 Let me open this one with the fact that when it comes to DC Comics, I am generally clueless about things. I am, and always have been a Marvel guy, who enjoyed his Spider-Man and X-Men. The only real exception for DC I made was for Batman, who I've enjoyed since the Adam West show was on in syndication in the 80s. And as for the 1989 movie? Well, let's just say I remember the hype. I was there for it, and it was huge. Ever since then, Keaton always has been my favourite as far as someone who can fill both Batman and Bruce Wayne's shoes, equally.
Of course, "Who is the best Batman?" is an argument as old as the 80s themselves, and the correct answer is, of course, Kevin Conroy... But as far as the live-action movies go, let's face it, it's a very split audience. So, I should admit that I have a total bias toward Michael Keaton playing Bruce/Batman going into this, and may be guilty of eating up the fan service he delivered here. I wish the trailers didn't show so much of him, but how else were they gonna get butts in seats?... Which they still actually failed to do, probably thanks to Ezra Miller being kinda frowned upon these days. This actually makes this review a tad awkward, as I try to be one who separates the art from the artist. More on this in a bit. Getting to the plot of this whole thing, we hit the ground running with a quick action sequence involving several members of the now-established Justice League; namely, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck), Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), with assistance from Alfred (Jeremy Irons) back at Wayne Manor. IF I'm being honest, this has very little to do with anything else, but I can't deny that the sequence is pretty exhilarating. It's meant to show us that this is not just a 'Flash' movie, but indeed, a 'Justice League' movie. I might suggest it's DC's answer to 'Captain America: Civil War'. Anyway, in the aftermath, Barry revisits his childhood home, with memories of his parents and a happy life before his Mother, Norah (Maribel Verdú) passed away, and Father, Henry (Ron Livingston) got accused of murdering her. In his frustration, he goes full Sonic the Hedgehog and runs super fast. Unlike Sonic, however, he realizes that he can potentially time travel, and wants to use it as a reason to save his mother's life. Bruce is there to warn us all about what we already know - it's a terrible idea. But of course, we wouldn't have a movie if Barry didn't decide to do it anyway. He succeeds, but on his way back to what could be a happy present, he gets knocked out of the "Speed Force" by someone else with speed abilities. Landing in an alternate 2013, he finds his mother is alive, but he also runs into himself right before he obtained his powers. The pair work to recreate the accident to ensure Present-Barry will still have his powers, but during the process, Present-Barry has his powers zapped from him while Past-Barry gains them. Meanwhile, they happen to be in the time when General Zod (Michael Shannon) comes to invade Earth. The two Barry's then work on assembling the rest of the Justice League, first successfully starting with this universe's Batman (Michael Keaton) and this universe's Supergirl (Sasha Calle). The general story does turn into "Stop Zod" with a side of "Get My Powers Back", and I do have to admit that, as expected, Michael Keaton kind of stole the show. But that brings me back to what I mentioned before about Ezra Miller as well. The truth is, he's really good in this! There's a younger Barry who's the smart-ass, fun and careless one we sort of remember from 'Justice League', while the older Barry has been through some stuff, and realizes that there's a more serious side to this superhero business. I'm not big on Ezra Miller the person, but I can't deny that Ezra Miller the actor can hold his own, either. When it's all over, one does realize that the "Batman Returns Again" and "Zod Invading" plots take things over. However, speaking for myself, I was able to manage to push the importance of these more fan-driven plot points to the background. Batman was there for fan service, Supergirl was there to show more differences in universes. But the depth of the movie is in Barry's story (as it should be), and I'm not ashamed to say that by the end, it did manage to tug on my heartstrings quite a bit. If one can push one's feelings to the side, I might just say that this is one of the better DC movies of the DCEU. 4/5
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 Another live-action Disney remake has come along from the Disney Renaissance era of the 90s to cash in on things, and this time it's all about exploring under the sea with 'The Little Mermaid'. I have a tricky time with these remakes at the best of times, but when we're talking about a remake of something from the short time I was laser-focused on Disney animation as a kid, I'm bound to have my problems here and there. But I also get that there's an idea of bringing these stories to a new generation.
'The Little Mermaid' was a particular old favourite of mine, and a lot of that had to do with my love of the character Sebastian the Crab. Heck, I even had an album full of him doing Caribbean song covers, that honestly wouldn't make for a bad summertime fun album using all of the original songs like "Three Little Birds", "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" and "Hot, Hot, Hot". ANYWAY, this was definitely one I went into with low expectations. Like so many of these, I was pretty sure I'd leave thinking the same things I usually do, being a combination of "meh" and "I prefer the original". But having said that, again, I suppose this is aimed a little more towards the new generation. Just to recap for the three people out there who haven't seen the original, Ariel (Halle Bailey) is a mermaid and the youngest daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem), the ruler of the mermaid city of Atlantica. She is fascinated with the unseen world above, despite Triton's objections towards the human race for once killing her mother.A little more adventurous than her several sisters, with the help of a fish named Flounder (Jacob Tremblay) and a seabird named Scuttle (Awkwafina), she collects objects and trinkets that have sunken to the ocean floor, such as Dinglehoppers, thingamabobs and other whosits and whatsits galore. One day, she comes too close to the humans when she discovers a sailing ship with a handsome young prince named Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) on board. A storm shows up, crashing the ship into some rocks, knocking Eric overboard, and Ariel rescues him. A foggy Eric doesn't quite see Ariel's face but takes her soothing siren song to heart, and soon becomes haunted by the mysterious woman who saved his life. But while Eric is just mystified, it's love at first sight for Ariel, and she wants to be part of his world. Triton, of course, doesn't take this well, and the father and daughter have a bit of a falling out. This leads her to a sea witch named Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) who gives her a deal: She can turn Ariel into a human for three days in exchange for her mermaid abilities - most importantly, her siren song. She must then receive "true love's kiss" in order to become human permanently. If she doesn't, she changes back into a mermaid to be a slave for Ursula. Ariel reluctantly takes the deal and before long meets up with Eric, who seemingly falls for her back. However, Eric is still haunted by the mysterious girl who rescued him, who he doesn't realize is Ariel. It then becomes a race against time for Ariel, aided by Flounder, Scuttle and my dude, Sebastian the Crab (Daveed Diggs)... but will they succeed? One of the things that I wondered about going into this was the musical numbers, and how they would all play out. I experienced the exact same thing here as I did in 'The Lion King' with "I Just Can't Wait to be King". This rendition of "Under the Sea" sounds good, but the overall sequence isn't as fun as the original. Though not without its charm, I still say the only one of these to do the (what I like to call) "Fun Song" well, was 'Beauty and the Beast' with "Be Our Guest", making it a grand visual spectacle. Maybe it's just me, but I simply didn't get the same kick I did from the original here. There are a few new songs here too, so if you don't like musicals, I dunno if this one's for you. But I did enjoy the "Scuttlebutt" song. Performance-wise, everyone did well. The stand-out to me, of all people, was Melissa McCarthy's performance as Ursula. This was definitely a role she had a lot of fun doing, and it shows. Ariel, however, is a bit of a mixed bag. I thought she came across as kind of deadpan in this whereas the original Ariel was more whimsical... but I've gotta give it to her, she has a beautiful singing voice, actually sounding very similar to the original Jodi Benson. Altogether, the film is pretty well-balanced, and it does take away some things that don't exactly stand these days (like the whole French chef song), but much like anything else Disney live-action remakes, I'll probably just stick to the original. 3/5  Throughout the decades, there has been version upon version of Count Dracula. So many have played him, ranging from the classically trained, like Christopher Lee to modern(ish) comedians like Leslie Nielson. And even though I certainly haven't seen all of them, I think that this was the first time I saw someone playing him where I said "Okay, I'm in" just from the very suggestion of Nicolas Cage as the Prince of Darkness himself, which can only really mean he's gonna have a LOT of fun playing such a fictionally historical character.
As the film starts off, we meet Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) in the midst of a 12-step self-help group for people in co-dependent relationships. Here we learn his quick history for those unfamiliar with the original Dracula story. About 90 years prior to this film, Renfield visits Dracula in the hopes to broker a deal for some land, and in the process, ends up being Drac's "familiar", which grants him superhuman abilities upon consumption of bugs, and immortal life, but with the curse of having to be Dracula's servant, bringing him his "dinner" whenever he needs it, among other things. Part of Renfield's involvement in the 12-step program includes him being able to seek out the abusers in these relationships and deliver them to Dracula as sustenance. This way, he doesn't need to feel remorse. He follows one to a warehouse of stolen drugs, where he makes some meat out of a few guys with his abilities, but one, Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) manages to escape, only to run into a sobriety checkpoint run by Officer Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina) who does manage to bring him in, but he gets released due to the police station's overall corruptness, and the only person she can seem to trust is her sister, Kate (Camille Chen), who happens to be an FBI agent as well. When Renfield brings Dracula the bodies from the scene, Drac mentions how inefficient these corpses are, as he needs the blood of innocents, not the blood of the corrupt. This eventually leads Renfield to a restaurant where he happens to cross paths with Rebecca as well as several members of the Lobo crime family, including Teddy, who ambush her. She stands up to them, which Renfield admires, and the two fight their way out of the situation and become friends. This also starts to inspire Renfield to stand up for himself against Dracula, which proves to be a nearly impossible task. But really, it all turns into a rather fun, if perhaps a little predictable take about standing up for one's self, using the silver screen's ultimate horror movie villain as the main antagonist. Although the story doesn't entirely stick out, I do appreciate who they used for the subject matter of this movie. What's more, is that the film shows us that essentially, these two are current incarnations of the classic characters from 1931's 'Dracula', which I thought was interesting. We see a black-and-white flashback at the beginning here that's quite honestly very well done, seeing both Nic Cage and Nic Hoult fill in the shoes of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye, respectively (although I think Renfield's original first name actually changed, that's just a technicality I feel almost no one is looking at here). The interesting thing I found with this was that it was actually a reworking of a story that landed in development hell after the dismal failure of 2017's 'The Mummy'. It then became a choice to bring this concept back, leaning into the more comedic aspects of the story. There was some back-and-forth, but really, all I think they needed to put butts in seats from the get-go was the casting of Nic Cage as Dracula. It just seems like one of those suggestions the common man would simply flock to just to see. Imagine it along the lines of casting Christopher Walken as the Wolfman. It's something you don't think of immediately, but damn it sounds like fun. And, if I'm honest, Cage definitely delivers here. I had fun with this one, but I also have a bit of a bias toward a good, gory horror comedy that leans into the comedy. My only real criticism is of the character of Rebecca. Generally speaking, I enjoy Awkwafina in what I see her in. But Rebecca's character can be a lot at times. Although we are supposed to relate to her overall situation of frustration, there are often times when you just wanna tell her to calm the hell down. But that's really about all I can say about it negatively. It may be a familiar moral in the end, but if you're anything like me and wanna see this just for the good time it simply suggests you'll have, I doubt you'll be very disappointed. 4/5  I think it's probably safe to say that my friends who I have played 'D&D' with would classify me as a sort of "perpetual noob" to the whole game. I enjoy playing it when I do, but often need to be taken by the hand and guided with a lot of it. Therefore, I do kind of feel like I'm the perfect audience for a movie like this. I'm a bit of a newcomer to it all, but have enough of a familiarity with it to recognize a thing or two throughout the film.
However, I do have to admit to one thing right off the bat... I'm not entirely sure why it's so highly acclaimed, and despite really enjoying it, I don't know that it deserves both of its "Tomatometer" ratings in the 90s. Of course, the "Tomatomer" is not the end-all be-all of whether or not you "should" enjoy something. I'm just saying, I'm rather surprised. 'D&D' was always one of those things I thought shouldn't be attempted for a movie because everything is just too broad. You could make almost any movie with a medieval theme and decide to call it 'Dungeons & Dragons' because it will put butts in seats for you. Hell, they DID that back in 2000, and guess what one of the overall "bad" movies was that year. Over the last few years, 'D&D' has actually been making a bit of a comeback with shows like 'Stranger Things', basing the majority of its creatures from the 'D&D' universe, and even covering the "Satanic Panic" aspect of the game in Season 4. Beyond that, we also currently have 'The Legend of Vox Machina', which, I'm just gonna say now, IS the better source of 'D&D' entertainment over this movie. That's just my opinion, but if you have Crave, tune in and check it out. Hell, try it out even if you aren't into 'D&D'. My glowing opinion of that show may be why I didn't think this was all that special. But again, still quite enjoyable. We are first introduced to bard, Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and barbarian, Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez); two friends who have been imprisoned for attempting to steal a "Tablet of Reawakening", which Edgin would use to resurrect his now deceased wife (killed by a Red Wizard), and make his family whole again, along with his daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman). The friends are aided by a rogue named Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), his mysterious friend, Sofina (Daisy Head), and amateur sorcerer, Simon Aumar (Justice Smith). With the two of them facing an extention on their sentence, they manage to make their escape after two years of imprisonment, and head back to Neverwinter. There, they find their old acquaintance, Forge, has become Lord, and Sofina is still loyal by his side. During the theft of the "Tablet of Reawakening", there was a bit of a kerfuffle involving a time stopping spell gone wrong. Edgin, unable to avoid it, passes the tablet to Forge, and entrusts him to take care of his Kira while he's gone, knowing his capture is imminent. Now here to get the tablet and his daughter back, Edgin (and Holga for that matter) are double-crossed, and learn that Forge has been feeding his daughter lies about him this whole time. Then, after another narrow escape, Edgin and Holga devise plans to rob Forge's vault, and retrieve not only the "Tablet of Reawakening", but more importantly, his daughter. Needing help for this mission, Edgin and Holga seek out their old friend Simon, and are introduced to a tiefling druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis), whose forest home is getting destroyed by overlogging, so of course, she's down for a bit of revenge too. Together, they use their abilities of cunning, strength, magic and even shape-shifting to set everything right. I had to appreciate that even though they decided to do another thief story (like the last one), they did a good job of putting some variety into the character classes this time. That said, I have to say that it didn't do what it could have to show what a bard could actually do. I mean, we just get a dude playing a loot here. Anyway, despite a few little nitpicks here and there, I still got quite a few genuine laughs, and found some of the action sequences to be great (there's a really cool shape-shifting chase I liked a lot). It was nice to see them use creatures and races from the game, and I feel like if you don't know anything about 'D&D', it can still be a fun watch. I think for my own taste, I'd still highly recommend 'Vox Machina' over this, BUT, there's certainly nothing wrong with this either. If nothing else, this is a fun time that'll have you sharing your favourite characters and why by the end. Nothing perfect, a cool nod to 80s fantasy, but I think I may be still to much of a perpetual 'D&D' noob to really see what everyone else seems to be seeing. 3/5  Throughout film history, there have been numerous "waiting periods" for things we knew were bound to eventually happen. 'Freddy vs Jason' was a huge kerfuffle in the making, 'Ghostbusters 3' took forever to get going. Of course, 'Avatar' was planning a slew of sequels to its original story. I won't go into boring details about what happened, but as we all know, the wait has been since the original 'Avatar,' 2009. Much of this had to do with the technology, which I'll get to later, but the big question is, was it worth the wait?
My first admittance is that the film does a decent recap from the 2009 film, but one might want to watch it first to connect it and get more out of it. Like marathoning all of the 'Spider-Man films before 'No Way Home,' or the way one will listen to a band's albums just before seeing them in concert, it just amps you up more for what you're about to see. Of course, there were probably a few details here and there that I didn't remember that lent themselves to this. But I digress. Taking place fourteen years after the original film, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has since become chief of the Omaticaya Clan and has a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), our love interest from the last film. Among them, sons Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who was born from Grace Augustine's (also Weaver) immobile Avatar. Together, they live as one big happy family until the humans drive them out of their home once again (quicker than three hours, this time). The children also hang out with a human boy named Spider (Jack Champion), who happens to be the Pandora-born son of Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Spoiler Alert! The film works around his death through Na'vi Avatars, which contain the memories of deceased human soldiers, allowing them to live on as Avatars. Quaritch leads the rest of the RDA back to Pandora to begin colonization and once again becomes the film's big baddie - but with a bit of an upgrade. And with the tech given in the 'Avatar' movies, it all feels pretty plausible if you can buy into the fantasy world in these movies. LONG story short, Jake and his family head for safety, retreating to the Metkayina - a race not unlike themselves, but have adapted to the water. Here, the family must learn the "Way of Water" to live among their people. In the meantime, Lo'ak develops a quick love interest in Tsireya (Bailey Bass), the daughter of Chief Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife, Ronal (Kate Winslet). But more importantly, we see Kiri (remembering she has human DNA) mastering everything she's taught. In contrast, everyone else has trouble. A lot is happening here, but Quaritch eventually begins the hunt for Jake Sully and goes to some extremes to find him. The first 'Avatar' was a good film when it came out, but even I couldn't deny that story-wise, that film had been done many times before. It was much more about the experience at the time. And I have to give this sequel some kudos for new tech that hasn't been used until now - blending actual underwater filming with performance capture. To the film's credit, the underwater scenes DO look rather impressive. I also enjoyed the overall story here more than last time. This felt a little less familiar. But Cameron pulls from his previous works like 'Titanic' and 'The Abyss.' It's hard to criticize it being "late," as I understand that Cameron wanted the right technology for filming it. And, visually speaking, the film was probably worth the wait. But there's that part of me that, even without this fancy new tech, thinks there would have been a much more positive response if Cameron had given us something else sooner. At the same time, though, I can't deny that that's what's so good about Cameron - he's like a king of using new filming technology, and it's worked out for him so far. It's a well-filmed movie, and I really enjoyed it despite the wait, which ultimately happened with the first 'Avatar' as well. 4/5 |
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