MPReviews

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Pros: -The actor’s are all doing a pretty good job. -The score is kinda decent. Cons: -The action is not very good. The Fantastic Four use their abilities in the most generic ways possible and some of the attacks just feel weak. -The lighting is terrible. The film is too dark and gloomy most of the time, which is such an odd choice for a superhero team as colorful as the Fantastic Four. -The first half of the movie feels nothing like a Fantastic Four film should feel, but it’s still more enjoyable than the second half. -Why are government scientists searching for someone who could potentially help them with their inter dimensional teleporter at a HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE FAIR!? -The entire second half of the movie happens because Reed, Johnny, and Doom make a stupid decision while drunk. -Why the hell would Reed risk putting his best friend Ben in danger by having him go with them to Planet Zero? I know he’s drunk and not thinking straight, but come on, this just feels like such a forced way to get Ben back into the plot. -The scene where Reed, Johnny, Sue, and Ben get their powers feels super forced. -I have no idea how Sue even managed to get powers at all since she didn’t even go with them to Planet Zero. -The film intentionally skips over what could have been the most interesting part of the story: the Fantastic Four getting used to their powers. -The final conflict is too short and the Fantastic Four manage to beat Doom too easily. -Doom’s powers are too vague. -Doom himself in this film is honestly a disgrace from the version in the comics and cartoons. There’s taking liberties with a character, and then there’s just throwing away what made him a great villain in the first place. -The rivalry between Ben and Johnny is very forced. Final Verdict: Fant4stic is dull, soulless, messy attempt to launch a Fantastic Four film franchise. The first half is kinda decent if you completely ignore the fact that this is supposed to be a Fantastic Four movie, but the second half is just bad. The one thing I will give this movie however is that it has reaffirmed to me that no matter what Marvel Studios does with the Fantastic Four, there’s nowhere to go but up from here.

Pros: -The action is decent. -The performances are quite good. -The score is good. -The visuals for the symbiotes in particular look great. Cons: -The pacing feels a bit off in a way I can’t really describe but I feel this movie would have benefited from an extra 30 minutes or so. -Venom’s relationship with Eddie and his decision to save the earth feel incredibly forced with little to no build up. -They don’t even try to explain how Venom survived being burned up after the final battle. -Some of the action feels like it was held back by the movie’s PG 13 rating. I feel like this movie could have really benefited from going full on R rated. Final verdict: Venom is a decent movie with some glaring flaws and I really feel it was held back by it’s desire to be under 2 hours and to be PG 13. If they had allowed for another hour or so and went full R rated, this likely would have been a lot better. As it is, however, it’s still enjoyable enough and if you just want to see a decent cinematic representation of Venom after Spider-Man 3 failed to deliver on that regard, I’d say go ahead.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Pros: -Voice actors are doing a good job despite the terrible script -Movie is blissfully short, being just under an hour and a half. Cons: -Jailbreak is the most blatant, shameless representation of feminism ever put on film. Any feminist statements that may have been in the Last Jedi or Captain Marvel pale in comparison to what this characters says and does in the movie. -“Emoji’s are the most important communication tool ever invented.” This is a real line from the film. I’m not kidding. -Blatant corporate product placement is very blatant and feels very corporate. -Gene’s relationship’s with High Five and Jailbreak feel very forced and unreal. -Gene’s parents, while I get that the whole point is they are always to supposed to be feeling meh since they are meh emoji’s, are still boring to watch because they are always meh about everything. -It’s hard to care about the human character Alex because we learn little to nothing about him and his personality. Same goes for his love interest who’s name I can’t even remember. -Patrick Stewart plays the poop emoji in this movie literally just so they can say Patrick Stewart played poop in a movie. -Why do they have to go through all these apps when they can literally just walk around them to get to the one they need to go to. -The film has a really terrible message at the start that you don’t need friends in life, just fans who will idolize and worship you, which is so not something you to put in kids minds, because yes, that is this films target audience, especially in this day and age when every kid thinks they can be a big youtube star and they don’t need school. -The film as a whole kinda insults kids by saying they have no attention spans anymore and are too lazy to type out words. -Most of the attempts at jokes crash and burn. Only once or twice during the movie did it manage to get a bit **** out of me, and I didn’t smile or laugh once while watching it. -The movie feels like it was written by focus groups, stealing elements like character traits and even whole plot points from good movies like Wreck it Ralph, The Lego Movie, Inside Out, you could argue the characters referring to the humans as users may have been stolen from Tron, and of course the dance party at the end of the movie that has been relatively common in animated films since Illumination hit the scene. -They cancelled the Popeye movie, which was actually looking pretty good and certainly had a far better and more unique animation style, and was even being done by Genndy, the creator of Samurai Jack and Hotel Transylvania, so they could do this movie. Sony, are you actively trying to ruin your reputation in the film industry? Final verdict: This is without a doubt the worst animated film I’ve ever seen, and possibly even the worst movie I’ve ever seen period. When it wasn’t making me cringe my ass off, it was boring me to death and the only thing keeping it above a zero is the fact that it was at the very least short. Still, unless you are a masochist, stay far, FAR away from this movie. I cannot stress that enough.

Pros: -Really good music -Solid Action -Pretty good characters, and the actor’s are doing a good job portraying them. -When they do actually use the time travel dagger, the visuals on display are pretty spectacular. -The visual design and production values in general are pretty good. Cons: -Film isn’t particularly mind blowing. Like if you took out the Prince of Persia name this would most likely just be another generic live action Disney film. -There was some wasted potential with the time traveling dagger. If they abandoned the need for the thing to have some kind of fuel to use it’s powers and went for something similar to Edge of Tomorrow where each time the characters screw up during their quest they just go back and try again until they get it right, this could have been the first movie based on a video game property that actually manages to replicate the feeling of playing a video game. But alas, they didn’t do that. Final verdict: Overall, I enjoyed Sands of Time, but I can’t help but notice the wasted potential here. This movie was so close to being the first video game movie that actually manages to replicate the feeling of playing the video game it’s based on, but they sacrificed that in favor of making a relatively standard live action Disney film from the early 2010’s. Still the music, visuals, characters, and action all still make this a decent flick that’s worth checking out if you are interested, and it still stands above most other video game film adaptations.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is the brain child of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and launched what is probably the only major franchise Lucasfilm has tied to their name outside of Star Wars. This was my first time watching the movie from beginning to end and overall I liked it. It had good characters, great acting (especially from Harrison Ford), fun action, and a great score from John Williams. It does drag a bit in a few areas and, I admit this is just a me issue, but it is a bit too gory in some parts for my taste so if that sort of thing makes you squeamish there’s your advance warning, but I still enjoyed it and am interested in checking out the sequels and seeing the 5th film whenever it gets out of production hell. 7/10 - Recommended.

Pros: -Stellar Voice Acting -All the main characters are very likeable and enjoyable to watch -Decent humor -Really good animation -Pretty good script -I really like the message it sends about friendship and doing the right thing, as well as it’s messages about how it’s okay to be different. Cons: -Some side characters, mainly the horses, are pretty annoying -The soundtrack, while it works in the context of the film, is pretty forgettable -The movie can be a bit predictable at times. Final verdict: Overall, I enjoyed Ferdinand, and it’s definitely one of the better films to come out of Blue Sky Studios in recent years. It’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t say it’s on the same level as most Disney or Pixar films (Ironic saying that since this is now technically a Disney movie after they bought out 20th Century Fox but now I’m getting off topic here), and I don’t see myself watching it again anytime soon, but if you are interested, it’s worth a look.

A worthy follow up to the original that maintains everything that was great about its predecessor and improves upon a few things, such as the villian. Fans of the original and marvel movies in general should definetely go see it.

Out of all the pixar movies released from toy story all the way to up, a bugs life is the only one I have no memory of watching. I may have seen it once or twice when I was really young, but I didn't remember anything about it. But I'm happy to say that even 20 years after its release, and going into it pretty much blindly, its still a good movie. All of the characters are enjoyable, the film holds up surprisingly well visually, the story, while a bit predictable, is still a good story, and the film still contains that pixar magic we all know and love. A bugs life may not be the best of pixars works, but its still a good movie that is worth checking out.

After batman and robin utterly destroyed any chance the old series of batman films had of continuing, this reboot truly redeemed batman's film career and showed us that there were still many more possibilities for batman on the big screen. This film delves into the origins of batman, and how he became the feared protector of gotham we all know and love, and it hits all the right notes. The actors all do a great job, the plot is engaging, and the movie nails the dark and serious tone that I think suits batman best. Combine this was some really suspenseful action, and some amazing lines, and this is a really good superhero movie! Its not the best one of its kind (though that could be a bit of bias speaking seeing as I'm not the biggest DC fan), but its still really good! And this movie gets extra brownie points for spawning my favorite batman movie, the dark knight.

A classic in every sense of the word. It has it all: timeless characters, a timeless score, and a literally timeless story! (Get it, because, its a story about time travel? Anyone? Okay, I’ll stop.) This is an amazing movie that hasn't aged one bit.

Great action, a high amount of suspense, and an amazing cast make this film well worth your time.

50 minutes into the film and I shut it off. The characters I couldn't care less about, and I couldn't give you their names even if I tried, the "comedy" was not very funny at all, the plot was boring, and the action was underwheelming to save the least. Despite all of this, however, I don't completely hate this movie, and its not awful, but its a painfully mediocre movie, and one of my biggest dissapointments, and I’m sure we all know from experience, that a dissapointing film can be a lot worse than one that is just straight up bad.

This was the first teenage mutant ninja turtles movie I ever watched, and was pretty much my introduction to the franchise, and I loved it. The plot may be a bit unfocused, but does that really matter when the movie is so much fun to watch? I don't think so. So I say ignore the critic reviews and give this movie a chance. Fans of the franchise will love it and those who are looking to into get into the franchise will love it as well.