adamreviewsthings

[adamreviewsthings]

#ThisGuyScored 2021 #HereComeTheOilers

Check back after every game for updates.

@Adam_Pyde on Twitter, Adam Reviews Things on Facebook. CanadianAdam on Twitch.

January 22, 2021 - Jimmy Vesey, 4-2 L

[adamreviewsthings]

#karen #meme #pokemon #basculin

[adamreviewsthings]

'KFC: A Recipe For Seduction' is Shameless

A Recipe For Seduction is shameless. This is just a big corporate ad by KFC on Lifetime featuring Mario Lopez and no one else you’ll recognize. This is the evolution of Super Bowl commercials from 2 and 3 minute mini-movies into 15 minute “films”. And that’s bad because eventually I can totally see a future where every movie and TV show is like a college football bowl game. “Thanks for tuning into Wendy’s Black Panther 3 presented by Xbox”. This full is the network auditioning the idea of a sponsored movie to do more. But here’s the thing, A Recipe for Seduction is kinda good.

Now, this isn’t good in any traditional sense of film or cinema or movie making. But it’s good because its 15 minutes of absurd escapism that is fully aware of its reality. The tagline of the film is “Piping hot love affair of deep fried goodness.” When something knows how ridiculous it is, and then it works with that instead of being ashamed then you can get gems. We’ve reached an era in media where creators don’t go “That’s stupid. We won’t do it!” anymore and instead go “That’s stupid. Let’s make it work!” to varying degrees of success.

I don’t know where to really start describing this ad, but I’ll try. It has no business being as… good as it is. It is a 15 minute KFC branded parody of those generic Lifetime movies with a side order of soap opera. But because they have that KFC money, it being 15 minutes long and them having fun with the idea it almost feels better than those Lifetime/Hallmark/W channel movies. It’s well shot. The sets are real and actually nice. The scenes are generally well done. The acting is on point for exactly what this is and maybe even too good as you start to buy the chemistry between the actors.

However, its also a movie made by KFC so you get weirdness. Mario Lopez’s beautiful, thick jet black hair looks like they used cheap Halloween die to grey it out. This millionaire family is having their big Christmas dinner party and serving KFC chicken and sides. The big stinger at the end to tease a sequel is a guy taking a giant bite out of a drum stick.

When it comes to the events of the film, here is the chicken fried version of the synopsis:

"As the holidays draw near, a young heiress contends with the affections of a suitor who has been hand-picked by her mother. When a handsome chef arrives with a secret recipe and a dream, he sets in motion a series of events that unravel her plans.”

Mario Lopez plays Harland Sanders, but he’s not a colonel so shrugging emoji. Maybe we get that in the sequel. He falls in love with our main girl Jessica, Justene Alpert, who is dating and must have at some point liked Billy Garibaldi III, Chad Doreck, who is her rich douchebag boyfriend that her mother, Tessa Munro, is urging her to marry so that they can get his fortune. Not spoilers because that’s all laid out like 2 minutes into the film. There is no time to waste, this film races to the finish line like Rise of Skywalker.

I also want to give quick props to Martin Morrow as Lee, the gay black friend of Jessica. He’s pulling double duty on the diversity checklist and does a fine job in the movie.

As for the rest of the film, just try to think of how comical Days of our Lives is in those snippets on Friends. Then dial that up to 10 with betrayal and money and cheating and lies and murder and forbidden love. Then mix in your KFC themes like the humble chef with a secret recipe and a few hilarious lines meant to be menacing like “Beat it crouton!” which is followed by “Don’t call me crouton!” and “Merry Christmas!”

All in all, this was basically a joy to watch? I mean, I didn’t want my time back after I watched it and it was genuinely entertaining in such a weird way. I’m a sucker for when things are ridiculous and weird but so honest about those aspects, while keeping things just serious enough. It's something I hope the Mortal Kombat movie pulls off.

It makes me in a weird way want to see the Fast Food Chain Cinematic Universe. The Ronald McDonald biopic, Wendy’s: Origins, Hard Times Documentary: The Divorce of Burger King and Dairy Queen. However, I hate that I am thinking like this. Go away brands.

Now with this movie, the KFC dating simulator video game and the KFConsole it just leaves me wondering at what points brands will stop. Like, is KFC going to buy Nintendo and rebrand all the in-game food in Zelda and Pokemon? Will Wendy’s partner with NASA for burger planets and combo moons? Are we going to see McDonalds co-branding in governments? I have no idea, but they keep pushing.

You go into this knowing whether you’re going to hate it or not. As a call to action to buy KFC chicken it isn’t great as I still don’t feel like eating KFC. But it also made me think about KFC more than I have in a decade, I have written this review about a KFC property on my website and will be creating some level of discussion amongst those who read this. One of my friends actually bought KFC after I was texting about watching this movie. Success for KFC!

You can watch the movie below. Its 15 minutes that flies by.

[adamreviewsthings]

EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH ‘SOUL’

Soul is good. Like damn good. A movie hasn't hit me like that since Inside Out. Pixar really is unmatched when it comes to knocking out absolute bangers. Soul is terrific, creative and thoughtful. I continuously said out lout during the movie “Wow, this is really good” and “I really like this movie” when it had barely been running 30 minutes.

There will be some light spoiler-ish things below but it’s thematic and not plot.

Its refreshing to see something that feels so earnest and thoughtful, especially to cap off a year that was not all peaches and candy. Maybe that’s part of what made Soul hit me the way it did. The movie isn’t fast paced but it moves along really well and never gets boring. At the same time, it gives you time to think about what its showing you and saying. You can pause and reflect during a scene as it breathes, allowing you to take it all in.

The best part is that it says a lot visually without having to explain everything. The animation is simple yet complex. The message of the movie is conveyed via visuals and feeling, not just dialogue. Show, don’t tell. It makes the message that much stronger when you can feel something. You can feel what the heavier, weighted scenes are saying without saying anything at all.

I’m not trying to give the impression that the entire film is heavy or dark. It isn’t. You get a lot of fun and humour and hijinks with creativity and laugh out loud moments. It’s just that there is a balance of those scenes with the scenes that make you think, and that’s why Pixar is Pixar.

I feel like this movie wasn't really made with kids in mind, or not as much as you might assume considering it is an animated film from Pixar. Its still a kid’s movie, but I don’t know if the themes are as easy to spot for a child as they are in something like Inside Out by comparison.

Sure, you’ve got your bright colours and your silly, creative and fun cartoonish non-world world. But you’re also dealing with themes such as life purpose, death, fulfillment, passion, self-reflection and self-image. What is the purpose of life and how do you approach that versus how does someone else?

It makes me wonder what Pixar could do if they fully wanted to drop the Rated G focus and went for something a little more Oscar bait or “adult” in its target. However, part of the magic is that they can approach topics that relate to all ages with a maturity that Soul carries but also make it light and digestible as media.

I wouldn’t say the movie goes anywhere unexpected, but that isn’t a bad thing. Doing what people expect is perfectly fine when you do it well. Subversion of expectations is great too, but it isn’t always necessary. This isn’t to say the story is completely linear as it does twist and turn, but never in a way has loses the plot. It keeps focus on the message.

Pete Docter did a wonderful job directing this film as everything is spot on from character designs to the look of the world to creating a simple to understand not-world world to explore. The characters are animated and obviously cartoonish, but they also look and act like people. Jamie Foxx does a terrific job as the lead in Joe Gardner, a middle school music teacher with a deep love of jazz. Tina Fey is terrific in her role as well and as much as Joe is the main character, you could argue this is just as much her story.

The best part about both of their performances is that they both just come across as regular people. Foxx is great at making Joe sound just like A Guy, the same way as Tina Fey makes her character sound just like a completely normal random as well.

Sometimes you just need a reminder to appreciate the small things and live. It sounds like a Hallmark card, but it doesn’t make the message any less important. Perspective is everything. There’s nothing wrong with a life highlight being when you sit down to eat a piece of pecan pie, just as much as it may be exciting to have highlights where you’re living your dreams and are genuinely feeling fulfilled and successful.

Having passion is great, but don’t let it become an obsession. Don’t let one aspect of your life dominate everything else as that could limit the connections and experiences you have with others. To me, that might be one of the biggest takeaways in a world where fandoms of video games, comics, anime, music, sports or politics are becoming defining features where you it can make you feel like you have to strongly belong to one Thing and get tunnel vision to an extent you lose empathy for other opinions and the world around you.

Focusing on one Thing might make you happy. I won’t tell you not to, but having to compromise that Thing due to life and finding happiness within the life you’ve built and in new avenues holds exciting potential. Diverging from expectations can be as fulfilling as meeting expectations.

Its fitting that Soul is about making you feel, reflect and emotionally analyze. The magic comes in doing that without being preachy as at no point do you feel like the film is talking down to you. You’re swept up by the bright colours and the story telling before you even realize you just got a great lesson in mental health.

I honestly can’t think of the last time a movie made me reflect on my life and made me want to do more as a person.  It’s a great middle age version of a coming of age story. You’re never too old to learn more, achieve better and become more of who you want to be.

Music really is a great metaphor and focus for the film. Music isn’t always about what you hear. Music is about how it makes you feel. Just as important as a big solo are the quiet sections and the build as the song progresses, the rests and resets. A song that is five or ten minutes of a solo or a great hook would get boring and would not have as much meaning without everything else around it.

Can’t believe we’re at the end and I avoided saying Soul has a lot of soul. Oops.

If you want to get mad at me or be my friend: @Adam_Pyde on Twitter, Adam Reviews Things on Facebook. CanadianAdam on Twitch.

[adamreviewsthings]

#ThisGuyScored 2021 #HereComeTheOilers

Why not revive an old classic? Check back after every game for updates.

@Adam_Pyde on Twitter, Adam Reviews Things on Facebook. CanadianAdam on Twitch.

January 16, 2021 - Jeff Petry, Jake Evans, Tomas Tatar. 5-1 L

How to give up a breakaway goal in 3 acts

January 13, 2021 - Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser. 5-3 L

The original from 2015 is HERE. I did half a season in 2017 found HERE.

[adamreviewsthings]

Wonder Woman 1984 Is A Problematic Sequel

Wonder Woman 1984 is a disappointing sequel. It isn’t solely because the movie itself is just so basic, but because it represents a significant step backwards for a franchise. While the first movie is not perfect, it still scores itself well as a memorable, significant and quality film. WW84 ends up just being another movie that goes into that inoffensive and unmemorable pile of flicks where you’ll forget the bulk of it by the time you watch something else.

It’s a shame because there is a lot of the movie that could and should work. Actors are acting, characters are charactering, plot is plotting but nothing makes it feel more than that. It feels like a first draft kind of movie and they just rolled with it. Not that you need excessive focus group testing and 25 corporate writers to make your script, but I feel it would have benefited from some extra input and someone with the job title of “Hey wait a minute!” to flesh out the ideas while also bringing the focus in tighter.

The movie feels unwieldy like it is barely holding itself together due to chronic sequel-itis. So inoffensive it almost becomes offensive in how tedious it can be. I’ve said it before, but few things bum me out more than movies that waste potential.

Sometimes it feels like Suicide Squad. “Hey that part is good. Wow this part is boring. That actor is doing well. What’s going on here? Why are they doing that? That was a nice moment. Hey these actors have chemistry. Hang on, what did they just say?”

Then it ends and you go “Yeah okay I guess” and maybe that’s how it should leave you. I wasn’t even planning on writing this because I couldn’t make up my mind on the movie.

Now I'm fully aware I'm a CIS white male and all the stuff that goes a long with that. Not everything is made for me, I get that. A little girl or another person could like this movie and that’s great. Certain scenes I found lame could be inspirational and resonate with someone else. There’s no universal deciding factor on what can be formative on a person and what can’t.

I could see where the first Wonder Woman movie would resonate with people. I just can’t see anything in this movie resonating with anyone.

It doesn’t quite feel like a “DC Movie” in the sense of their big dumb action movies, with the dumb action with loud noises and constant grimacing but it also feels a bit slapdash like the DCEU movies have tended to feel.

The first Wonder Woman film is a better Superman story than anything made for live action cinema in my lifetime. That was one of the highlights to me. Wonder Woman can be a lot like Superman, and quite often is just considered a female version of the character, and that is not a bad thing. She’s typically an overpowered character who struggles more with upholding their ideals through adversity and keeping a strong moral compass than winning or losing a fist fight. That’s what makes “boy scout” characters most interesting. How far can you push them and how far can they be taken and still keep themselves on the right side of the line.

I liked that movie. I didn’t really like this one.

It isn’t to say there is no craft to the movie. It is shot on film so you do get that slightly grainy edge to the film which does help it look older and feel a bit like an 80s movie. However, and maybe I was expecting Stranger Things levels of 80s Porn, but this movie outside of a few scenes doesn’t hit you in the face with the 80s as hard as you might think. It can’t pass for modern, but you can forget you’re in the 80s pretty easily. I don’t know if that’s intentional. I both like it and dislike it. Use the 80s to trash up your film with 80s trash but then I’d probably be like “stop the 80s trash in the film.”

There’s also some fun schlock and I’m not going to pretend for even one second that I’m above that.

You have writing and characters that mirror the first movie. Maybe it isn’t obvious enough for a lot of people, but I saw it and your brain probably recognized it. The central theme around greed and power is a good one, but I can see how someone could know that theme is there without really consciously understanding full scope of it.

It’s just another part of the movie that feels like it’s only 75% of the way there.

Maybe the best part of the movie, one of the few parts that is 100% actualized, is Pedro Pascal. This dude rocks. Maxwell Lord really sucks! He gives it his all and really nails home that yuppie businessman conman character. He really nails the Gordon Gekko thing. When he speaks you believe he believes what he is saying. The execution of his character is really strong with the give and take of his powers. His dynamic versus Wonder Woman would have been enough for a movie on its own.

Kristen Wiig also does well. I temporarily panicked when her character felt like she might be doing Ghostbusters again, but she thankfully doesn’t go that far. She’s very measured and believable as Barbara Minerva and she’s easy to follow. Her design as Cheetah looks actually good unlike Cats. My only gripe is that I don’t think her character went far enough into the evil. She doesn’t quite fly off the handle to give you that breaking point moment where she really gets drunk on her new reality and revels in it. Maybe if she just happened to kill someone? Like one particular dickhole?

As an aside, I don’t think anyone dies in this movie which is a little weird. I’m not quite sure what brought this movie up to a PG-13 as it feels a lot more like a PG movie. I guess a few dudes hold some guns?

Chris Pine is back as Steve Trevor. It’s nice to have him on screen as I think he’s my second favourite Hollywood Chris and he has fantastic eyes. He and Gal Gadot have great chemistry and when they’re playing off each other it helps the movie a lot. It’s a great bit of role reversal this time where he’s the fish out of water and Wonder Woman is the normal one showing him about the world.

Gal Gadot is good again as Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman, but the character this time feels less defined. I can’t quite put my finger on what notes she hit in the first film and what notes were missed here. She is still the same character. Maybe she’s more tired of humanity and the world is wearing her down, but that doesn’t exactly come across. Something is just missing and I am unsure of what.

Maybe it’s a general DC thing where the uncertainty of the overall universe has made things murky for how everything is to be handled and tied together. It kind of feels like this was more of the Justice League version of the character when that is, at least, two films away. It feels a little like the character arc has gone 1918-2016-2017-1984.

Part of it could be that Wonder Woman is still a relatively undefined character. Outside of her World War 1 storyline, she doesn’t have a particularly unified comic book character in ways that Superman, Batman and even someone like The Flash do.

Through the years the character has gone from 70’s feminist icon to naïve adolescent to weird alien who doesn’t understand earth customs to an acerbic pessimist that thinks humanity is doomed – from there splintering off into the “its hopeless but I’ll fight anyway for the 1% chance it works” to the rarer “humanity sucks and we should leave them” stories.

One of my favourite parts of the first Wonder Woman movie was how the character felt like she progressed and grew to be a hero over it. I really liked that. I was hoping for that to continue and maybe it does? I just didn’t really “get” Diana the same way this time.

The themes of the movie are solid but the delivery is to the driveway and not the doorstep. Which is weird considering the movie is 2.5 hours long but it could have used an extra line here and an extra scene there.

I wasn’t too big a fan of the Themyscira stuff in the first film and I’m less of a fan of it this time around. It feels more divorced from the rest of the movie this time and then movie gets doubled up on intro scenes with totally different tones – melodramatic to campy 70s wink-wink. Movies don’t need superfluous scenes when the run time could be better used elsewhere.

Mild-spoilers will be throughout the rest of the review but nothing should be experience breaking.

This movie has the Spiderman 3 and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice problem of having 2 different movies going on at once.

There’s a film here that is Kristen Wiig vs Wonder Woman and centers on that plot. Wonder Woman is Wonder Woman and its super easy to see there being people deeply jealous of that. Jazz that out and it’s a whole movie on its own.

Then there’s also a film here that’s Maxwell Lord (I almost typed Max Power) and that guy’s entire schtick vs Wonder Woman which is a lot like a Lex vs Superman kind of story, which is no bad thing.

Maybe people don’t want that kind of focused story because people are dumb and think that’s boring because the hero can’t punch the villain. That was the charm to the first Wonder Woman movie though. Maybe they just didn’t want to do that again so that’s why they didn’t go hard into that. However, it just doesn’t commit hard enough to Diana Prince vs Maxwell Lord and reduces Cheetah to his enforcer.

Cheetah is Wonder Woman’s Joker or Lex Luthor. Unfortunately, she felt like she was kind of just there so that there could be a fight scene, instead of something where Max could’ve been like “don’t you wish you were super tough?” to some soldier dudes or crooks and used them as goons.

The action was a highlight for me in the first movie. I can think of some really strong visual action scenes that felt visceral and had weight and mattered. In this one I feel like the action scenes are more there to be action scenes because it has been an hour since the last one.

If you're like me, you'll agree that the worst part of the original Wonder Woman movie was the big dumb ending. In a refreshing change, there isn’t an absurdly ugly big dumb loud CGI explosion fight for a climax. The end of the movie is basically “Just talk.” Wonder Woman is a “let’s talk this out” style hero instead of a “I’ll punch you until you don’t have a pancreas” hero.

You could argue this movie ends on a better climax but even that feels a bit undercut by the way you get there because it isn’t memorable. It’s so melodramatic but has no lasting power. There is no line or key phrase that sticks with you. This is the big Hero Inspires The World Speech, and its talking about how the life is beautiful and the truth is what matters?

The first movie was just directed by Patty Jenkins, and this one is directed, co-written and co-screenplayed by her. Her previous writing includes Monster which is so different from this movie maybe she didn’t quite know how to sew the stuffing in on a more fantastical plot and property. Probably wouldn’t hurt if someone besides Geoff John’s came in as a co-writer.

The movie tries to get by on heart more than sense. You can see a bit of the original if you squint. An issue that comes with that is, again, the movie feels like a first draft and didn’t get that extra attention to detail to stitch up the edges.

You can nit-pick any movie into oblivion. No movie is air tight. But when you’re movie starts lacking in quality of some smaller obvious details it becomes harder to hand-wave other elements as you might normally do.

The big thing is around Steve’s resurrection. It’s freaking weird when you go over it for more than a hot minute.

Steve did not need to even be in that dude. At all. Other wishes in this movie materialize out of thin air. In fact, most of them do. Steve being inside that guy didn’t need to happen. But it did. That’s fine that it did… until it wasn’t anymore.

I feel bad for Handsome Man that got replaced. Did he have no family or friends that bothered to check in on him? Did he have no job he had to go to? Was he a drifter?

There had to be someone at some point who went “Hey wait a second. This is ghost rape. Should we have that in our movie?” It’s implied they get coitus-y together. There’s a gross scene in some Adam Sandler movie that is similar to this, where Adam Sandler takes over some guy’s body and then tries or does have sex with that guy’s wife who has no idea it’s actually Adam Sandler. Just awful. It immediately came to brain for me.

Beyond that, the characters also never really acknowledge that Steve Trevor is in this random guy after the first scene. That could have been its own subplot, replacing Cheetah, where they have to un-Freaky Friday this situation. Where the characters are trying to separate the two entities but also dealing with the fact they’re putting this guy into life threatening danger to do it. If that was played up, you can add a lot more tension to your action scenes as Wonder Woman has to protect him and it gets to a point where Steve also has to balance risking this person for Diana to succeed.

It’s never brought up during the bulk of the film though so you don’t really consider that as a consequence to manage.

Even his departure is kind of ambiguous. You feel like that scene should build to a “My time has passed. It’s okay” goodbye that leads into a glamour shot of the character, he’ll look off to the sky with a glint in his eye, etc. But I know some people who didn’t realize that was his goodbye moment due to it sort of happening off screen.

The movie struggles with some details that just would require a Google search. Just an extra level of detail you don’t get that keeps that first draft feeling. Flying from Washington to Cairo is 6000 miles but they take a plane that has like a 1300 mile range.

The movie talks about Egypt as this oil rich country when Egypt is one of the most oil poor nations on earth. It’s weird that the movie talks the country up as so oil rich that even the Saudis, the most oil rich place on earth, is after their oil.

The other implication is that every wish is selfish and greedy. Surely some people were like “I wish I didn’t have Alzheimers” or “I wish I could get pregnant “. Maybe some kid in Gotham wished his parents didn’t get shot in an alley.

The invisibility comes out of nowhere a bit. Just show the coffee cup. Going from 0-100 with a New Plot Power always annoys me. 1-20 is easier to believe, and so is 20-100.

I don’t really get how the final fight concluded and only one person got electrocuted there.

Maybe I did miss things as a side effect of at-home viewing. But I’m not an inattentive movie viewer. There’s a tech design saying that applies well to media too. “There’s no such thing as a user error.” I’m usually quite focused and I’d like to think I kept my focus on this film. A girl once got really mad at me on a date because I was too busy watching the movie to pick up on her signals and hints for some smoochy-smoochy.

The last nuisance for me when it came to this sort of thing was I don’t know if DC is respecting Justice League or Batman V Superman anymore as films in their franchise. Details from those films don’t seem to line up with presentation in this film. The main point of a cinematic universe is to watch all these films so you understand the threading of the spiderweb.

But in Batman V Superman it is presented as if Wonder Woman spent about 100 years not fighting crime, especially not petty crimes to globetrotting adventure crimes.

I’m fine with people not recognizing Diana as she lives her life. People aren’t observant. People don’t notice things if they aren’t paying attention, especially in small moments and flash instances. I love this scene from 1978’s Superman. Granted, I think Christopher Reeve does a lot more to change his physicality and entire demeanor, but his face doesn’t change. Lois doesn’t notice though because why would she? She has no reason to put the two of them together.

But you’d think there is some record of all these events. The USSR and the USA decided to go nuclear holocaust on each other. The entire world, for whatever length of time it was, had their every wish granted and then taken away from them with her very prominently involved. This is where the roadmap comes in handy.

The movie overall isn't capital B Bad. But it just feels less like art and more like product. I was pretty neutral to Man of Steel, was neutral but have soured on Batman V Superman, I thought Justice League was a pile of crap, I quite liked the first Wonder Woman film, Shazam is the best 8/10 a movie could 8/10, and enjoyed the big dumb Power Rangers shlock-fest that was Aquaman. (Authors note, I forgot about Suicide Squad until after I posted this whole review so I think that answers that.)

This movie finds itself on the bottom half of that list. That’s likely where the vitriol directed at this movie comes from. A lot of people LOVED the first Wonder Woman film. And they wanted something on that level again. Of all the things that this movie could have been, and maybe needed to be, for it to end up like this is disappointing.

Maybe I’m being too harsh, but I don’t think expecting your super hero movie to be actually good is a bad thing. This feels very 2000’s super hero movie like it would fit in with Spiderman 3, Fantastic 4 and X3. I probably would have considered it a better film than a lot in that era but I expect more now.

I don’t want my time back but I also don’t expect to watch it again. If anything, it makes me want either a new Marvel flick or to see whatever Shazam 2, Black Adam, Green Lantern, Batman and The Flash are up to.

This movie isn’t a death knell for DC or for Wonder Woman, but it’s definitely the kind of thing that can have people go “eh, maybe I’ll skip the next one.” Because it feels like they somehow ran out of ideas for Wonder Woman already.

If you want to get mad at me or be my friend: @Adam_Pyde on Twitter, Adam Reviews Things on Facebook. CanadianAdam on Twitch.

[adamreviewsthings]

This Guy Scored #HereComeTheOilers

Why not revive an old classic? Check back after every game for updates.

@Adam_Pyde on Twitter, Adam Reviews Things on Facebook. CanadianAdam on Twitch.

January 13, 2021 - Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser. 5-3 L

The OG from 2015 is HERE.

[adamreviewsthings]

Venom: Sucks So Good

Image credit to Matthew Gaydos

Venom has some serious suckage. It isn't good, but its good enough. Put this movie on a pie chart and a good chunk is like Suicide Squad and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a baby. But being a bad movie doesn't mean it is terrible because it is quite a bit fun.

I was already kind of negative before this movie came out. It looked like a bit silly, and Venom without Spider-Man isn't exactly interesting. Eddie Brock is Venom because of Spider-Man. The trailers made it look visually messy or bland.

But then I heard some good, or at least not horrendous, things from people and the box office returns were positive. So, why not see it? What else am I doing at 5 PM on a Friday when I have to be up at 7 AM the next morning? I haven't been to a movie since either Rampage or Ant-Man and The Wasp. Whichever came first. If nothing else, I heard the post-credits scene is worth a $14 ticket.

Everything that isn't Eddie Brock and Venom is a train wreck. But the train wreck never stops. You know how in another Tom Hardy movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, the chase builds and builds and gets one percent bigger then two percent bigger and then three percent bigger? This is if a train wreck crashing into more train wrecks found a way to not stop and still arrive at its destination in a pile of twisted metal and fire like a Looney Toons skit. When other characters are on-screen you're sitting there like "WHERE IS VENOM AND EDDIE?"

The dynamic is where the fun is. Think of a buddy cop movie. Venom is beyond the bad cop, he's an asshole. He's just absurd. Eddie Brock is mumbling, bumbling doofus.

MORE POWER.

No calm down.

MORE POWER GO NUTS.

Come on relax.

MAXIMUM VENOM POWER.

Oh Jeez.

The last person you should ever listen to about their own movies is Tom Hardy. Mad Max: Fury Road is fantastic and while this movie isn't good, his stuff in the movie is the best part of it all. Their interactions are fantastic. His complaints that all his good stuff was cut from the film seems silly, since his stuff was the only good and best part of the whole movie. If there was 40 minutes of missing footage of those two then I am totally down for an extended cut. Give it to me. The two of them have some absolute money lines together.

I'm not lying or being a sensationalist fanboy when I say that you can have a good time at this movie for that alone.

Now, if you're looking for a nice cohesive well told story with dimensional characters? Nah (Although that is kind of the movie's charm).

The first 30-ish minutes of this movie is nearly walk-out bad but then at minute 31-ish it finally does something. The beginning of the movie is the kind of stuff you're going to skip past on any re-watches.

Worst super hero movie villains list: Steppenwolf, the Dark Elf guy from Thor 2, Abomination, Bulls-Eye, Apocalypse, Doomsday, Venom era Spider-Man 3, Electro, fart cloud Galactus and then fart cloud Parallax. There are a ton of terrible villains in these movies.

You'd agree those are all terrible? Lets go about 12 rungs down the ladder. Acting. Motivation. Music. Presentation. Design. Character. The absolute worst.

The Life Foundation and Evil Business Guy Carlton Drake and Riot are some of the worst villains. They're from a pre-Avengers world where the motivation is "They're just evil. Who cares. Its comic books. Shut up. Bad guy does bad stuff."

Carlton Drake is making out and having gross PDA with Being Evil. And the speed at which his Evil accelerates is numbing. Just laugh. They literally combined every Evil Businessman trope into one character and then turned up the suckage. Doesn't get any better any further into the movie, just gets worse. There were points in his Evil Plan where I couldn't help it but laugh during a Super Serious Scene.

Poor poor love story and love interest. She gets the bare minimum of any form of character you could give someone.

Shaky and suspect dialogue in a lot of scenes. "Have a nice life!"

A great chase scene and a couple of neato fight moves, but the more CGI that is on-screen the bigger a visual mess you're suffering through. I can't imagine the migraine I would get in 3D. A nighttime fight between a black CGI goop monster against a charcoal grey CGI goop monster splooping punches of gloopy impact is just... what were they thinking? There are moments in the big action climax where I literally couldn't figure out what is happening or who is who.

The PG-13 saps some of the life and impact from scenes. There are things that should be more visceral than they are. It doesn't need to go full vile gore-sploitation mess, but Venom can be a really visceral character. There is elements of body horror and gore to his story and actions. Some of the actions and motivations feel a bit limp as the numbing of anything too extreme is a bit lame. Imagine if you never got more than sideboob in a movie about strippers? Either be PG-13 or be R but trying to be in the middle results in a tonal mess.

In a world where Logan and Deadpool and Dredd exist, you can have a successful R rated Venom.

I still liked it quite a bit. I wouldn't really say it felt tonally different or really all that distinct. It fits in with the pile. There's a good, charming performance and a few neat ideas here that are holding that train wreck together as it rolls into the station. I almost don't think this movie "works" without it being terrible where it is terrible.

As for a sequel, the movie is there and the stinger makes you want to try again and show up again. Take another swing and get someone who has a clue to put it together. Or maybe keep it a bad mess. I don't know.

[adamreviewsthings]

The Room: When an Alien in Human Skin Makes a Movie

The Room is the greatest mess in cinematic history. It is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. It is the answer to the question of what would happen if something went so far below a zero that it somehow became a 10.

Its awful. It makes no sense. Characters existing is the extent of their existence. It has character moments, arcs and plot that are dropped in the same scene they're introduced. It is edited at random. In the language of cinema, nothing in The Room works.

This movie is unwatchably watchable. If you were to sit down and try to watch take this seriously, it would feel like you're "being stabbed in the head." But sitting down to watch this as a delusional vanity project gone awry and it becomes one of the best 90 minutes you'll get out of a film.

Tommy Wiseau is the center of the film on screen, as really good guy Johnny, and off screen as well. This man directed, wrote, adapted, produced, starred in and funded the entire $6,000,000 film. Yes, this movie costs $6,000,000.

This entire film is a series of things just happening. Its almost more of a mockumentary around a guy and his life than it is a proper dramatic film.

This is the cinematic equivalent of giving any random person a budget and a script and a camera and a crew. It should make you appreciate how "good" even a regular bad movie is.

Tommy cannot enunciate. Tommy cannot dress himself. He's an alien in human skin.

The Room is what the result would be if an alien species studied late 90's soap opera TV, had a computer program amalgamate a script and then was performed by the aliens in human skin like the first Men In Black movie.

It's not difficult to find secondhand embarrassment for the actress portraying Johnny's "future wife" Lisa. She's given an awkward wardrobe, absurd "motivation" and has 4 or 5 sex scenes. The sex scenes are uncomfortable. They last the entire length of the bad and cheesy love songs. Johnny pounds away at her belly button, has a zombie orgasm and then shows the entire world his butt. Why? Because its "Hollywood", I guess.

Time passes in the film without any establishment of time passing. Characters talk about meeting up tomorrow and are in the next scene. No establishing shots, no passage of time shot, no CHANGE OF OUTFITS! They just happen.

Set design is bizarre. Like a showroom apartment from a 2003 Ikea. There are candles and photographs of spoons everywhere.

The logic of the film is bizarre. The game of football is just awkwardly hot potato-ing a ball around. Marijuana is considered an aggressive "fly off the handle" drug. Attempted murder is quickly forgiven. Stumbling into a garbage can sends you to the hospital.

The dialogue of the movie is completely bizarre, which probably is why the characters are so completely bizarre with actions that are completely bizarre.

Claudette becomes the voice of the people at one point, literally saying "What are these characters doing here?"

Tommy Johnny responds to the story of a woman being hospitalized by the beating of a jealous ex-lover with "Ha ha ha what a story, Mark!"

Characters will bring up something in conversation and then say "I don't want to talk about it" after them bringing it up.

Adultery is committed and forgiven immediately, but then unforgiven about 12 seconds later in the same scene.

Does any of this sound like it was written by a human?

"I did not hit her. I did not. Oh hi Mark."

"Anyway how's your sex life?"

"Anything for my princess ha ha ha!"

"Its not over everybody betray me I fed up with this world!"

"If a lot of people love each other the world would be a better place to live."

"Cheep Cheep Cheep Cheep Cheep."

The Room Tribute game is amazing. Give it a play.

The best performance in this entire movie comes from the least trained actor on set. Drug dealer Chris R, played by former Olympic bobsledder Dan Janjigian, is excellent. He's legitimately intimidating and terrifying. There is more conviction in his lines than the rest of the entire film. But even a performance that good is still undermined by The Room as people just appear in the scene like its Looney Tunes while shouting awkward lines. Somehow the violent, giant, gun weilding Chris R is subdued awkwardly by Johnny and his best friend Mark while Lisa yell cries about drugs at a whimpering Denny, Johnny's pseudo son.

There's a sad truth in film though. While its a mess, its clearly written from some place of truth or experience in Tommy Wiseau's heart. There's something of a biopic going on here, where nice guy Johnny gets manipulated, lied to and taken advantage of by the people close to him. A lot of the dialogue sounds like something from a bitter ex-lover.

Almost the entire male cast is portrayed as sexual vultures. Lisa is a petulant whore. Mark wants to, and does, bang Lisa. Denny wants to bang Lisa. Peter talks about how great Lisa is. Some no-name at the party has one line in the movie and it is "Lisa is so hot" while making a horny face.

Writing this may have been cathartic and even necessary for Tommy, but then turning this play into a film became an ego stroke. Some characters exist only to show that Tommy Johnny is a great guy.

Note: Due to Johnny clearly being a proxy for Tommy, I left in all the places I wrote Tommy.

One of these characters is Mike (pictured) aka Me Underpants Guy, who needs a private place to fool around with his girlfriend. So of course great guy Johnny allows them to use his couch whenever they want.

One of the nonsense characters is Denny, the orphan who was too old to adopt so Tommy Johnny just pays for his entire life as a pseudo father. All he does is be sexually creepy and weird, but Johnny loves him anyway because Johnny is so great.

One of these characters is Claudette, the future mother in law, who essentially repeats how Johnny is rich, nice, caring and an amazing man that all women would love to have.

One of these characters is the Flower Shop Owner, who exists to tell Tommy Johnny how he's a great customer and great boyfriend.

Most of the characters essentially exist to say "Johnny, you are so great. You're the best person" in a variety of ways.

Even Mark, the antagonist of the film and Johnny's "best friend" who is banging Johnny's "future wife" which frays and destroys the relationships in the plot of movie, will regularly talk about how great of a dude Johnny, his best friend, is. He will say this two seconds after putting his shirt on after having awkward staircase coitus with Lisa.

In years since, Tommy Wiseau has said he was making a dark comedy or a satire of a drama. Absolute crap. He went for a serious American drama and failed so miserably he made a comedy of errors so great he crafted one of the greatest comedy films of all time. The film grossed $1800 in its theatrical release. Marketing of the movie was a billboard in LA, that stayed up for 5 years, and Tommy Wiseau throwing pamphlets at people prior to the films premiere.

The film is a complete mess. It takes itself seriously. It wants to hit heavy but is undermined in wild swings of tone. Random thrown in scenes interrupt any pacing you may find. Its a movie that doesn't know what a movie is. Writing, dialogue, acting, screenplay, editing is atrocious.

The movie climaxes in a suicide after Tommy humps Lisa's clothing following a lackadaisical condo trashing after Tommy shove fights Mark and tells Lisa she's a bitch. That literally all happens inside 10 minutes.

It was written as a stage play and could not get distribution as a book. Logically when you encounter those obstacles you turn it into a self financed film. The production crew was replaced twice during filming.

So how did this movie become a big deal? Well, The Room was played on loop for April Fools 2009 by Adult Swim. That was the movie's big break. Beyond that it had a small cult following in LA among film industry people.

How did I find this movie? I wanted to watch Room, the Brie Larson film that won an Academy Award. I didn't think twice when I saw a theatrical showing of The Room, so I mosied on down to the historic Garneau Theatre. Imagine my surprise when I got this film, complete with fans throwing plastic spoons and singing along to the love songs. My brain couldn't compute. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And it was great. Everyone should see this movie once. Twice if you're feeling cute.

The Room plays locally on the first Friday of every month at the Metro Cinema. Its worth it.

If you liked this, please go like my page on Facebook. I'll be reviewing The Disaster Artist both as a book and a film next.

[adamreviewsthings]

Venom - Trailer 2 Reaction: This movie looks terrible.

By no means is a trailer indicative of the final product. Its an ad. Venom could be good, but impressions from the teaser, first trailer and second trailer leave me expecting an awful mess. I'd love to be wrong, but... jeez it looks like Sony went and Sony'd all over a Spider-Man movie again.

Forgive if I ramble, but it looks cheap and schlocky. Maybe its the suit. Maybe its because it gives me edge-lord "I'm So HaRdCoRe" vibes. Maybe its because it looks like its a Zack Snyder movie with that washed out visual palette.

There are some promising badass things: ripping the face is badass, the axe hands are badass, the big tongue is badass, having all the Hybrid symbiotes on their own is badass.

But there are some dumbass things: indistinguishable character design is dumbass, the goofy Venom face worming itself off the body to have a chat is dumbass, the "ima eat u" monologue is dumbass.

I just look at this and wonder if anyone is excited to watch this CGI fight at night between a black symbiote with no distinguishable markings versus a dark grey symbiote with no distinguishable markings? If it wasn't for someone telling me who was who in this still I would not have known.

I feel as if the film going to suffer from what plagued Suicide Squad: combat and plot better off meant for an R rating but neutered for PG-13, and then a #bigdumb CGI ending because that's in the recipe book for comic movies.

It just feels off.

The concept is interesting enough. Maybe it is Actually Good. Or maybe its such a bad schlocky mess it takes the needle so far below zero it comes back around to a ten.

I'm not too familiar with director Reuben Fleischer. His IMDB isn't inspiring but there have been a lot of directors with meh previous work who have come into big budget action flicks and done well. The cinematographer worked on Black Swan, Requiem For A Dream and Pi so you can expect some interesting and weird camera work that could be hella neat.

But like, come on. Its Sony. The studio that couldn't keep Adam Sandler happy enough to be his exclusive studio. The studio that bungled Venom once before. The studio that bungled Spider-Man so badly, twice, that they just gave most of the property back to a rival studio just to have the public not hate Spider-Man anymore. The studio that made Ghosbusters 2016 and banked on it being the start of a cinematic universe.

Or maybe its good and writing this was a waste of everyone's time. Guess we'll figure out on October 5th.

[adamreviewsthings]

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI EXISTS AND THAT IS FINE

Now that The Last Jedi has happened, can we all agree at this point there are two good Star Wars movies? A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. That’s it, right? Return of the Jedi is fine, prequels are bad, The Force Awakens is likeable and Rogue One smells.

I never saw this movie when it came out. I wasn’t excited to see it at launch and I figured I’d wait for Netflix.

Even once it was on Netflix I kept deciding to waste 2-3-4 hours on reruns of The Office, Brooklyn 99, Oceans Eleven and Blue Mountain State.

That isn’t because I cared about all the man-baby crying or accusations of SJW-ing all over it. It isn’t because the films are inherently political in a political climate that’s toxic as hell. I stayed away from as much TLJ related content as I was able because I had no desire to consume it. I didn’t care. I enjoyed The Force Awakens enough. I initially enjoyed Rogue One, although my opinion on it soured over time to the point I realised I actually dislike it and what Star Wars is as a property.

The series has always been political even when its hokey. Underneath the space monks versus space nazis, there is the political inspiration/allegory for the Vietnam War – hippies/rebels against Nixon/empire. There are essays about the prequels/Anikin being an allegory about the Bush administration. The story is always the band of misfits and rebels and good guy collective trying to stop fascist tyranny. A lot of movies have political or societal messages depending how far you want to scratch into it, and it never bothers me.

What bores me is that Star Wars is limited by the exact things that made it seem limitless because without established Star Wars elements to carry the world and narrative such as light sabres, the Millennium Falcon, TIE fighters and X-Wings, and the dueling sides of The Force, what even is this galaxy far far away? Why is the world of Star Wars essentially the same as it was 40 years ago? You never really see The Empire or The First Order tormenting regular people. You don’t get the impression that the every day person is bothered by them.

There are similar story elements from the old films to the new. They make sure to always get their name drops in. They make sure to use things people know even when it fails to be organic. They repeat visuals you’re familiar with.

For an adventure series set across multiple galaxies, they can’t get away from red light sabre vs blue light sabre plus destroy the big evil super weapon.

Darth Vader still basically is the driving force behind everything. From episodes 4-6 to the central figure of 1-3 to revered in 7 to a pointless and gratuitous part in Rogue One.

Star Wars can’t stop squeezing the dead corpse of Star Wars. As a property, its afraid to be new.

Why did I go into this giant preamble? I guess to say that Star Wars is just whatever.

I understand why some people are so mad about this film and I get why some people love it. It starts doing what I wanted to see, kind of. Its a swing at doing Star Wars its own way. It just didn’t exactly do it well.

The film is messy. Characterisation and traits can be inconsistent. There are pacing issues, tone issues, plot issues. Its probably a half hour too long. The execution wasn’t perfect. In trying to make the twists and turns, it doesn’t always go forward or even sideways. Sometimes it makes the left or right to satisfy and surprise, other times it does enough turns that its back where it started.

They could really make use of a Star Wars bible in the writers room to keep things in line.

Its a film of B-plots. The A-plot is a little more of a B+. Part of the mess comes from pacing of the B-plots and one of them being literally a “these characters need stuff to do” plot.

The comedy in the film doesn’t fit the tone of the overall film. Its really trying to get into that Guardians of the Galaxy vibe where you need a joke to undercut the tension a bit too frequently. It works there because those characters are likeable dicks by design, but these Star Wars characters are not.

The acting is good. Daisy Ridley is really charming and charismatic. Mark Hamill is excellent. There isn’t anyone who is bad. BB8 is a likeable robot, something this franchise has struggled with lately. Adam Driver is excellent. Finn and Rose are pretty much pointless, but their actors sure try to make you care about being pointless.

With quality performances and enough paint, you can hide a lot of the cracks.

I didn’t yell and throw my hands up until 2:05 of the 2:31 run time, but that moment was worth the reaction.

I was expecting something awful like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 or I was expecting another safe play like The Force Awakens with enough jazz to be enjoyable but forgettable.

This was more X-Men: Apocalypse. Sporadically interesting but far from perfect and has its share of wasted potential. A lot of stuff happens, but it kind of doesn’t matter. In a way it has Rogue One disease where you can skip to the third act and not really miss anything, walk away feeling good until you decide to think it over again.

I did not manage to avoid a bunch of chatter of how the movie is #ActuallyGood because it SuBvErTs YoUr ExPeCtAtIoNs, as people were putting it. Subverting expectations is a fine thing. There are movies that do it well. There are movies that do it poorly. Playing to expectations isn’t a bad thing either. That can be satisfying as often as its terrible. But in the end it still has to be satisfying or its just a wet fart.

At times this worked and that’s where the interest was. At times it didn’t because for all the ways it tried to be original there was nonsense mixed in and it still ended with red light sabre Sith and a military against inexperienced blue light sabre Jedi and the rebels. That honestly can’t be a spoiler. Don’t @ me.

Failure can be interesting and a great story device unless you make that failure meaningless.

I’ll be honest, a pinch of me wanted to hate this so I could hang up on Star Wars as a franchise, and the rest of me expected to be completely indifferent.

I don’t know where you take it from here that makes it something new, but if this movie was testing the waters for trying to be “new” then I hope they jump in next time. The time for teasing is over.

Rating: Netflix it when you’ve got an evening and a PB&J. I enjoyed it for the effort in doing what I have wanted Star Wars to do. I didn’t enjoy it for when it fell back into Star Wars. It’s dumb but at least it tried.

[adamreviewsthings]

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES SUCKS.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a dreadfully boring movie. It plain sucks.

Like, It took me 3 tries to sit through it. At one point I threw an empty bottle across the room when I saw that I still had 55 minutes left in it.

The love stories are terrible. Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane are kinda lame. Johnny Depp’s shtick is wearing thin. I can’t not see Tommy Wiseau all over Johnny Depp’s continually sloppier and slurrier Jack Sparrow.

The missionary and the mermaid romance was literally the worst romance I have ever seen on screen. Like, he got his first boner ever seeing her boobs and now they’re in love.

The mermaid attack was kind of cool, but then the rest of this whole mermaid people curse plot thing is just boring.

I saw everything in the plot coming about 20-40 minutes early.

Like, this movie was even too boring to be background nonsense while I played Roller Coaster Tycoon on my phone and ate mini donuts.

One of the biggest issues is how Jack Sparrow has just the most insane plot armour. Nothing hurts him. Not jumping off a cliff. Not jumping off a tower. Not any of that ridiculous chase scene. Not any of the moronic escape scene.

It was endearing when like some minor level of absurd hijinks worked in his favour, but its too many bananas when Jack is Assassin’s Creed-ing across the landscape where every action creates a cascade of other actions that perfectly create the exact calamity and circumstances for the wacky outcome to happen flawlessly. And then to follow it with a joke thats basically Jim Halpert staring into the camera.

There is a lot of fun ideas, but a bit of simple grounding would have gone a long way to make this more interesting. It isn’t the subject matter that needs to be realistic. The Fast and Furious movies get bigger and dumber each time and its great.

But but but like maybe a bit more realism when Jack Sparrow is bounding across palm trees and swinging from them like he’s Spider-man. It sucks the tension from tense moments when you know he’s going to slip on a banana, somersault into a cow that kicks a pig who runs into windmill that falls over with the sails doing skateboard tricks that launch a coconut into space hitting the moon that changes the tides so Jack’s tumbling body lands perfectly behind the wheel of a ship before anyone can catch him. Or whatever.

Sometimes the human kickstarted rube goldberg machine is fun. But not in almost every chase/escape/action sequence. Less is more. Ant-Man doesn’t have Michael Pena doing his story telling gag 2, 3, 5, 69 times a film.

The generic Spaniards were possibly the most interesting part of the movie. And they were generic nerds.

Sword fights are cool.

How can you drink from chalices that are shattered? Like the metal lip edge of the cup have giant gaps between the stone cup portion. But the characters just shoved them towards their faces. You wouldn’t have drank squat with that cup. Like eating soup with a fork.

This movie just sucks. It isn’t worth the commitment unless you’re really a big Pirates of the Caribbean fan.

But honestly, singing water demon creature. Name: Syrena. Like serene beauty but also a siren. Seriously, that subplot was an instant “don’t care” and it never made me care.

[adamreviewsthings]

DEADPOOL 2 DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING

If you can forgive me for a hot minute here, Deadpool 2 gives no fucks.

I apologise so much. Please forgive me for using one bad word in this review of a movie that drops a bad word per minute.

Do you know if this movie is better than the first one? I don’t, and I don’t think the movie cares to be better or worse. It just wants to be the new Deadpool movie. This is a Guardians 1 vs Guardians 2 thing. So its good but I don’t know if its better but it could be but it could not be but it totally could be.

One thing that is important to remember is that this is an R rated comedy first and an R rated action movie second with super “hero” syrup all over and inside its crevices.

If you liked Deadpool then you’ll like Deadpool 2. Simple. If you weren’t a fan of the first one, well I guess it depends why but DP2 probably won’t tickle your jimmies. There is all the swearing, brutal violence, blood, dismemberment, jokes, irreverence and meta-references that you would expect. Every scene with a serious tone is completely cut out by jokes, but this is still a bit more of a movie with plot and characters and motivation and all that sort of jazz. Definitely tried a little harder to make more of a narrative than “guy kills dude to save girlfriend”.

After seeing so many super hero movies that were massive in scale with save the world/change the world/save the universe level plots across X-Men, the MCU and the DCEU, its nice change to get a self contained, small, this-only-matters-to-these-characters level stories. The stakes are really only relevant to those on-screen. Sure, there might be some larger implications if you really think about it, but they’re never stated. The implications that are stated are small time, but that makes the stakes personal and better for a plot involving a bunch of selfish characters.

Its also nice to have a movie that doesn’t take itself seriously in a time where most blockbusters with ridiculous premises are also trying to be like “BUT THIS IS REAL LIFE!”

Deadpool and Ant-Man is a team up I want to see.

They made a great creative use of Deadpool’s powers in the first film, and with an expanded cast they really find more ways to do it again. Domino is a lot of fun. Thanos Josh Brolin Cable is a nice piece of seriousness in a film that dances with the absurd. The kiddos, Colossus and SPOILER all do their thing. TJ Miller disappears frequently which I don’t think will have anyone shedding tears.

I feel like the stuff that they were like “oh yeah this’ll be funny” didn’t land quite as hard as they wanted. There are jokes that are really like “THIS IS A JOKE JOKE” but some of the more mundane jokes and moments were some of the best. The cameos were fun.

I’m curious how much of a movie like this is subtly satire or if they lucked into a few things working themselves out between wrapping the film and then world/cinema/AVENGERS stuff happening. Or maybe I’m totally overthinking some parts.

Some of the funniest parts of the movie were technically after the movie in the after-credits. Make sure you catch those. There isn’t a post-credits so just stick around like 3 minutes.

The soundtrack to the movie is a lot of fun and adds to the overall tone and atmosphere they’re going for.

Ranking rating: One and a half thumbs up out of two thumbs up. If you can still catch it in theatre, aim for a Friday/Saturday/Tuesday crowd as it’ll be more fun with a crowd. If not then have a brownie and enjoy it on demand or Blu-Ray.

[adamreviewsthings]

BRILL-ANT: ANT-MAN AND THE WASP RULES PRETTY HARD

Who cares about Thanos? What's an intifininininity stone? Why is Gamora? None of this matters in this movie and it makes the movie effing great. Legit.

You need an absolute zero sum of Marvel knowledge walking into this movie. Outside of a few "Captain America" name drops this movie exists on it's own to the point this could be the first entry to Ant-Man.

I love Infinity War as a movie. Its #actuallygood and it's also nuts because I never thought I'd ever see something like that happen when I was a little Adam Junior playing Spiderman at the playground. But having side stories that aren't part of the Thanos saga keeps this franchise fresh and enjoyable and worth seeing between tentpoles.

I wasn't too hyped coming into this movie and didn't even intend to see it until about an hour before I did. It was raining out and it felt like my only choice on Netflix was The Last Jedi and I noped out of that.

I liked the first Ant-Man movie just fine. It was good. It was basically the first Marvel movie to not be a big epic and you can probably credit it, and Guardians Vol 1, as the point where Marvel opened up to adapting other genres into their hero films and giving more agency to the director's own vision.

The first film tried to be a heist movie and generally came close but for the goofy action ending. This film isn't too far off being a "pure" heist movie featuring a shrinking-growing hero and a shrinking-flying hero and a ghost lady plus science talk with old science peeps. The action scenes aren't so much fight scenes as they are chase scenes or not-get-caught scenes with action sprinkles and explosion icing.

The cast is great. The big names all have great chemistry and truly own some scenes. The little girl child isn't annoying and is legitimately charming. Michael Pena rules. TI is TI. The fake Russian guy character acts the crap off being a character actor. Asian Jim (Randall Park) is a lot of fun as the FBI agent. The evil gangsters really make their screen time work. Ghost Out Of Her Shell does her part.

I basically watched the whole movie with a smile on my face. I was laughing out loud frequently. They make great use of pacing and tone to keep things fun. There is a lot more made of the fun you can have with shrinking and bigging for gags and creative action. Its refreshing to see things in a super hero movie that involve more guile and cunning than just punch punch super kick.

If we're being entirely honest, I probably put this movie at or even above Black Panther in terms of Fun Watchingness. It doesn't have any of the cultural weight or anything meta that Black Panther brought, but if I'm just looking to watch something for 2 hours and these are both on Netflix its a real coin toss.

Even if you're like my vegan friend who hates everything fun if it involves a super hero because of the inherent dumbness, give this a try since its more along the lines of a Honey I Shrunk The Kids than The Dark Knight.

Stay for for the mid credits scene. The post credits is whatever because I don't even remember it.

Ranking rating: Double Thumbs Up Recommend. Go see. It isn't critical to the Marvel Universe, but it doesn't have to be and that's why its so good. And as with any comedy, see it in a theatre with peeps.