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Lee (2222 KP) rated Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) in Movies
Jul 3, 2019
I think I was one of the few people that was ultimately disappointed by Spider-Man: Homecoming. After Spider-Man's impressive and thrilling introduction to the Marvel universe during Captain America: Civil War, I felt Homecoming to be somewhat lacking - set pieces that had already been shown in the trailer, bigger set pieces that were difficult to follow on screen and, to quote my review, "too much awkward teen, not enough action hero". I even used the phrase "superhero fatigue", which funnily enough is a phrase currently being bandied around by some for this next Spider-Man venture, Far From Home, particularly in the wake of the intense Avengers: Endgame earlier this year. So, let's just say I was cautiously optimistic heading in to see this movie.
We kick off with a brief introduction to what will dominate the rest of the movie - Nick Fury and Maria Hill arrive in Mexico, where "a cyclone with a face" has completely destroyed a small town. As this new threat returns to wreak even more havoc, a mysterious new hero arrives to face it square on in battle, dramatically declaring to the startled S.H.I.E.L.D agents, "you don't want any part of this". From there, we switch to a lighthearted wrap up of the devastating events surrounding Infinity War/Endgame, in the form of an amateur high school news report. Mourning the loss of fallen heroes (accompanied by Whitney Houston singing 'I Will Always Love You'!), the report goes on to explain how "The Blip" - the term many are using to describe the effects of the 5 year period where half of the population were wiped from existence. Having the population age 5 years while the returning half haven't aged at all naturally has humorous consequences when it comes to students and their school life, but essentially humanity has managed to move on and has learnt to deal with it. Someone who is struggling to move on though, particularly from the loss of mentor/surrogate father, Tony Stark, is young Peter Parker. Desperately in need of a summer vacation, and a break from being Spider-Man, Parker cannot wait to join the rest of his friends, and crucially MJ (Zendaya), on an upcoming school trip which will take them to various European destinations.
But there's no chance of any kind of break for Spider-Man just yet, as Nick Fury has other plans for him. Peter does the unthinkable though and ignores the many phone calls from Fury, until he eventually tracks him down for a face to face meeting in his Venice hotel room. Since the incident in Mexico, S.H.I.E.L.D have been working with the mysterious new hero, Quentin Beck, or 'Mysterio' as he has now been dubbed, and Peter (along with us) are now brought up to speed on the origins of Quentin and these new global threats. Quentin actually comes from an alternate Earth where these creatures, known as The Elementals (monstrous versions of wind, fire, water and air), were responsible for the destruction of not only his world but his entire family too. The most powerful Elemental, fire, is yet to appear on our Earth and Mysterio, along with the help of S.H.I.E.L.D and Spider-Man, need to locate and stop it before it becomes too powerful for them to defeat.
Peter isn't initially interested though, being more concerned about jeopardising his school trip and exposing his identity, not to mention ruining his chances of finally hooking up with MJ. So, the rest of the movie nicely splits itself between teen high school banter/comedy drama and international superhero action. Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) features prominently throughout the movie, helping to guide and mentor Peter in the absence of his old boss Tony Stark, and providing plenty of comic relief along the way too. He also passes onto Peter, a gift from Tony Stark - a pair of Jarvis-like talking shades called EDITH (Even Dead I'm The Hero!) - which initially act as a funny and poignant accessory for Peter, but proves to be a hugely important part of how the rest of the movie plays out.
Beyond that, I'm struggling to avoid spoilers. And there are a lot of them. If you're familiar with the comics though (and despite having some vague familiarity with them, I'd completely forgotten everything!), you'll be able to predict a lot of what comes next anyway. But, once again, I have to say how amazed I am that Marvel managed to produce trailers for this movie which not only mislead you into believing that you know exactly which direction this movie is heading in, but also feature scenes which aren't in the final movie! As a result, I found Far From Home to be a truly wonderful surprise, and even if you know how it's all going to play out, you should still manage to get a huge amount of enjoyment from seeing the masters of storytelling at work yet again. This movie gave me Endgame-level thrills and goose-bump moments, over and over again throughout. Visually, it's outstanding - with impressive action scenes and trippy sequences the likes of which we haven't seen since Doctor Strange. Jake Gyllenhaal is perfect as Mysterio too, really bringing the character to life, and by the end of it all I was just completely blown away. So when the mid credit sequence hit, opening up some shocking possibilities for future movies, I was almost hyperventilating with excitement!
We kick off with a brief introduction to what will dominate the rest of the movie - Nick Fury and Maria Hill arrive in Mexico, where "a cyclone with a face" has completely destroyed a small town. As this new threat returns to wreak even more havoc, a mysterious new hero arrives to face it square on in battle, dramatically declaring to the startled S.H.I.E.L.D agents, "you don't want any part of this". From there, we switch to a lighthearted wrap up of the devastating events surrounding Infinity War/Endgame, in the form of an amateur high school news report. Mourning the loss of fallen heroes (accompanied by Whitney Houston singing 'I Will Always Love You'!), the report goes on to explain how "The Blip" - the term many are using to describe the effects of the 5 year period where half of the population were wiped from existence. Having the population age 5 years while the returning half haven't aged at all naturally has humorous consequences when it comes to students and their school life, but essentially humanity has managed to move on and has learnt to deal with it. Someone who is struggling to move on though, particularly from the loss of mentor/surrogate father, Tony Stark, is young Peter Parker. Desperately in need of a summer vacation, and a break from being Spider-Man, Parker cannot wait to join the rest of his friends, and crucially MJ (Zendaya), on an upcoming school trip which will take them to various European destinations.
But there's no chance of any kind of break for Spider-Man just yet, as Nick Fury has other plans for him. Peter does the unthinkable though and ignores the many phone calls from Fury, until he eventually tracks him down for a face to face meeting in his Venice hotel room. Since the incident in Mexico, S.H.I.E.L.D have been working with the mysterious new hero, Quentin Beck, or 'Mysterio' as he has now been dubbed, and Peter (along with us) are now brought up to speed on the origins of Quentin and these new global threats. Quentin actually comes from an alternate Earth where these creatures, known as The Elementals (monstrous versions of wind, fire, water and air), were responsible for the destruction of not only his world but his entire family too. The most powerful Elemental, fire, is yet to appear on our Earth and Mysterio, along with the help of S.H.I.E.L.D and Spider-Man, need to locate and stop it before it becomes too powerful for them to defeat.
Peter isn't initially interested though, being more concerned about jeopardising his school trip and exposing his identity, not to mention ruining his chances of finally hooking up with MJ. So, the rest of the movie nicely splits itself between teen high school banter/comedy drama and international superhero action. Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) features prominently throughout the movie, helping to guide and mentor Peter in the absence of his old boss Tony Stark, and providing plenty of comic relief along the way too. He also passes onto Peter, a gift from Tony Stark - a pair of Jarvis-like talking shades called EDITH (Even Dead I'm The Hero!) - which initially act as a funny and poignant accessory for Peter, but proves to be a hugely important part of how the rest of the movie plays out.
Beyond that, I'm struggling to avoid spoilers. And there are a lot of them. If you're familiar with the comics though (and despite having some vague familiarity with them, I'd completely forgotten everything!), you'll be able to predict a lot of what comes next anyway. But, once again, I have to say how amazed I am that Marvel managed to produce trailers for this movie which not only mislead you into believing that you know exactly which direction this movie is heading in, but also feature scenes which aren't in the final movie! As a result, I found Far From Home to be a truly wonderful surprise, and even if you know how it's all going to play out, you should still manage to get a huge amount of enjoyment from seeing the masters of storytelling at work yet again. This movie gave me Endgame-level thrills and goose-bump moments, over and over again throughout. Visually, it's outstanding - with impressive action scenes and trippy sequences the likes of which we haven't seen since Doctor Strange. Jake Gyllenhaal is perfect as Mysterio too, really bringing the character to life, and by the end of it all I was just completely blown away. So when the mid credit sequence hit, opening up some shocking possibilities for future movies, I was almost hyperventilating with excitement!
Darren (1599 KP) rated 47 Meters Down (2017) in Movies
Jun 20, 2019
Story: 47 Meters Down starts as two sisters Lisa (Moore) and Kate (Holt) are holidaying in Mexico with Lisa trying to get over her ex, the two look to have a good time. Two locals Benjamin (Segura), Louis (Gellman) talk the girls into joining Captain Taylor (Modine) on the Sea Esta to swim with sharks.
When the dream experience for the girls turns into a nightmare when the cable holding the cage snaps, sending them both trapped in the cage 47 metres to the bottoms of the ocean, the two must stay calm and wait for rescue but do they have the air to wait that long?
Thoughts on 47 Meters Down
Characters/Performance – Lisa is the stable one of the two sisters, she doesn’t take the risks her sister does and finds herself using this holiday to follow her sisters lead. Kate is the free spirited of the two sisters that enjoys taking risk and will not be saying no to an adventure. We do have a captain and his crew too but we barely see them.
Performance wise, Holt and Moore are fine, you don’t actually believe them to be sisters and the peril they find themselves in doesn’t seem to be anything overly fresh in performance eyes.
Story – The story does offer us something fresh when it comes to the shark attack genre, the film takes place underwater instead of on the surface as the girls are trapped at the bottom of the ocean. The problem using this situation is that the near death moments just don’t come off, for example we have a good 5 minutes sequence with one of the girls trying to drag an oxygen tank closer, now this happens too early in the film for us to believe that she might die. On the surface this is a good idea and does work but puts together the maybes too far apart.
Adventure/Horror – The adventure would be about what the two girls could be experiencing with the horror being how this adventure could go horribly wrong with shark attack happening.
Settings – The bottom of the ocean in a shark cage, well this is a new and brilliant setting for the movie and is easily the highlight of everything.
Special Effects – The effects are used to create the shark attack sequences which are all filled with terror.
Final Thoughts – This is a fresh approach to the shark attack movie, it is smartly created but does lack in the idea of peril which the surface has on the higher levels.
Overall: Shark attack movie with new breath but less teeth.
https://moviesreview101.com/2017/07/03/47-meters-down-2017/
When the dream experience for the girls turns into a nightmare when the cable holding the cage snaps, sending them both trapped in the cage 47 metres to the bottoms of the ocean, the two must stay calm and wait for rescue but do they have the air to wait that long?
Thoughts on 47 Meters Down
Characters/Performance – Lisa is the stable one of the two sisters, she doesn’t take the risks her sister does and finds herself using this holiday to follow her sisters lead. Kate is the free spirited of the two sisters that enjoys taking risk and will not be saying no to an adventure. We do have a captain and his crew too but we barely see them.
Performance wise, Holt and Moore are fine, you don’t actually believe them to be sisters and the peril they find themselves in doesn’t seem to be anything overly fresh in performance eyes.
Story – The story does offer us something fresh when it comes to the shark attack genre, the film takes place underwater instead of on the surface as the girls are trapped at the bottom of the ocean. The problem using this situation is that the near death moments just don’t come off, for example we have a good 5 minutes sequence with one of the girls trying to drag an oxygen tank closer, now this happens too early in the film for us to believe that she might die. On the surface this is a good idea and does work but puts together the maybes too far apart.
Adventure/Horror – The adventure would be about what the two girls could be experiencing with the horror being how this adventure could go horribly wrong with shark attack happening.
Settings – The bottom of the ocean in a shark cage, well this is a new and brilliant setting for the movie and is easily the highlight of everything.
Special Effects – The effects are used to create the shark attack sequences which are all filled with terror.
Final Thoughts – This is a fresh approach to the shark attack movie, it is smartly created but does lack in the idea of peril which the surface has on the higher levels.
Overall: Shark attack movie with new breath but less teeth.
https://moviesreview101.com/2017/07/03/47-meters-down-2017/
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Mayans MC in TV
Jan 8, 2019 (Updated Jan 8, 2019)
Hijos de la Anarquía
Funnily enough, my girlfriend and I were actually on Holiday in Mexico when this show premiered back in September. Although I was excited to see it since it was announced as I am a big fan of the original SOA series, because we were away when it first aired and we had a bunch to catch up on when we got back, I only recently made my way through the first series of Mayans. Also, just as a heads up, because this is a spinoff of SOA, I will be making a lot of comparisons to the OG show throughout my review.
Mayans follows EZ Reyes, a prospect for the Mayans Motorcycle Club. His older brother is a full patch and is responsible for getting him involved with the biker gang. The series takes place a few years after, (SPOILERS FOR SOA,) the death of Jax Teller. EZ is far less involved with his club than Jax was. Due to Jax's heritage, he was destined to be a part of the SOA, but most of EZ's problems come from outside the club or from his murky past.
In fact, most of the issues that characters deal with in the show, come from problems outside the club, whereas the first season of SOA dealt far more with club problems and established the group of men as more of a family unit, much more so than the Mayans. This change isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just different and I wonder if it was a conscience change to differentiate the show from SOA or if it was due to the addition of Kurt Sutter's new writing partner Elgin James.
Speaking of the writing, it is as tight here as it ever was in SOA. Kurt Sutter is an absolute genius with a pen, taking the audience from generic biker dialogue one minute to deep family crisis' and existential questions the next. The one major change is the use of flashbacks in this series. As far as I can recall, although SOA spent a lot of time talking about Jax's family history, we never actually saw any flashbacks, but Mayans is full of them. This is based around the gimmick of EZ having a photographic memory. Personally I don't mind gimmicks like this in writing as long as they are executed well and for the most part, they do serve the story that Mayans is trying to tell.
Overall, I enjoyed the first series of Mayans and I am looking forward to seeing where the show will go in future after having been renewed for a second season.
Mayans follows EZ Reyes, a prospect for the Mayans Motorcycle Club. His older brother is a full patch and is responsible for getting him involved with the biker gang. The series takes place a few years after, (SPOILERS FOR SOA,) the death of Jax Teller. EZ is far less involved with his club than Jax was. Due to Jax's heritage, he was destined to be a part of the SOA, but most of EZ's problems come from outside the club or from his murky past.
In fact, most of the issues that characters deal with in the show, come from problems outside the club, whereas the first season of SOA dealt far more with club problems and established the group of men as more of a family unit, much more so than the Mayans. This change isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just different and I wonder if it was a conscience change to differentiate the show from SOA or if it was due to the addition of Kurt Sutter's new writing partner Elgin James.
Speaking of the writing, it is as tight here as it ever was in SOA. Kurt Sutter is an absolute genius with a pen, taking the audience from generic biker dialogue one minute to deep family crisis' and existential questions the next. The one major change is the use of flashbacks in this series. As far as I can recall, although SOA spent a lot of time talking about Jax's family history, we never actually saw any flashbacks, but Mayans is full of them. This is based around the gimmick of EZ having a photographic memory. Personally I don't mind gimmicks like this in writing as long as they are executed well and for the most part, they do serve the story that Mayans is trying to tell.
Overall, I enjoyed the first series of Mayans and I am looking forward to seeing where the show will go in future after having been renewed for a second season.
Andy K (10823 KP) rated Altered States (1980) in Movies
Oct 26, 2019
Dr. Eddie Jessup is conducting some interesting research using a deprivation chamber. His goal is to better understand the human mind and maybe the psychology of schizophrenia or how the deep unconscious works. He meets a smart female mind and the two have a whirlwind romance which distracts from his research a bit.
He does manage to make a trip to Mexico where he hears about a tribe using a hallucinatory drug which causes some of the same effects he experienced while submerged in his isolation tank back home so he decides to try it. He has massive hallucinations, loses control of his actions and even gives in to his more primal instincts and devours a sheep. When he wakes he only remember bits and pieces of his actions, but is convinced this is the correct road for his research.
Back in the US, he decides to combine both elements of his research including use of the drug and the chamber at the same time to see the results. The results of the combination are not only dangerous to Eddie's psyche and soul, but to his physical human body as well. He performs an unsupervised deprivation experience on his own and experiences an evolution regression back to a primitive homo sapien state which is now loose in the basement of his lab and has to be stopped.
Eddie ultimately has to decide if his estranged family or his research is more important to him and if now it is too late to have them both.
Famed, provocative British director Ken Russell takes on the task of bringing this interesting, colorful and wild film to life. He already had a reputation of helming controversial films like The Devils and Tommy, so maybe this film was a step down from those.
The psychedelic hallucination sequences Eddie experiences while on the drug or in the chamber were so unique, shocking and visceral they were intense but hard to look away from. Images were being edited at such a pace your mind races as you watch them. Eddie's personal journey as a doctor and student of the human mind are fascinating to watch as he struggles with his relationship with his wife and kids at the same time. As he continues his research, he wants to understand what is happening to him, but doesn't want to be inhibited but others' desires.
William Hurt and Blair Brown have good chemistry when together onscreen and you feel her concern as she feels she is losing the man she loves to something she doesn't understand. They both field infidelity in their marriage as he tries to fill the empty space of commitment and she tries in vain to replace with others the man she truly loves.
He does manage to make a trip to Mexico where he hears about a tribe using a hallucinatory drug which causes some of the same effects he experienced while submerged in his isolation tank back home so he decides to try it. He has massive hallucinations, loses control of his actions and even gives in to his more primal instincts and devours a sheep. When he wakes he only remember bits and pieces of his actions, but is convinced this is the correct road for his research.
Back in the US, he decides to combine both elements of his research including use of the drug and the chamber at the same time to see the results. The results of the combination are not only dangerous to Eddie's psyche and soul, but to his physical human body as well. He performs an unsupervised deprivation experience on his own and experiences an evolution regression back to a primitive homo sapien state which is now loose in the basement of his lab and has to be stopped.
Eddie ultimately has to decide if his estranged family or his research is more important to him and if now it is too late to have them both.
Famed, provocative British director Ken Russell takes on the task of bringing this interesting, colorful and wild film to life. He already had a reputation of helming controversial films like The Devils and Tommy, so maybe this film was a step down from those.
The psychedelic hallucination sequences Eddie experiences while on the drug or in the chamber were so unique, shocking and visceral they were intense but hard to look away from. Images were being edited at such a pace your mind races as you watch them. Eddie's personal journey as a doctor and student of the human mind are fascinating to watch as he struggles with his relationship with his wife and kids at the same time. As he continues his research, he wants to understand what is happening to him, but doesn't want to be inhibited but others' desires.
William Hurt and Blair Brown have good chemistry when together onscreen and you feel her concern as she feels she is losing the man she loves to something she doesn't understand. They both field infidelity in their marriage as he tries to fill the empty space of commitment and she tries in vain to replace with others the man she truly loves.
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Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Brightburn (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020
Horror Twist On A Classic Comic Book Icon
Brightburn is a 2019 superhero/horror movie produced by James Gunn and Kenneth Huang. It was directed by David Yarovesky with screenplay written by Mark and Brian Gunn. The film was produced by Screen Gems, Stage 6 Films, Troll Court Entertainment, and the H Collective. The movie stars Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones and Meredith Hagnar.
Living in Brightburn, Kansas, Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman), a young farm couple, struggle with conceiving a child due to fertility issues. One night, a spaceship falls from the sky near their farm. A baby boy is found inside and the couple decide to adopt him and name him Brandon. Years later, it seems Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is a typical young boy as he has been raised without the knowledge of his true origin. However this begins to change in very dramatic ways as the spaceship that he arrived in, hidden in a trapdoor in the barn, begins to glow and affect him disturbingly.
This movie was very much horror and with the R-rating it did not disappoint in that category. However for a superhero movie, I definitely felt it could have been better, especially when it came to the storytelling. I felt like the plot wasn't structured enough and it didn't always feel like it was going somewhere except for what it had shown through the trailers. You know, like it showed in the trailers the outcome and the journey to that outcome wasn't as fun or surprising as I thought it was going to be. The kill scenes though were very brutal, which for some reason I wasn't expecting as much, I guess because the one doing them is this super-powered 12 year old. But this was an awesome concept on a very familiar story that everyone has grown up with or heard, which is basically Superman. There are comics from DC and of Superman like Red Son Superman; where it's a "what if" Superman had landed in Russia instead of United States, and there is a Justice League animated film where instead of Superman, Kal-El, the baby that escapes Krypton is Generel Zod's child and instead of landing in Kansas he lands in New Mexico and is raised by Mexican migrant farmers. But I don't think there has been a story to explore this type of different way Superman could have grown up and it was shockingly entertaining to say the least. The mid-credits scene was really cool to see as well and know that the cinematic universe for Brightburn could expand if it does well financially. I'm thinking that it won't with stiff competition such as Aladdin and John Wick 3 but who knows. I give this film a 6/10.
Living in Brightburn, Kansas, Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman), a young farm couple, struggle with conceiving a child due to fertility issues. One night, a spaceship falls from the sky near their farm. A baby boy is found inside and the couple decide to adopt him and name him Brandon. Years later, it seems Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is a typical young boy as he has been raised without the knowledge of his true origin. However this begins to change in very dramatic ways as the spaceship that he arrived in, hidden in a trapdoor in the barn, begins to glow and affect him disturbingly.
This movie was very much horror and with the R-rating it did not disappoint in that category. However for a superhero movie, I definitely felt it could have been better, especially when it came to the storytelling. I felt like the plot wasn't structured enough and it didn't always feel like it was going somewhere except for what it had shown through the trailers. You know, like it showed in the trailers the outcome and the journey to that outcome wasn't as fun or surprising as I thought it was going to be. The kill scenes though were very brutal, which for some reason I wasn't expecting as much, I guess because the one doing them is this super-powered 12 year old. But this was an awesome concept on a very familiar story that everyone has grown up with or heard, which is basically Superman. There are comics from DC and of Superman like Red Son Superman; where it's a "what if" Superman had landed in Russia instead of United States, and there is a Justice League animated film where instead of Superman, Kal-El, the baby that escapes Krypton is Generel Zod's child and instead of landing in Kansas he lands in New Mexico and is raised by Mexican migrant farmers. But I don't think there has been a story to explore this type of different way Superman could have grown up and it was shockingly entertaining to say the least. The mid-credits scene was really cool to see as well and know that the cinematic universe for Brightburn could expand if it does well financially. I'm thinking that it won't with stiff competition such as Aladdin and John Wick 3 but who knows. I give this film a 6/10.
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