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Hadley (567 KP) rated Cigarette Teeth in Books
Dec 4, 2020
Great writing (1 more)
Amazing descriptions
In this day-and-age, everyone is willing to do anything to get what they want. People leave their morals and values behind at the drop of a hat. Partly, because of this, mental illness is at an all-time high and happiness is at an all-time low.
What if I told you there was a phone number you could call that would give you whatever you wanted...for a simple favor in return? Enter : Cigarette Teeth. The horror novel concerns two different places that exist in our world: the Pleasure Palace, where the Magician resides in an overcast of red light where he helps make peoples' 'dreams' come true, and our reality - - - the world as we've grown to know it.
Our main character, Mike Hadley, can't remember his past or how he ended up working for the Magician, but he's more than happy to do what he's told in Cigarette Teeth. Some things seem familiar to him, like his working partner, Tommy; but if you asked him what he did last night for the Magician, he wouldn't be able to tell you or remember it himself. Harper, a man Hadley meets early on in the story, who is the stereo-typical hardened detective, tells Hadley that he knows that the Pleasure Palace has been the cause of hundreds of disappearances - - - including Harper's own brother and sister- - - and demands that Hadley help him get into the Palace to find them.
Hadley is kidnapped by Harper while people working for the Pleasure Palace begin to come after them, trying to kill them. Unlike Hadley, Harper has done a lot of detective work on the Pleasure Palace and knows much more than he does. For Hadley, a lot of things begin to make sense and no sense at the same time, like people who work for the Pleasure Palace can't die, instead they regenerate in a very gruesome way- - - something he had never seen happen before. Now, being away from the Palace, whenever Hadley falls asleep, memories start to come back to him in the form of dreams; most of them take place in metaphorical places that slowly unwrap his tragic past to the reader.
I often found myself fascinated by the characters Hewish came up with that live in the Pleasure Palace. One being the Zipper Sisters: "Kela and and Lua Von Zipper. Conjoined twins; connected at the hip and zipped into the one gigantic pinched- leather corset. Two heads, two arms, and four legs, all sealed in an ornate, Victorian-style leather dress hemmed with black lace.
Their makeup was corpse-white, their lipstick blood red. Their eyes were shadowed with a weeping pastel green, like something from a carnival sideshow. Their 18th-century dress continued with ruffles and lacy stockings, all the colour of snow. The two pairs of shoes they wore- - - shiny little school shoes, the ones with the clasps over the top- - - completed the look. It gave these sinister twins a suggested air of innocence- - - the filthiest of lies. "
When the pair meet with the Architect of the Pleasure Palace (Horitoshi Li), the story really begins to take off. The information given to them by Li about the Magician is the real start to their journey to stop the Palace and find Harper's missing siblings, as long as they include Li in the plan.
As expected, a friend of Harper's, named Sophie, gets caught up in their journey- - - saving their lives more than once, thanks to her nursing background. Sophie felt like a filler character at first, but in the end, I think she was needed to make the story well-rounded, like her insight of psychology: "...But...it's just interesting. Did you know the second most common dream people have is about their teeth? After the 'being chased' phenomenon that usually coincides with a hallway and a door. Most notable psychologists don't really offer insight on dreams- - - the most popular consensus is that they're nothing more than cerebral static, just garbled images and words that occasionally form to make something that seems to have weight..."
Though I want to say so much more about the novel, it would give away a lot of the surprises that are hidden inside. Hewish's writing is gold; the way he describes scenes is beautifully done, but he did waste some of this talent on places where the characters weren't even there for more than a scene (and nothing really came of it). Also, Harper states one time early in the book that he has killed Hadley before... this is never explained or spoken of again. I think that was a very important part to this story, especially with how things turn out between Harper and Hadley.
There were only a few inconsistencies that are completely able to be looked over and don't ruin the novel. This is master storytelling, and I am looking very forward to more work by Hewish! I would recommend this book to fans of the show "Twin Peaks," and the video game (because I love horror video games) "Evil Within." Highly recommend!
What if I told you there was a phone number you could call that would give you whatever you wanted...for a simple favor in return? Enter : Cigarette Teeth. The horror novel concerns two different places that exist in our world: the Pleasure Palace, where the Magician resides in an overcast of red light where he helps make peoples' 'dreams' come true, and our reality - - - the world as we've grown to know it.
Our main character, Mike Hadley, can't remember his past or how he ended up working for the Magician, but he's more than happy to do what he's told in Cigarette Teeth. Some things seem familiar to him, like his working partner, Tommy; but if you asked him what he did last night for the Magician, he wouldn't be able to tell you or remember it himself. Harper, a man Hadley meets early on in the story, who is the stereo-typical hardened detective, tells Hadley that he knows that the Pleasure Palace has been the cause of hundreds of disappearances - - - including Harper's own brother and sister- - - and demands that Hadley help him get into the Palace to find them.
Hadley is kidnapped by Harper while people working for the Pleasure Palace begin to come after them, trying to kill them. Unlike Hadley, Harper has done a lot of detective work on the Pleasure Palace and knows much more than he does. For Hadley, a lot of things begin to make sense and no sense at the same time, like people who work for the Pleasure Palace can't die, instead they regenerate in a very gruesome way- - - something he had never seen happen before. Now, being away from the Palace, whenever Hadley falls asleep, memories start to come back to him in the form of dreams; most of them take place in metaphorical places that slowly unwrap his tragic past to the reader.
I often found myself fascinated by the characters Hewish came up with that live in the Pleasure Palace. One being the Zipper Sisters: "Kela and and Lua Von Zipper. Conjoined twins; connected at the hip and zipped into the one gigantic pinched- leather corset. Two heads, two arms, and four legs, all sealed in an ornate, Victorian-style leather dress hemmed with black lace.
Their makeup was corpse-white, their lipstick blood red. Their eyes were shadowed with a weeping pastel green, like something from a carnival sideshow. Their 18th-century dress continued with ruffles and lacy stockings, all the colour of snow. The two pairs of shoes they wore- - - shiny little school shoes, the ones with the clasps over the top- - - completed the look. It gave these sinister twins a suggested air of innocence- - - the filthiest of lies. "
When the pair meet with the Architect of the Pleasure Palace (Horitoshi Li), the story really begins to take off. The information given to them by Li about the Magician is the real start to their journey to stop the Palace and find Harper's missing siblings, as long as they include Li in the plan.
As expected, a friend of Harper's, named Sophie, gets caught up in their journey- - - saving their lives more than once, thanks to her nursing background. Sophie felt like a filler character at first, but in the end, I think she was needed to make the story well-rounded, like her insight of psychology: "...But...it's just interesting. Did you know the second most common dream people have is about their teeth? After the 'being chased' phenomenon that usually coincides with a hallway and a door. Most notable psychologists don't really offer insight on dreams- - - the most popular consensus is that they're nothing more than cerebral static, just garbled images and words that occasionally form to make something that seems to have weight..."
Though I want to say so much more about the novel, it would give away a lot of the surprises that are hidden inside. Hewish's writing is gold; the way he describes scenes is beautifully done, but he did waste some of this talent on places where the characters weren't even there for more than a scene (and nothing really came of it). Also, Harper states one time early in the book that he has killed Hadley before... this is never explained or spoken of again. I think that was a very important part to this story, especially with how things turn out between Harper and Hadley.
There were only a few inconsistencies that are completely able to be looked over and don't ruin the novel. This is master storytelling, and I am looking very forward to more work by Hewish! I would recommend this book to fans of the show "Twin Peaks," and the video game (because I love horror video games) "Evil Within." Highly recommend!
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee
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Sometimes referred to as the country’s “most dangerous editor,” Washington Post executive...
documentary
Paris for One and Other Stories
7.2
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A collection of 11 unmissable short stories from the Number One internationally bestselling author...
LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) in Movies
Aug 19, 2019 (Updated Oct 25, 2019)
A dammmnnn shame
Contains spoilers, click to show
Oh boy.
I'm going to get straight to the main flaw with this one - I'm not sure how someone can really mess up Apocalypse so bad - he is a great X-Men villain. I remember watching the cartoon as a kid, being enamoured whenever Apocalypse turned up. The first mutant, practically a god, terrifying voice etc.
The Age of Apocalypse story arc is also a great comic - one where we see just how dangerous Apocalypse can be.
But instead of this classic villain, we get, well whatever the hell this is.
Oscar Isaac is give or take in other films I've seen him in, he just sort of exists to me, but I'm sure he did the best he could with what he was given.
But the character we're presented with in X-Men: Apocalypse is a mutant that isn't particularly terrifying, whose motives aren't very clear, and who speaks in a goddam normal human voice for the entire movie.
He looks, ok I guess, a little Ivan Ooze-ish at times, and there is a (very) brief moment where his voice goes all demonic and his eyes turn white, which offers a tiny glimpse of what could have been.
Elsewhere, the still awesome Michael Fassbender is relegated to a sidekick character, new cast members such as Psylocke, Angel, and Storm are there just to strike poses to edgy rock music, and Quicksilver gets a re hash of his great scene from DOFP that just doesn't quite hit the mark this time round.
The introduction of Sophie Turner as Jean Grey is fine, and it's nice to see a young Cyclops, Nightcrawler etc, but they're not given too much to do. It all just feels like one big wasted opportunity.
The film would have been much better and ballsier had it ended with Apocalypse winning, and ushering a full on Age of Apocalypse scenario for a sequel, but instead, he is dispatched with not too much trouble, as the writers poorly shoehorn in a segue for Dark Phoenix (for the second time in this franchise)
It's not all bad, there are times where I felt I was watching the cartoon come to life. The opening scene in ancient Egypt was pretty fun, and I actually quite enjoyed the brief Wolverine scene - those few minutes were way more entertaining to me than the entirety of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Overall though, this one had me wanting the rights to return to Marvel Studios.
I'm going to get straight to the main flaw with this one - I'm not sure how someone can really mess up Apocalypse so bad - he is a great X-Men villain. I remember watching the cartoon as a kid, being enamoured whenever Apocalypse turned up. The first mutant, practically a god, terrifying voice etc.
The Age of Apocalypse story arc is also a great comic - one where we see just how dangerous Apocalypse can be.
But instead of this classic villain, we get, well whatever the hell this is.
Oscar Isaac is give or take in other films I've seen him in, he just sort of exists to me, but I'm sure he did the best he could with what he was given.
But the character we're presented with in X-Men: Apocalypse is a mutant that isn't particularly terrifying, whose motives aren't very clear, and who speaks in a goddam normal human voice for the entire movie.
He looks, ok I guess, a little Ivan Ooze-ish at times, and there is a (very) brief moment where his voice goes all demonic and his eyes turn white, which offers a tiny glimpse of what could have been.
Elsewhere, the still awesome Michael Fassbender is relegated to a sidekick character, new cast members such as Psylocke, Angel, and Storm are there just to strike poses to edgy rock music, and Quicksilver gets a re hash of his great scene from DOFP that just doesn't quite hit the mark this time round.
The introduction of Sophie Turner as Jean Grey is fine, and it's nice to see a young Cyclops, Nightcrawler etc, but they're not given too much to do. It all just feels like one big wasted opportunity.
The film would have been much better and ballsier had it ended with Apocalypse winning, and ushering a full on Age of Apocalypse scenario for a sequel, but instead, he is dispatched with not too much trouble, as the writers poorly shoehorn in a segue for Dark Phoenix (for the second time in this franchise)
It's not all bad, there are times where I felt I was watching the cartoon come to life. The opening scene in ancient Egypt was pretty fun, and I actually quite enjoyed the brief Wolverine scene - those few minutes were way more entertaining to me than the entirety of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Overall though, this one had me wanting the rights to return to Marvel Studios.
At Home with Dogs and Their Designers: Sharing a Stylish Life
Susanna Salk and Stacey Bewkes
6.0
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America's leading interior designers show readers how to live in the most stylish way with their...
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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Their Finest (2017) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Keep Calm and Carry on Writing.
In a well-mined category, “Their Finest” is a World War 2 comedy/drama telling a tale I haven’t seen told before: the story behind the British Ministry of Information and their drive to produce propaganda films that support morale and promote positive messages in a time of national crisis. For it is 1940 and London is under nightly attack by the Luftwaffe during the time known as “The Blitz”. Unfortunately the Ministry is run by a bunch of toffs, and their output is laughably misaligned with the working class population, and especially the female population: with their husbands fighting overseas, these two groups are fast becoming one and the same. For women are finding and enjoying new empowerment and freedom in being socially unshackled from the kitchen sink.
The brave crew of the Nancy Starling. Bill Nighy as Uncle Frank, with twins Lily and Francesca Knight as the Starling sisters.
Enter Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton, “The Girl with all the Gifts“) who is one such woman arriving to a dangerous London from South Wales to live with struggling disabled artist Ellis (Jack Huston, grandson of John Huston). Catrin, stretching the truth a little, brings a stirring ‘true’ tale of derring-do about the Dunkirk evacuation to the Ministry’s attention. She is then employed to “write the slop” (the woman’s dialogue) in the writing team headed by spiky Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin, “Me Before You“).
One of the stars of the film within the film is ‘Uncle Frank’ played by the aging but charismatic actor Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy, “Dad’s Army“, “Love Actually”). Catrin proves her worth by pouring oil on troubled waters as the army insist on the introduction of an American airman (Jake Lacy, “Carol“) to the stressful mix. An attraction builds between Catrin and Tom, but how will the love triangle resolve itself? (For a significant clue see the “Spoiler Section” below the trailer, but be warned that this is a major spoiler!).
As you might expect if you’ve seen the trailer the film is, in the main, warm and funny with Gemma Arterton just gorgeously huggable as the determined young lady trying to make it in a misogynistic 40’s world of work. Arterton is just the perfect “girl next door”: (sigh… if I was only 20 years younger and unattached!) But mixed in with the humour and the romantic storyline is a harsh sprinkling of the trials of war and not a little heartbreak occurs. This is at least a 5 tissue movie.
Claflin, who is having a strong year with appearances in a wide range of films, is also eminently watchable. One of his best scenes is a speech with Arterton about “why people love the movies”, a theory that the film merrily and memorably drives a stake through the heart of!
Elsewhere Lacy is hilarious as the hapless airman with zero acting ability; Helen McCrory (“Harry Potter”) as Sophie Smith vamps it up wonderfully as the potential Polish love interest for Hilliard; Richard E Grant (“Logan“) and Jeremy Irons (“The Lion King”, “Die Hard: with a Vengeance”) pop up in useful cameos and Eddie Marsan (“Sherlock Holmes”) is also touching as Hilliard’s long-suffering agent.
But it is Bill Nighy’s Hilliard who carries most of the wit and humour of the film with his pompous thespian persona, basking in the dwindling glory of a much loved series of “Inspector Lynley” films. With his pomposity progressively warming under the thawing effect of Sophie and Catrin, you have to love him! Bill Nighy is, well, Bill Nighy. Hugh Grant gets it (unfairly) in the neck for “being Hugh Grant” in every film, but this pales in comparison with Nighy’s performances! But who cares: his kooky delivery is just delightful and he is a national treasure!
Slightly less convincing for me was Rachael Stirling’s role as a butch ministry busybody with more than a hint of the lesbian about her. Stirling’s performance in the role is fine, but would this really have been so blatant in 1940’s Britain? This didn’t really ring true for me.
While the film gamely tries to pull off London in the Blitz the film’s limited budget (around £25m) makes everything feel a little underpowered and ’empty’: a few hundred more extras in the Underground/Blitz scenes for example would have helped no end. However, the special effects crew do their best and the cinematography by Sebastian Blenkov (“The Riot Club”) suitably conveys the mood: a scene where Catrin gets caught in a bomb blast outside a clothes shop is particularly moving.
As with all comedy dramas, sometimes the bedfellows lie uncomfortably with each other, and a couple of plot twists: one highly predictable; one shockingly unpredictable make this a non-linear watch. This rollercoaster of a script by Gaby Chiappe, in an excellent feature film debut (she actually also has a cameo in the propaganda “carrot film”!), undeniably adds interest and makes the film more memorable. However (I know from personal experience) that the twist did not please everyone in the audience!
Despite its occasionally uneven tone, this is a really enjoyable watch (particularly for more mature audiences) and Danish director Lone Scherfig finally has a vehicle that matches the quality of her much praised Carey Mulligan vehicle “An Education”.
The brave crew of the Nancy Starling. Bill Nighy as Uncle Frank, with twins Lily and Francesca Knight as the Starling sisters.
Enter Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton, “The Girl with all the Gifts“) who is one such woman arriving to a dangerous London from South Wales to live with struggling disabled artist Ellis (Jack Huston, grandson of John Huston). Catrin, stretching the truth a little, brings a stirring ‘true’ tale of derring-do about the Dunkirk evacuation to the Ministry’s attention. She is then employed to “write the slop” (the woman’s dialogue) in the writing team headed by spiky Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin, “Me Before You“).
One of the stars of the film within the film is ‘Uncle Frank’ played by the aging but charismatic actor Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy, “Dad’s Army“, “Love Actually”). Catrin proves her worth by pouring oil on troubled waters as the army insist on the introduction of an American airman (Jake Lacy, “Carol“) to the stressful mix. An attraction builds between Catrin and Tom, but how will the love triangle resolve itself? (For a significant clue see the “Spoiler Section” below the trailer, but be warned that this is a major spoiler!).
As you might expect if you’ve seen the trailer the film is, in the main, warm and funny with Gemma Arterton just gorgeously huggable as the determined young lady trying to make it in a misogynistic 40’s world of work. Arterton is just the perfect “girl next door”: (sigh… if I was only 20 years younger and unattached!) But mixed in with the humour and the romantic storyline is a harsh sprinkling of the trials of war and not a little heartbreak occurs. This is at least a 5 tissue movie.
Claflin, who is having a strong year with appearances in a wide range of films, is also eminently watchable. One of his best scenes is a speech with Arterton about “why people love the movies”, a theory that the film merrily and memorably drives a stake through the heart of!
Elsewhere Lacy is hilarious as the hapless airman with zero acting ability; Helen McCrory (“Harry Potter”) as Sophie Smith vamps it up wonderfully as the potential Polish love interest for Hilliard; Richard E Grant (“Logan“) and Jeremy Irons (“The Lion King”, “Die Hard: with a Vengeance”) pop up in useful cameos and Eddie Marsan (“Sherlock Holmes”) is also touching as Hilliard’s long-suffering agent.
But it is Bill Nighy’s Hilliard who carries most of the wit and humour of the film with his pompous thespian persona, basking in the dwindling glory of a much loved series of “Inspector Lynley” films. With his pomposity progressively warming under the thawing effect of Sophie and Catrin, you have to love him! Bill Nighy is, well, Bill Nighy. Hugh Grant gets it (unfairly) in the neck for “being Hugh Grant” in every film, but this pales in comparison with Nighy’s performances! But who cares: his kooky delivery is just delightful and he is a national treasure!
Slightly less convincing for me was Rachael Stirling’s role as a butch ministry busybody with more than a hint of the lesbian about her. Stirling’s performance in the role is fine, but would this really have been so blatant in 1940’s Britain? This didn’t really ring true for me.
While the film gamely tries to pull off London in the Blitz the film’s limited budget (around £25m) makes everything feel a little underpowered and ’empty’: a few hundred more extras in the Underground/Blitz scenes for example would have helped no end. However, the special effects crew do their best and the cinematography by Sebastian Blenkov (“The Riot Club”) suitably conveys the mood: a scene where Catrin gets caught in a bomb blast outside a clothes shop is particularly moving.
As with all comedy dramas, sometimes the bedfellows lie uncomfortably with each other, and a couple of plot twists: one highly predictable; one shockingly unpredictable make this a non-linear watch. This rollercoaster of a script by Gaby Chiappe, in an excellent feature film debut (she actually also has a cameo in the propaganda “carrot film”!), undeniably adds interest and makes the film more memorable. However (I know from personal experience) that the twist did not please everyone in the audience!
Despite its occasionally uneven tone, this is a really enjoyable watch (particularly for more mature audiences) and Danish director Lone Scherfig finally has a vehicle that matches the quality of her much praised Carey Mulligan vehicle “An Education”.
Bookapotamus (289 KP) rated The Waiting Room in Books
Jun 11, 2018
Super Twister Turny!
Somebody get my Chiropractor on the line! I think I have whiplash from all the twists and turns! What a ride!
Emily Bleeker can consistently weave a story like nobody's business and The Waiting Room is no exception!
Just when you think you have it all figured out - WHAM! Whiplash. I cannot even explain my love for her writing, and the way she crafts these incredibly suspenseful stories. Knocked this one out of the park. Totally out of the park and past the parking lot, and across the highway... It's so hard to give any synopsis of the story without spoiling too much. It's just that good. There were about 4-5 scenarios I had going on i my head as to the direction this was going, and I was wrong about them all!
Just after children's book illustrator Veronica Shelton's daughter is born, tragedy strikes. Her loving, smart, funny, doting-father husband is killed and her entire life falls apart So, so badly. It's so bad that grieving Veronica can't even TOUCH her own baby daughter. She thinks she's a terrible mother, is now having her own mother taking over most of her child's duties, and is clinging onto hope she can somehow get over this through a new therapist, and very carefully, slow, tiny baby steps. But then strange things start to happen - a break-in, weird figures in her book illustrations, and then - the unthinkable. Her daughter goes missing.
Incompetent police seem to turn the tables on her and she begins to feel like a suspect. Targeted because of her fragile mental state since losing her beloved husband. Veronica decides she's going to finally be the mother that Sophie deserves, and go out and find her daughter on her own. With some strange new friends and the shreds of motherly instinct that remain inside her - she sets off to do just that.
....and cue the whiplash. Just when you think you've got it figured out. Nope, try again. That person's a good guy? Sorry - not the case! Everything going to be OK? Um... hahaaaaa! Nice try. And that ending.. PHEW! Shocker after insanely clever shocker!
Now, I like to think I'm not totally dim, and can be fairly clever at figuring things out. But Emily Bleeker is SO good at making you feel so silly for even thinking you had ANY idea what was going on. She's definitely one of my favorite authors and I was totally thinking about sending her my chiropractor bill, but it just didn't seem fair seeing as how fun the ride was :)
Emily Bleeker can consistently weave a story like nobody's business and The Waiting Room is no exception!
Just when you think you have it all figured out - WHAM! Whiplash. I cannot even explain my love for her writing, and the way she crafts these incredibly suspenseful stories. Knocked this one out of the park. Totally out of the park and past the parking lot, and across the highway... It's so hard to give any synopsis of the story without spoiling too much. It's just that good. There were about 4-5 scenarios I had going on i my head as to the direction this was going, and I was wrong about them all!
Just after children's book illustrator Veronica Shelton's daughter is born, tragedy strikes. Her loving, smart, funny, doting-father husband is killed and her entire life falls apart So, so badly. It's so bad that grieving Veronica can't even TOUCH her own baby daughter. She thinks she's a terrible mother, is now having her own mother taking over most of her child's duties, and is clinging onto hope she can somehow get over this through a new therapist, and very carefully, slow, tiny baby steps. But then strange things start to happen - a break-in, weird figures in her book illustrations, and then - the unthinkable. Her daughter goes missing.
Incompetent police seem to turn the tables on her and she begins to feel like a suspect. Targeted because of her fragile mental state since losing her beloved husband. Veronica decides she's going to finally be the mother that Sophie deserves, and go out and find her daughter on her own. With some strange new friends and the shreds of motherly instinct that remain inside her - she sets off to do just that.
....and cue the whiplash. Just when you think you've got it figured out. Nope, try again. That person's a good guy? Sorry - not the case! Everything going to be OK? Um... hahaaaaa! Nice try. And that ending.. PHEW! Shocker after insanely clever shocker!
Now, I like to think I'm not totally dim, and can be fairly clever at figuring things out. But Emily Bleeker is SO good at making you feel so silly for even thinking you had ANY idea what was going on. She's definitely one of my favorite authors and I was totally thinking about sending her my chiropractor bill, but it just didn't seem fair seeing as how fun the ride was :)
LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) in Movies
Dec 2, 2019 (Updated Jan 13, 2020)
With the (eventually true) whispers about the Disney-Fox merger doing the rounds around Dark Phoenix's release, it arrived to little fanfare. Most people had already written off as a pointless film, and it was a prime target for negativity. So much so, that it was actually the first and only X-Men film I ended up missing in the cinema.
I recently watched it on home release, really not expecting much. After the swing-and-a-miss of Apocalypse, I wasn't feeling too invested in the characters.
So imagine my surprise when I remained glued to the screen for most of the runtime.
Dark Phoenix isn't perfect by any means, and far from the lofty heights of the top tier X-Men movies, buts it no where near as awful as I had heard.
I thought the story was actually ok. I was glad that it partially took place in space, like the original comic, and unlike The Last Stand.
Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are fantastic as they usually are, as is Nicholas Hoult. I also thing Jennifer Lawrence I makes a good Mystique, even though I'm still not a massive fan of this franchises portrayal of her character.
Ty Sheridan and Sophie Turner are given more to do this time around, and are both fine. It's a shame that Evan Peters' Quicksilver is sidelined for this particular adventure.
There are some genuinely powerful emotional beats throughout the film, and it's clear as day that all the actors involved care about their characters, and are having fun.
My main criticism is predictably the villains. The D'bari are a fairly uninspired choice for such a big storyline, and they look like generic CGI aliens. I found Jessica Chastain quite wooden and uninteresting, and they made for a very underwhelming force if evil.
The main focus of Dark Phoenix is of course in Jean Grey's turn to the dark side, so vanilla bad guys shouldn't really be that important anyway.
Dark Phoenix does a slightly better job than The Last Stand of adapting this beloved storyline, but so can't help but feel that it would benefit from multiple movies, instead of cramming into one feature, a I really hope that's something that happens going into the MCU with these characters.
We still have New Mutants to go (if it ever actually comes out) but as a last main entry into the FOX X-Men franchise, you could do a lot worse. It's not the best, it's not the worst. Dark Phoenix sits somewhere quite comfortably in the middle.
Dare I say, I think it might actually be better than the first film...
I recently watched it on home release, really not expecting much. After the swing-and-a-miss of Apocalypse, I wasn't feeling too invested in the characters.
So imagine my surprise when I remained glued to the screen for most of the runtime.
Dark Phoenix isn't perfect by any means, and far from the lofty heights of the top tier X-Men movies, buts it no where near as awful as I had heard.
I thought the story was actually ok. I was glad that it partially took place in space, like the original comic, and unlike The Last Stand.
Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are fantastic as they usually are, as is Nicholas Hoult. I also thing Jennifer Lawrence I makes a good Mystique, even though I'm still not a massive fan of this franchises portrayal of her character.
Ty Sheridan and Sophie Turner are given more to do this time around, and are both fine. It's a shame that Evan Peters' Quicksilver is sidelined for this particular adventure.
There are some genuinely powerful emotional beats throughout the film, and it's clear as day that all the actors involved care about their characters, and are having fun.
My main criticism is predictably the villains. The D'bari are a fairly uninspired choice for such a big storyline, and they look like generic CGI aliens. I found Jessica Chastain quite wooden and uninteresting, and they made for a very underwhelming force if evil.
The main focus of Dark Phoenix is of course in Jean Grey's turn to the dark side, so vanilla bad guys shouldn't really be that important anyway.
Dark Phoenix does a slightly better job than The Last Stand of adapting this beloved storyline, but so can't help but feel that it would benefit from multiple movies, instead of cramming into one feature, a I really hope that's something that happens going into the MCU with these characters.
We still have New Mutants to go (if it ever actually comes out) but as a last main entry into the FOX X-Men franchise, you could do a lot worse. It's not the best, it's not the worst. Dark Phoenix sits somewhere quite comfortably in the middle.
Dare I say, I think it might actually be better than the first film...
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Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967-2017
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Wanderlust highlights artists as voyagers who leave their studios to make art. This book (and the...
Lying in Wait
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Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller! Featured in the Richard and Judy Spring 2017 Book Club 'Gone Girl...