FilmSpeak and Filmento; funny how the two worst ones have the word "film" in their names.
Most other big movie critics online were much more positive on the movie, especially since most of them have seen the Bayverse movies, and reviewed all of them as they each came out. They all know how bad these movies can get, and Rise of the Beasts just isn't that bad, especially compared to those. And most of the Transformers fans seem to like it well enough, like they're still on board with the reboot series even after watching Rise of the Beasts, and do think it's of the same quality as Bumblebee 🐝. It's sort of like The Super Mario Bros. Movie. A lot of critics hated it, and so did a lot of stuck up film snobs and nitpicky fans, but the majority of fans and general moviegoers enjoyed it. Only difference is that Transformers: Rise of the Beasts didn't make nearly as much money 💵 as The Super Mario Bros. Movie did 🤑.
It didn't make a crazy amount of money 💵, it only made $439 million 💵 against its estimated $195 million-$200 million budget 💵. But, compare that to The Flash's estimated $200 million-$220 million budget 💵 and its box office take of just $268.5 million worldwide 💵, or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny's estimated $295 million-$300 million budget 💵 and its box office take of just $384 million 💵, and you can see that Transformers: Rise of the Beasts fared a quite better than either of them. It costed less, and it made at least twice its budget back. Meaning that it was actually profitable 😁 unlike The Flash or Indiana Jones with their over bloated budgets 😒. Paramount truly was the winner at the box office in June 2023.
One criticism that I have seen towards this movie is that this movie is too much like the Bayverse movies. Like, I remember reading a comment on one video saying that this movie was too much like Bayformers, but with a different coat of paint. But, I don't really agree with that. To me, this movie is a lot like what the Bayverse movies were trying to be, and what they were trying to do, but better, especially the sequels. Like, this movie very much a better version of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Like, it does the whole Transformers have been around for thousands of years, and interacted with ancient humans" thing much better than Revenge of the Fallen. For one thing, the movie never implies that the Transformers themselves were responsible for any of the technological feats of the Incas (since a good portion of this movie takes place in Peru 🇵🇪), or any of the ancient pre-Columbian cultural sites. Like, they have this scene where they talk about the Nazca Lines, and Elena (one of the main human characters in the movie) asks Optimus Primal if they had anything to do with them, and Optimus Primal says "No," and says that it was all human ingenuity. A lot of people interpreted that as a direct dig at the Bayverse, and its insistence of placing Transformers in every historical event or every historical period and saying that they were directly involved or responsible.
Like, the 2007 movie said that the Allspark (the cube that was original origin of the Cybertronian race before Age of Extinction retconned it) was the reason why the Hoover Dam was built in the first place: to hide the Allspark's strong Energon signature. And they also hid the frozen Megatron 🥶 in a hangar inside the dam as well.
Revenge of the Fallen said that Transformers had been on Earth 🌍 for thousands of years, longer than Optimus Prime had said in the 2007 movie, and the movie strongly implies that Transformers were the reason why the Pyramids of Giza were built. Like, the original Primes fought a war with each other on Earth 🌍 when the Fallen wanted to use the Sun Harvester on the Sun ☀️, despite Earth 🌍 having life on it; their one rule was never to harvest Energon from a star in a star system that had a planet with life on it, and the Fallen wanted to break that one rule.
And then after the other Primes defeated the Fallen, they decided to hide the Matrix of Leadership inside a tomb made of their own bodies, and the Ad Deir monastery in Petra, Jordan 🇯🇴 was built around them. While the Great Pyramid of Giza was built on top of the Sun Harvester. Both of those imply that the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Jordanians knew about the existence of the Primes, the Matrix, and the Sun Harvester, and they each independently decided to hide them from the rest of the world.
And then Dark of the Moon said that Transformers were the reason why the Moon landings 🌕 happened in the first place, when the Ark ship crashed landed on the dark side of the Moon 🌕. NASA sent the Apollo missions there to investigate the crash site, and bring back samples for scientific study. Oh, and they also said that Transformers were responsible for the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster ☢️ for good measure.
Basically, the Soviets ☭ somehow retrieved an engine part from the Ark, and they were experimenting with it, and that caused the nuclear reactor ☢️ in the town to fail. Or perhaps, it wasn't actually a nuclear reactor ☢️ at all (that was just a cover story), and it was just research facility to study this engine part from the Ark, and the Energon from the engine part caused the entire area to become irradiated. Or maybe, the engine part was the actual the power source of the nuclear reactor ☢️ (like it wasn't a nuclear reactor ☢️ at all), and an Energon surge ⚡️from the engine part caused the meltdown. It's one of those three.
Then, Age of Extinction said that the creators of the Transformers (they never specified what they are) were the ones who killed off the dinosaurs, not the asteroid ☄️. They detonated these type of bombs called "Seeds" that turn anything in the blast radius into the metal necessary to create Transformers (the metal referred to by the humans as "Transformium").
And lastly, The Last Knight, really went overboard with this idea of Transformers being in human history by not only saying Arthurian legends were true, but also that Cybertronian technology was the source of Merlin's magic 🪄. And that Transformers have influenced every major event in human history, and nearly every famous historical figure knew of their existence, and actively covered up their existence. Why? Because they were all members of a secret society called the Order of the Witwiccans, which was established by King Arthur and the Knight of the Round Table.
This movie does that concept in a way that doesn't just stray into Ancient Aliens 👽 territory or conspiracy theory territory like the Bay films did. Like, humans were responsible for all of these ancient monuments. While Transformers were just here, doing their own thing, not having any direct influence on humanity, while appreciating what they're are capable of.
I really liked the villains in this movie. As I said in my review, there are no Decepticons in this movie at all. There are no Predacons either, even though the Predacons were the main rival faction to the Maximals in the original Beast Wars series, and in all Beast Wars related material except this movie; although we do see a Predacon emblem on Scourge's shoulder among his other trophies. I wonder what made the filmmakers decide not to have the Predacons in the movie, despite the movie being centered around the Maximals; I wonder if anyone has asked the director, Steven Caple Jr. or any of the writers of the movie, Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber that question.
Instead, we have Unicron and a completely different Transformer faction called the Terrorcons, led by a completely new Transformer villain with a familiar name, Scourge; there have been other characters in the Transformers franchise with the name Scourge, but the character in this movie named Scourge is a completely new character created specifically for this movie. That's perfectly fine.
Unicron is a big enough of threat on his own that you don't need Megatron or any of the Decepticons in the movie; even though, there was supposed to be at least one Decepticon in the movie, but more on that later. I mean, Unicron is basically a Transformer god, he's like the Transformer equivalent to the Devil 😈. He's the size of a planet, he transforms into a planet, and eats planets, you really can't get any bigger than that.
Scourge was just awesome. He's really intimidating, and has a really badass presence to him. He's basically what Lockdown was trying to be in Transformers: Age of Extinction, but way better. He's a ruthless bounty hunter who works for a higher power (that being Unicron in this case), and has a rivalry with Optimus Prime. For one thing, Scourge's actual motivations are more clear, and his relationship with his master, Unicron is better understood in this movie than Lockdown's motives and his relationship with the "Creators" in Age of Extinction. They say in the film that Unicron enhanced him, made him more powerful than he ever was before, and that he controls his soul.
So, Scourge doesn't really have much of a choice, Unicron is forcing him to work for him against his will. Unicron even mentions how he destroyed Scourge's planet, implying that Scourge started working for him after his planet was destroyed, and that he chose servitude to save his own skin; or metal I guess. Or perhaps he sold his planet out to Unicron, and let him destroy it, so long as he guaranteed his safety, and that's how he started working for him. I saw one comment on YouTube suggest that Scourge perhaps is an undead apparition that was resurrected by Unicron, and he has control over his soul, and forces him to do his bidding, in exchange for keeping him alive.
The evidence they name to back up this theory is that Scourge wears a mask, and his actual face is all disfigured underneath, and also the fact that Unicron controls his soul. This would also provide a way for Scourge to come back in future sequels, since Unicron could conceivably just revive him (perhaps for the second time if this fan theory is correct). So, yeah, a possible zombie Transformer bounty hunter, what's not to like about that 😁?
You can more easily believe that he's a larger-than-life threat that can stand toe-to-toe with Optimus Prime than Lockdown. Even Optimus's reasons for hating Scourge are more understandable and tangible to the audience than his reasons for hating Lockdown in Age of Extinction. Like, he sees him "kill" Bumblebee 🐝, someone who he considers an apprentice and as a friend. So, we understand why he wants take Scourge take down. In Age of Extinction, sure, Lockdown killed Ratchet, someone who Optimus Prime considers a friend, but he didn't actually see him do that, and most of Optimus's anger for that is directed towards Cemetery Wind and KSI, and not Lockdown. And the worst things that Lockdown does to him specifically is shoot him in the chest, and almost kidnap him and take him back to his Creators. Not much substance behind their rivalry there.
And Unicron, oh man, Unicron 😁. It was so great to finally see Unicron be brought into live action. This is a character that the Transformers fanbase has wanted to see in a live action movie ever since they started making live action Transformers movies. Michael Bay kind of gave us a half-ass attempt in The Last Knight, where they revealed that the Earth 🌎 was actually Unicron all along, something that was lifted straight from the Transformers: Prime animated series. But, we never actually saw Unicron in that movie, we just saw his horns. They were probably planning on showing him off in his full glory in future sequels, in either Transformers 6 or Transformers 7, but neither of those ended up happening since The Last Knight underperformed in theaters, and was pretty much universally hated by the critics and the fans; even fans of the Bayverse in particular.
But, now finally got him, and we got a pretty faithful interpretation in this new reboot series. These reboot movies are really determined to have as faithful interpretations of these characters to Gen 1 as they could. And he's still alive by the end, so you definitely know that he's going to be returning in future installments. I even suggested in my review that he might team up with Megatron, and might even turn him into Galvatron, just like in the 1986 animated Transformers movie, which would be really cool. Especially, we'd probably get a design for Galvatron that's much closer to his G1 appearance, or at the very least, better than his design in Age of Extinction.
Unicron's voice is also really awesome. He sounds really big, imposing, and near unstoppable, as he should be. It's enough to instill fear in anyone who hears it. Even Scourge is afraid of him. Which does make sense, I mean, he does quite literally have his life in his hands. Scourge's voice is also really awesome too. You can't go wrong with Peter Dinklage, the man ♂︎ is great at playing villains, and Scourge is just another one of his great villain roles. Both of the villains in this movie have great voices, and really, what more can you ask for?
Speaking of voices, one thing I've always liked about these newer Transformers movies (Bumblebee 🐝 and this) is that Transformers actually sound like robots. Their voices sound more electronic and computerized, like they actually sound like they came from machines, like they're robots talking. Unlike, in the Michael Bay movies where the Transformers just had regular sounding voices. They didn't add any effects to it, or modify them in anyway, so they just sound like humans. I mean, the 2007 movie started out okay as some of the Transformer characters did have more robotic sounding voices, like Barricade.
But, by The Last Knight, they pretty much gave up trying to make these things sound like robots, except Quintessa. Quintessa's the only alien character in that whole movie that actually sounds like a robot, and I don't even know if she was meant to be a full robot or just a cyborg. I say "alien character" specifically because I don't think Quintessa's even a Transformer, like she isn't a true Cybertronian. She was, as her name suggests, a Quintesson. Perhaps she was like the Queen of the Quintessons or something. And Quintessons are not Cybertronian, you know, they're not Transformers, they're something completely different. Anyway, but in Bumblebee 🐝 and Rise of the Beasts, they fully rectified that problem, and all of the Transformer characters have robotic voices, and I really love that.
I mentioned this in my review, but I really liked that the spotlight was taken off of Bumblebee 🐝 for once, and given to another Autobot, Mirage. I mean, I love Bumblebee 🐝 as much as the next guy, but he's been kind of overexposed and overplayed at this point. The live action movies especially overuse him way too much, to the point where he overshadows every other Autobot. They even gave him his own movie, something they haven't even done for Optimus Prime, the most iconic and famous Transformers character of all. So, it was nice that they highlighted a different Autobot for once, and pushed Bumblebee 🐝 more to the sidelines in a supporting role, which is pretty much what he was in the original Gen 1 series.
Mirage is just such a great character. I know some people found him annoying, but I didn't think he was annoying at all. He's funny and charismatic, and very lovable. Like, he does always take the situation completely seriously, but he still does the right thing in the end. And his ability to create illusions is really cool. Even when he turns into a suit of armor at the end for Noah (Anthony Ramos) to wear and fight in, as goofy as that kind of was, it was still a unique ability that he had that no other Autobot has. Pete Davidson did a really good job voicing him. I also really liked his friendship with Noah Diaz, it was pretty fun. It gave a new dynamic. It shows that Bumblebee 🐝 isn't the only Autobot that's capable of developing a strong friendship with a human.
Arcee was cool too, it's nice to finally see her in action, even if she doesn't get as much screen time or as many lines as Optimus Prime or Mirage. I really like her transformation, how she does all of these flips while she's changing into her robot mode. She was redesigned from her appearance in Bumblebee 🐝, but it is mostly the same, it's still in that same G1 design language or design philosophy.
I kind of have mixed feelings about Wheeljack. His design, personality, and voice are inconsistent from Bumblebee 🐝, where he was much closer to his G1 persona. In fact, he looks and sounds so different from his appearance in Bumblebee 🐝, that a lot of fans have decided to call him Pablo based on the little "Pablo" logo on his van mode, and some fans have suggested that this isn't the real Wheeljack, and he's actually an imposter. I'm not sure if I believe that. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess 🤷♂️. I think it's more believable that there are two Wheeljacks, and one of them is the classic G1 one and the other is this Pablo character, and they are separate characters, but they just have same names, kind of like how you might have two guys on your team named John.
I think they just wanted to have a Transformer in the movie that had an accent because they still think that's funny for some reason. They have this joke in the movie where Noah tries to speaking to Wheeljack in Spanish, since he had a Latino accent, and then Wheeljack says "That's racist," which is very clearly a dig at the Michael Bay movies, and their questionable depictions of certain groups. Specifically Skids and Mudflap in Revenge of the Fallen, who were both interpreted as black stereotypes. But, there were other Transformers in the Bayformers movies that were ethnic, national, and racial stereotypes like the Wreckers, Dino, Drift, and Hot Rod, among others.
Optimus Prime is pretty great in this movie. Peter Cullen never disappoints. The man ♂︎ is in his 80s or 90s, and he's still voicing Optimus and still sounds great. Even when he was given shit material in the Bay movies, he still did the best with what he was given. One complaint that the Bayformers movies have always received is that they made Optimus too violent and aggressive. Like, they had him kill Decepticons in extreme and unnecessarily brutal ways, and even had him execute unarmed combatants who were no longer in any condition to fight and were begging for their lives.
And he's always taking about killing things, like one of his signature lines in the last two movies was "I'll kill you." He says that line as many times as he says, "I am Optimus Prime," maybe even more. Many fans were starting to feel that he no longer felt like Optimus anymore by The Last Knight. I mean, this never really bothered me too much, at least, in the first three. Once we got the fourth movie, and they had him start talking about killing humans, that's when they kind of stepped a bit too far.
This Optimus is significantly toned down from his Bayverse counterpart, and you can tell the filmmakers were really conscientious about the fans' complaints about the Bayverse Optimus being too violent, and being a war criminal. They even removed the original opening of the movie where Optimus faces off against a Decepticon that turns into a city bus 🚌 called Transit, and impales him with his sword, just to avoid comparisons to the Bayverse Optimus.
But, they were okay with leaving in the line where he says he wants take Scourge's head, and leaving in the way he ultimately finishes off Scourge. When they released the deleted opening on YouTube, a lot of fans said they should've just left it in since it really wasn't as brutal as Scourge's death. Plus it would've been a nice reminder of the Decepticon threat, like they're still out there, and they still want to wipe out the Autobots, perhaps even take over Earth 🌎 as well. But, despite all that, this Optimus is still toned down compared to the Bayverse version.
I liked that this Optimus has an arc, like there's a progression to his character, and he changes throughout the film. At first, he's very distrustful of humans, worried about what they'll do to him and his comrades if they were discovered; which is perfectly understandable, given what happened to Bumblebee 🐝 in Bumblebee 🐝. But, over time, through his experiences working with Noah and Elena (Dominique Fishback), to trust humans a bit, if only just a few of them.
He also doubts himself as a leader a bit at first, but as the events transpire, and as he spends more and more time with Optimus Primal, he gains the confidences he needs to be the leader that he needs to be for the Autobots. He also spends a lot of the film wanting to get back to Cybertron. That's the reason why HE wants the Transwarp Key. He wants it so he can use it to transport him and the Autobots back to Cybertron to take it back from the Decepticons. But, by the end of the movie, he learns to accept and appreciate Earth 🌎 as his new home.
Lastly, we have the Maximals, the main attraction of this movie. While the majority of the Maximals don't get that much screen time or dialogue, besides Optimus Primal and Airazor, I would still say that they were better handled here than the Dinobots were in Age of Extinction. At least, they all had voices, and all had personalities. Unlike the Bayverse Dinobots, who were just big dumb animals, nothing more than snarling beasts (no pun intended); something that was only made worse in The Last Knight, where they were nothing more than pets to Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg's character in those movies), like Grimlock just acts like a dog 🐕 in that movie; Cade even scolds him for eating cars in that junkyard that they're all hiding out in like you would a dog 🐕 if they were eating something that they weren't supposed to, or something that you didn't want them to; and you're telling me that Grimlock's supposed be some "legendary warrior" 🙄?
I didn't grow up with Beast Wars: Transformers, so I don't have as much attachment to these characters as some Transformers fans do. But I do feel sorry for those fans who do like Beast Wars, and did grow up with it, especially if their favorite Maximal didn't have much screen time, or wasn't in the movie at all. One Maximal that was definitely not included in the movie was a character called Rattrap, who, as the name suggests, transformed into a rat 🐀.
I don't really know why Rattrap wasn't included, maybe they just wanted to have the most recognizable and popular Maximals in the movie, and Rattrap wasn't one of them. Or maybe, they didn't want have a tiny Transformer, and only wanted to have big Transformers within the ranks of the Maximals to match or even surpass the size of the Autobots (to make them look bigger and tougher than the itty-bitty Autobots), so Rattrap was left out. Maybe, if the Maximals appear in a future installment of this new reboot Transformers series, they'll include him, who knows 🤷♂️.
It should also bare mentioning that they did reimagine the Beast Wars characters a lot for the purposes of this movie, to fit in this reboot continuity. Like, in the original Beast Wars series, Optimus Primal was an actual direct descendant of Optimus Prime. Like, the idea of the show was it was in the distant future (about 300 years in the future), and the Maximals and the Predacons were the descendants of both the Autobots and the Decepticons respectively. Like, they had evolved beyond just turning into cars or jets, and had evolved the ability to turn into animals, actual organic beings indistinguishable from the real thing.
And Optimus Primal was a direct descendant of Optimus Prime, like he was his great, great, great, grandson, and he was carrying on his torch as the Prime next in line, and as the leader of the Maximals, the direct successor to the Autobots. But, for this movie, that obviously wouldn't have worked, so they had the Maximals be a completely separate faction with no connection to the Autobots whatsoever (to the point that they apparently aren't even from Cybertron), and Optimus Primal be a separate character from Optimus Prime, with no real familial or mystical connection to him. He was just named after him by his father, Apelinq as a way of honoring him.
That said, I did like what they did with Optimus Primal and Airazor. The two of them really were the heart of this movie. Ron Perlman did a great job voicing Optimus Primal, like you can't really tell it's him most of the time, and that's great. He really disappears into the role, and embodies that character. I wasn't as impressed by Michelle Yeoh's voice performance as Airazor, but she was alright. I did like that after she died, they kept her dead. They didn't resurrect her in anyway, unlike a certain yellow Autobot who transforms into a Camaro 😒. It is a bummer though that we never got to see her robot mode before she died, like we did the other Maximals. But, at least, we can see her robot mode in her toy.
It also sucks that Optimus Primal isn't the one who kills Scourge. Instead, it's Optimus Prime as I mentioned. If anyone has a reason to hate Scourge, it's Optimus Primal since Scourge is the one who killed Apelinq, Optimus Primal's father and the original leader of the Maximals, and Airazor, who was the second-in-command of the Maximals and was Optimus Primal's closest and dearest friend. Maybe, they could've had Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal double team Scourge, and fight and kill him together. That probably would've been more satisfying since they both would've gotten their revenge against Scourge. Instead, Optimus Prime is the only one of the two who gets closure.
One last thing before I finally wrap this segment up (this section ended being way longer than I originally intended) is that I really liked the 1994 setting. They could've easily have just set this movie in the 1980s again, but I'm glad they advanced it further, and just went on into the 1990s. They probably went with the 90s since that's the decade that Beast Wars came out, and dominated the Transformers landscape. Beast Wars was the first Transformers thing that a lot of fans were ever exposed to growing up, and was the thing that made them fans in the first place; those good ol' 90s kids.
They also probably wanted to have 90s nostalgia in the film, just like how Bumblebee 🐝 had 80s nostalgia. 90s nostalgia has kind of circumvented 80s nostalgia as the new hot thing; can't wait until they start doing more 2000s nostalgia. I really liked the music in this movie. It's mainly hip-hop and R&B, so if you don't like either of those genres then you probably won't get as much of a kick of out the music as I did because I do love me some 90s hip-hop and R&B.
It sucks that they didn't release an official soundtrack album with all the songs they featured in the movie, like they did with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Instead you have to seek out all of the songs individually, on each of their respective albums, and then put them in a playlist I guess. I also really liked seeing the Twin Towers. I know that's a background detail that most people won't notice or care about, but as someone who really likes the Twin Towers, it was nice to see them on screen in a big budget summer blockbuster in 2023. We've moved past the trauma of 9/11 enough to where we can finally show Twin Towers on screen in a movie or TV show, and no one will think it's in "bad taste" or it's "too soon."
Oh, and I did like the G.I. Joe reference at the end. I know some people didn't like that they brought in G.I. Joe, and would've rather it be Sector 7, but I'm complete opposite. I'm glad that it was G.I. Joe, and not Sector 7. Like, I was expecting Noah to flip the card over, and for it to say, Sector 7 on there, and I was going to be like, "Yep. It's Sector 7, totally didn't see that coming 😑." Like, it seemed to me like they really were trying to get the audience to care about Sector 7, and yet there was so little to care about.
It's like "Whatever 😒." The whole Sector 7 thing seemed like it was just a way to keep these movies tied to the Bayverse, and I wasn't on board with that. But, once he flipped the card over, and it said, G.I. Joe, I immediately got excited 😃. Finally, we're going to get that Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover that we've wanted for a long time. Sure, they did it in the comics, but in the movies? That's a whole other story.
It's probably not going to tied in with the Snake Eyes movie from a couple of years ago though, neither will it be tied with the other two G.I. Joe movies, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. I think they're probably going to reboot G.I. Joe again, and create a whole new continuity for it fit in with this new reboot Transformers series. It's the only thing that would make any actual sense. Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins would not fit in at all with the continuity of Bumblebee 🐝 or Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. So, it's better to start fresh, and wipe the slate completely clean with G.I. Joe, just like they did with Transformers. If they do, then it'll be the second time that G.I. Joe has been rebooted. Third time, if you count G.I. Joe: Retaliation as a reboot, but that was more of a soft reboot. It still had characters from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, played by the same actors, and it still continued the same story as Rise of Cobra.
Resident Evil: Death Island
This was the only movie in July that I was actually interested in. Yes, while everyone else was having Barbenheimer fever, I was waiting for Resident Evil: Death Island to come out. And I didn't even watch it until Wednesday, August 2, 2023. I bought a day or a couple of days after it came out (which on Tuesday, July 25, 2023), and I just sat on it for a couple of weeks, waiting for the perfect time to watch it. And I finally decided to watch it on Wednesday August 2, when I had some free time, and there was really nothing good to watch on YouTube.
And the funniest thing about all of this is that I didn't even know that this movie existed or was even coming out until the week before it came out. I saw the trailer on YouTube, and I was immediately like, "Wow, a new Resident Evil movie, I definitely got to buy that and watch it." Especially when I saw that it was going to have nearly all of the classic Resident Evil characters, bar two, in an Avengers-style team. I would say there was more hype for this movie then there was for the previous CGI Resident Evil movie, Resident Evil: Vendetta, or the CGI miniseries on Netflix, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness.
While, it didn't quite live up to the hype (hardly anything really lives up to its hype let's be honest), I still liked it a lot. It's a decent movie that delivers most of what you want to see. And it's only an hour long (1 hour and 31 minutes, or 91 minutes to be exact). Most of the movies I've seen this year have been well over 2 hours or 2 hour and a half hours, with the longest being John Wick Chapter 4, at 169 minutes, or 2 hours and 49 minutes. There was no way I was going to watch Oppenheimer, with its 180 minute, or 3 hours exactly, runtime. So, like Super Mario Bros., this is a movie that you can you can just plop in, and have a good time with, without it taking up most of your day.
It's not perfect. The villain is pretty weak, and the story isn't that interesting. But, for the most part, it works, and the things that really makes this movie work are the characters and character interactions. It was great seeing characters that don't normally interact with each other in the games interact in this movie. I loved all stuff with Jill and Leon together, like they make a great team. And I liked seeing Claire interact with both Jill and Rebecca, two characters she barely interacts with in the games.
It was even cool seeing Claire and Chris working together in the movie, when those are hardly ever together in the games. It's weird considering that they're brother and sister, and you'd think they'd be together more often, but no. This, and Resident Evil – CODE: Veronica are the only two instances I can think of where Chris and Claire were actually on screen together, working as partners; yes, I know that they were together in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, but that was just a retelling of CODE: Veronica, so it doesn't really count. Claire spends more time with Leon than she does Chris most of the time.
And the final battle when they all team up together to kill the big monster at the end was worth the wait. Some people might not like that isn't the whole movie, like Leon, Chris, Claire, Jill, and Rebecca aren't all on screen together, working as one unit the whole time, and they're all split up for most of it. Rebecca doesn't even join the fight until the end; she's in a lab for most of the movie. But, I didn't mind it. The movie still had some character interactions out of the team up at the end. So, I wasn't sitting there, waiting for the final battle to begin. The only things that I felt was truly missing from this movie, were Ada Wong and Sherry Birkin.
Ada Wong is the one of the most popular characters in the entire Resident Evil franchise, and this movie was supposed to be the big team up of all the most popular characters in the franchise. And Sherry Birkin was in Resident Evil 6. We saw an adult version of her, and she was one the main playable characters in that game, and she hasn't appeared in any Resident Evil media since that game came out.
It would've been cool to see her reunite with Claire after all these years, and for to see her as an adult now when she previously had seen her a kid when she rescued her from Raccoon City back in 1998. Plus, I'd really curious to see how they would redesign her for one of these CGI movies. But, I get why they weren't included. They probably couldn't figure out a way to work them in organically, so they just decided to leave them out of this one. Maybe, in future installments we'll see Ada and Sherry.
Also, Jill's kind of the main focus of the movie. I mean, this is an assemble piece, but it is very much Jill's movie. She's the one that has a character arc, and she's the one who ultimately has to save everyone because when everyone else gets infected with the new virus, she's the only one that isn't. And it's her left standing to go up against the bad guys. It's really her and Rebecca that are the real MVPs, and save everyone's asses, since Rebecca cures everyone with the vaccine 💉, and Jill is the first one to confront the bad guys. In fact, she's the one that strikes the finishing blow on the Dylan monster at the end when she plants that bomb, and blows the whole thing up.
This is supposed to be her big triumphant return in-universe and in real life. I mean, yes, there was the Resident Evil 3 remake, but as far as the main series goes, chronologically speaking, Jill hasn't appeared in a game since Resident Evil 5. Every game she was since Resident Evil 5 was a prequel, set sometime in the past. Resident Evil: Revelations was set before the events of Resident Evil 5. And the Resident Evil 3 remake is apart of this too because it's a remake of an older game, and isn't part of the main series canon.
Canonically speaking, Jill has been out of commission since the events of Resident Evil 5. That's why she wasn't in Resident Evil 6, though I personally think she should have been in that game. And she's just barely let back into the force, and she's still struggling mentally and emotionally with what she went through in Resident Evil 5. And the movie's about her trying to regain her confidence back, trying to get back in the groove, and become the badass field agent that she was before. I'm glad they did this. I'm glad that they showed that these things have consequences and lasting effects, and that Jill isn't 100% fine after what happened to her in Resident Evil 5, and is still very much recovering, and hasn't fully moved past it. I mean, what happened to her was pretty traumatic, and anyone who went through what she went through would probably be feeling the same way.
Speaking of the Resident Evil 3 remake, they pretty much reused Jill's design from that game. They just tweaked it a little bit to make her look a bit older, a bit more mature, a bit more weary, like she's been through from shit since the Raccoon City Incident, and is more battle hardened compared to when she was back in 1998 during the Raccoon City Incident. The stress of it all aged her a bit, as would anyone in a dangerous job like that where your life's in danger every day. But, according to the creators of the game, and the filmmakers involved in this movie, she's been aging more slowly because she was exposed to the virus (I don't know if they're referring to the t-Virus from back in Raccoon City, or that stuff that Wesker injected into her to mind-control her 💉from back in Africa).
So, she aged, but only by a little bit. She still looks pretty young for her age, whatever it is. I think she's in her 30s or 40s by time the events of this film take place. She's Gen X, that's for sure. But, you know what? I don't mind that they reused her same design from the Resident Evil 3 remake. It's a pretty great design, and I like it a lot more than her design in Resident Evil 5. She's now one of the hottest Resident Evil characters 😍 thanks to that new design from the Resident Evil 3 remake, in a series already full of hot characters 😍.
So yeah, I really liked this movie, and I do recommend it. It's worth buying and giving a watch when you have nothing else better to do, or if you're in a Resident Evil kick or mood. It's a whole helluva better than any of the live action Resident Evil movies and shows; except for maybe the first two by Paul W.S. Anderson; the other ones by him, forget it 👎. It still baffles me that they still haven't been able to do a proper Resident Evil movie in live action, when these CGI animated movies (and miniseries) show that doing a Resident Evil movie or show that's faithful to the source material, and has all the characters from the games is possible. Maybe someday, someone will get it right. But for now, we got these.
I will say however, that if you're not already a Resident Evil fan and haven't played any of the games, or you haven't watched any of the previous CGI Resident Evil movies, then you're probably not going to know what the hell is going on. These movies kind of expect you to already know who these characters are, and what the lore is, especially since they literally take place in the same universe as the games, and are often follow-ups to them. So, that kind of limits the accessibility of these movies to outsiders, people aren't necessarily fans of Resident Evil and just want watch a movie without having to do all kinds of homework to even understand it. So, this movie is mostly for Resident Evil fans, and probably have the most appeal to them. I'm a Resident Evil fan, so it works for me.
The Equalizer 3
Now, I wasn't really planning on watching this movie, I wanted to see Meg 2: The Trench 🦈, but I always watch that when it comes out on Blu-Ray 💿. This is a pretty awesome action movie, with some awesome and brutal kills 🩸, I love me a good R rated action movie with awesome kills 🩸. I did miss some parts when I saw this in theater 🍿 because I had to pee 😖💦 twice ✌️; don't you just hate it when you have to pee after you just used it? Denzel Washington is great in the role as Robert McCall, he just fits it so well.
Full disclosure: I have not seen the other two Equalizer movies. But, I've seen enough reaction videos to those movies on YouTube, so I pretty much know what they're all about. And the Equalizer movies are all stand alone, like they don't really connect to each other in terms of plots. So, don't necessarily need to watch the other ones to understand this one. But, it will give more context to certain things, and make you appreciate certain things more. It was cool to see Dakota Fanning.
This is the first time that they've worked together since Man on Fire 🔥, which was all the way back in 2004. So, this is them reuniting, and they still have on screen chemistry with each other after all these years. They look and feel so comfortable with each other, and you can tell that they like working together. But, speaking of Man on Fire 🔥, even though this trilogy has nothing really to do with that movie, in some way, you can view this trilogy as a spiritual successor to Man on Fire 🔥. Like, you think of it as a what if scenario where Creasy survived, and became a vigilante helping people out with their problems. Denzel does kind of play Robert the same way he did Creasy, a little bit, and the characters themselves do share some similarities.
The movie was a very pleasant palette cleanser after I watched Gamera: Rebirth, the awful new Gamera anime that's on Netflix (it won't be new by the time I post this). I stopped watching that shit after the first two episodes. That's only happened to me one other time where I stopped watching an anime in the middle of watching it. That other time was Akudama Drive, which was an awful show that I don't ever want to finish. But, at least with Gamera: Rebirth, it was just on streaming, and I didn't have it in on Blu-Ray 💿 like I did Akudama Drive; I threw away my copy because we lost the receipt 🧾 to return it to Best Buy, and the case got all messed up because it was in the rain 🌧️. So, this movie helped wash the taste of that awful show out of my mouth; what an absolute disappointment that show was, that was not the triumphant return of Gamera 🐢 that kaiju fans have been waiting for, he deserves much better.
This may be a controversial opinion, but I would actually put this movie above John Wick Chapter 4, not only because it's way shorter and doesn't overstay its welcome, but because the movie does a better job of balancing the action with the non-action talkie scenes. There's not a ton of action in this movie, but whenever there is, it more than delivers, and it doesn't overwhelm you or exhaust you the way the action in John Wick Chapter 4 could do. This movie hits the sweet spot when it comes to action: not too much or too little, just right 👌. John Wick Chapter 4 was a bit too bloated, and too self-indulgent for its own good and that kind of detracted from the enjoyment factor of the movie, and this movie doesn't have that problem.
Plus, I think the kills 🩸 are better in this movie than in John Wick Chapter 4, like they're a lot more brutal and raw than the ones in that movie. The bad guys are all assholes, and they all get well-deserved gruesome death, especially the lead mafia guy, his death was dripping with poetic justice, even if I didn't get to see his death scene entirely because I had to walk out of the theater to go pee 😖💦. And Robert doesn't die by the end, he survives, and gets to live in peace in that little Sicilian town that took him in after he was injured on one of his missions.
The movie has a proper unambiguous happy ending, unlike John Wick Chapter 4, which had a somewhat ambiguous, bittersweet, and open-ended ending. I wouldn't mind seeing a fourth Equalizer movie after seeing this one, but from it seems like, Denzel's done. This is his last Equalizer movie from what I've heard. But, given that his character is still alive and kicking by the end, they have left the door open enough 🚪 if Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua decide to make another one. But, I also wouldn't fault them if they decided to end it here. This movie does work as a decent finale to the trilogy. I'm definitely going to check out the first two after this.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 🐢🥷
I've already written a full review of this movie here on the blog, and on DeviantART. I wrote it for the blog, and then I posted it on DeviantART because I did a poll asking people whether I should post stuff on the blog and DeviantART simultaneously, and the few people that did vote voted yes. So, I won't reiterate what I said there, you could go read what I had to say in full there. What I'll say here is that it was entertaining, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would since I'm not a fan of Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷.
I liked the animation, it was beautiful, it was unique, and it was stylish. It helped this movie stand out, among the myriad of other animated movies, besides Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which this movie is clearly imitating. I said this in the review, and I'll say it again here, this is Paramount and Nickelodeon's attempt at capitalizing on the success of both Spider-Verse movies, and trying to make their own version of it.
Even if the filmmakers involved deny it, that's clearly what this is. And for the most part, I would say that it does succeed because of that and also in spite of that. Because I will be fair and say this movie has enough going for it to where it isn't just a Spider-Verse clone, and does stand on its own. I mean, the Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷 themselves are basically Spider-Man if you split him into four different characters. Besides, a lot of popular and beloved movies were attempts by rival studios to jump on a current hot trend or copy another movie that was really popular.
Speaking of which, the voice acting was pretty good. Like, the voice actors who voiced the Turtles 🐢 themselves did a wonderful job. The filmmakers said that their intent with this movie was to make the Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷 more like actual teenagers, since they are called the TEENAGE Mutant Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷. So, having them be voiced by actual teenagers was a good call. From I understand from watching the special features on the Blu-Ray 💿 is the actors who voiced the Turtles 🐢 improvised a lot of the dialogue, or they would come up with some of the lines, and the screenwriters could rewrite the script accordingly to make the dialogue seem more natural and more like a teenager from this generation said it, not like a teenager of the Boomer generation or Generation X said it.
This is more like a Gen Alpha movie, Gen Alpha because Gen Alpha is the generation that comes after Gen Z, and is the currently the generation that's in their teens right now. Generation Z are young adults now, they're in their early-to-mid 20s, most of them. So, definitely not teenagers anymore. But anyway, back to the dialogue. The fact that the voice actors who voiced the Turtles 🐢 improvised and came up with some of the dialogue themselves might explain some of the cringier lines and cringier namedrop references in the film. What I say? Teenagers are pretty cringy sometimes, in fact they're cringy all of the time. I should know, I used to be one.
Jackie Chan was okay. He did a decent job voicing Splinter, the Turtles' 🐢 mutant rat adopted father and ninjitsu master 🐀, even if he wasn't my first choice, and even if I don't like him as a person. I explain my reasons why I don't like him in the review itself, so you if want to know why I don't like Jackie Chan, go read it. Please, it'll help increase my viewership on that one. I didn't mention this in the review, but when Splinter and April go to save the Turtles 🐢 from Ultrom's lab, there's a fight scene where Splinter beats up the guards after one of them insults him. In the special features, they say that specifically modeled that fight scene after Jackie Chan's fighting style, like they went out of their way to make it look like a Jackie Chan fight scene. Kudos to them, and their dedication and attention to detail. It is admittedly one of the best action scenes in the movie, in a movie full of some pretty awesome action.
Ice Cube's turn as the villain, Superfly 🪰 was surprisingly good. Like, he took a very much clichéd character, and managed to bring some flare to it, and make it his own. The other voice actors were fine, like they all did their jobs well, but none of them really blew me away. I would say that Rose Byrne is probably the strongest of the extended voice cast. She voices Leatherhead, the mutant crocodile 🐊 with the straw hat that's apart of Superfly 🪰's crew. I don't know, I thought it was just fun hearing Rose Byrne speak with an Australian accent 🇦🇺. I don't know if she actually is Australian 🇦🇺 or not, but if she isn't, she was pretty funny, and her accent was actually pretty good.
Seth Rogen is probably the weakest link in the cast, even though he's the producer of the film and is the main reason why it exists in the first place. I don't know, I guess I think he's the weakest link because he really didn't put that much effort in his performance as Bebop. Like, he just used his regular voice, and didn't try to change it, or really get into the character. He just played Bebop like a typical Seth Rogen character, and I doubt that's what most Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷 fans were looking for.
The secondary villain in the film, Cynthia Ultrom was pretty weak in my opinion. The filmmakers said that she was the "real villain" of this movie, but she pretty much underwhelmed as the supposed "real villain" of the story. She's just a stereotypical evil German mad scientist 🇩🇪👩🔬 who wants to sell her work to the military at the end of the day. Nothing special or unique about her at all. We've seen characters like her a million times before in fiction. Unlike Ice Cube, who was able to spice a pretty clichéd and trite villain with his natural charm and charisma, the voice actress who voices Ultrom added nothing to the role to make it stand out or make it less clichéd and trite. It just remains clichéd and trite. And she doesn't do anything in the movie itself.
They build her up at the beginning like she's going to be this major threat, and then she does nothing for the rest of the movie. Like, after she kidnaps the Turtles 🐢 and hooks them up to that machine to extract the Ooze out of them, she disappears, and is never seen again for the rest of the movie until the mid-credits stinger, which is only just there to set up Shredder as the next big bad guy for the sequel, if this movie gets one. Which pretty much means that Ultrom is going to be playing second fiddle again to yet another more interesting and cooler villain than her, as the reason she decides to hire Shredder is so that he can capture the Turtles 🐢 for her, and then bring them back to her for her experiments while she doesn't have to lift a finger. I understand that they probably want her to be more of a villain in the shadows, but come on!
There's nothing intimidating about her at all, like there's nothing menacing or awe-inspiring about her at all. And ultimately, she's kind of unnecessary to the story of this film, and to the storyline that they've created in this sub-continuity, this alternate universe. They might as well not even bothered creating this character in the first place, since as far as I know, this character never existed before in the Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷 franchise, and they created her specifically for this movie and the sub-franchise that they hope to kick off with it. I hope, they do away with her in the sequel if they actually make one because she is not a good villain.
The plot is really nothing to write home about, but that's okay. The movie makes up for its lackluster plot with the character interactions. Seeing the turtles 🐢 banter with each other, and explore the world that Splinter sheltered them for so long, and interact with other characters besides Splinter is what makes this movie worth it. In fact, I would say that they purposely ignored the plot, and focused entirely on the characters.
Like, they intentionally put more effort into the characters and character interactions than they did the plot. The plot is just a means to an end to serve the characters and character interactions. This movie is predominantly a coming-of-age comedy movie with some action and science fiction thrown in, so this greater emphasis on character interaction works in this movie's case. It probably won't work for any other version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 🐢🥷, but it works for this one, and the sequel(s) that it may or may not get.
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