Reviews

I think the biggest weakness of this film ended up being the marketing. The film was marketed as 'Indian John Wick' or 'John Wick in Mumbai', but it's both more and less than that.

Don't go into Monkey Man expecting a non-stop action-fest. It does honestly take a while for things to get going. Yes, there is a lot of good, well choreographed and well shot action set pieces, but they are backloaded to the climax of the film. Kid (played by Dev) is not a John Wick-level master assassin, he's a brawler on a revenge quest, and is over his head at the beginning.

What this film does very well is its well handled social commentary and its timelessness. The film wears its mythical inspiration on its sleeve. The film is very obviously a loose adaptation of the Ramayana, down to the human-trafficking victim and escort that Kid befriends at the nightclub literally being named Sita.

Another aspect of the film that becomes more apparent in the second half is how it represents the inner conflicts of the Hindu religion. We see the ultra-nationalist right-wing aspect in the villains led by Baba Shakti, who dresses and presents himself as a man of the people, an ascetic yogi, only to be an exploitative criminal kingpin who lives a life of opulence. And then we see the true noble side in Alpha, the transgender priestess of the temple of Shiva, who despite her poverty, opens her temple and her heart to Kid when he is almost killed after a failed assassination attempt.

I think that's ultimately what Dev Patel was trying to get at with this story. This isn't a story about one man's fight against an evil. When he tries to fight alone, he fails and almost dies. Instead, he learns to fight for himself and others like him, and accept their help.

So I do think this film is worth watching. It is compelling and beautifully shot, and rich with Indian culture, while still being approachable to a western audience. It is not John Wick, though.

The Netflix adaptation of Avatar is decent. It takes the core plot points, remixes them a little, and turns it into a slightly more mature-toned version. It's still family friendly, but more closely resembling a modern PG-13 superhero story than the PG original.

My core complaints are the dialogue writing and the overall rush to get through the plot at the expense of deeper character development. There is a lot of fanservice, references to the Kyoshi books, a lot of action, and some small changes that I would argue are a little better than the original. However, those are at the expense of a deeper connection with the characters. The most well-developed characters are Aang and Zuko, but even they get a few of their core characteristics shaved off. Aang is a lot less goofy. He still acts like a kid and makes a few good jokes, but he isn't going on little sidequest adventures anymore. There's no elephant koi at Kyoshi Island and only a little cart surfing in Omashu. It's like they trimmed the fat and lost the flavour.

Another issue is the dialogue. Especially in the first episode, the dialogue is very clumsy and exposition-heavy. A lot of telling, and not enough showing. It does improve a bit from episodes 2-8, but a rough start gives a very poor impression, unfortunately.

In terms of the good, there is a decent amount. The choice to combine several plot elements from different episodes into one does work. For example, the third and fourth episodes in Omashu combine plot elements from "The King of Omashu", "Jet", "The Northern Air Temple" and surprisingly "The Cave of Two Lovers". You'd think I'm crazy, but it surprisingly works a lot better than it should.

Then there's the fight scenes. While not as impactful as the animated show, the mix of top-tier CG effects with real choreography far surpasses most fantasy television, let alone the awful 2010 movie. There's no six earthbenders lifting a single pebble in this one, I can assure you of that. Waterbending feels a little weak in this show, but that's about it honestly.

Overall, I'm impressed by the effort. It's not a perfect show, and it definitely isn't remotely better than the original, but I do think it's worth a watch, and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest when it comes out.

Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the Osage Nation, their discovery of oil on their land, their quick rise to wealth and power, and then the white man coming in to kill and steal from them.

The film makes a parallel to the Tulsa Massacre, another event of a minority building wealth independently only for it to be taken from them by racist, imperialist white Americans. Killers takes us on a slow burn journey through history, following the characters Earnest Burkheart, his uncle William King Hale, and his native wife Mollie Burkheart.

While the story is mostly told from Earnest's perspective, I think it should be considered Mollie's story. We see her genuine love for her husband, and as the story goes on, her growing suspicion of him and his uncle as her family gets killed off one by one, and she gets more ill every day.

Racism is an obvious theme to the story. We see how racist hatred and resentment can manifest in different ways. We see Mollie's financial guardian have a poster of the infamous film 'Birth of a Nation' on his wall. Despite their wealth, the Osage are required to have white people manage their wealth. A Ku Klux Klan parade occurs and is met with applause. But because of the Osage's wealth and power, the racists take a more subtle and stealthy approach to their violence, using friendship, romance and manipulation to compromise those they wish to rid of.

It is an incredibly smart and deep film about an event in American history I didn't know of before. My one complaint is the length at 3 1/2 hours. I have no issue sitting down for a long film, as long as the pacing is engaging and consistent. The Wolf of Wall Street is one of my favourite films, and that film is at 3 hours, but is much faster paced. I personally think that Killers could've been cut down to perhaps 3 hours, without losing too much of the story. That, or it could be cut as a miniseries. Maybe because the film was produced by Apple Films, they intended it to be watched in pieces, as we are likely to do in this day and age with streaming services.

I would like to watch it again, see if I can get more out of it in the future. For now, I'm sticking with an 8/10. It is definitely worth watching, but if the length is an issue, I would recommend waiting until it comes out on streaming, and watching it in bite-sized pieces instead.

I have yet to see all of the Saw movies. I've seen the original, Saw 2 (apparently, but I don't remember anything about it) and Spiral. I went to see Saw X because I heard good things about it.

Saw X is pretty good, but not perfect. The plot is pretty compelling, but I think the baggage of the franchise sort of put a hamper on the story. Imagine taking the same story, but it's the first Saw film you've seen. I think that would've been far more interesting. Everyone in the audience already knows that John Kramer is the Jigsaw Killer, but what if that was the twist to the story?

Anyway, enough ruminating on hypotheticals. Let's judge the movie by what it actually is. Spoilers from here on out.

The kill on the poster was wasted, honestly. It was by far the most creative of the kills but making it a daydream where Kramer watches a hospital cleaner steal from a patient before then changing his mind was disappointing. I understand why they did it. It puts us in Kramer's perspective, a man who knows he's dying, and considering what he wants to do with the rest of his life. But the fact that it happens to no one of consequence is just...eh

Then we get to the big set piece. The group of scammers who pretended to give Kramer surgery only to take his money and run. Making the victims of the 'Games' this unlikeable was a pretty smart decision, considering that Kramer is the protagonist of the film as opposed to his usual role as the villain. The lead scammer is especially entertaining to watch as she eggs on the others to complete their games, revealing at the end that she wanted them to die so she could keep all the money. That was clever.

The one person I think didn't belong there was Gabriela. The rest of the team of scammers played crucial roles in the scam, pretending to be doctors, nurses, other patients etc. But Gabiela was just...there? She didn't really do anything except say "yeah the lead scammer doctor, she's good I guess". I mean, sure, she lied to Kramer, but compared to the others she didn't deserve to be in the games at all.

Again, I haven't seen all of the Saw films, so I'm guessing there's more egregious examples of 'victims of Saw that in no way deserved to be', but Gabriela is up there IMO. I will say her 'game' was the second most creative of the lot, or at the very least most visually interesting.

Overall this film was a fun watch. I need to catch up on the rest of the franchise now.

There are parts of this movie that I genuinely liked, and other parts that are really really mediocre. I wouldn't say bad necessarily, but just really dull and disappointing.

So first the good. I do think Kang has a lot of potential, but it hasn't quite been filled yet, and it was a good thing that Loki was the first view of this character concept instead of this one. Kang is building up to something big, and this step on the ladder is one that falls just a little short.

So my main issues with Kang specifically are that a lot of aspects of his character are as of yet unexplained. His power set is vaguely powerful. He has telekinetic powers, and can shoot beams that can vaporize people, but he gets overpowered by giant ants? Ok, I guess.

I just hope they show him to be a bigger threat than Thanos. Thanos in Infinity War was so incredibly powerful, and I am yet to be convinced that Kang is any more a threat.

So for the other stuff. This movie is just a boring Star Wars ripoff. So you're telling me that this amazing Quantum Realm is just Space again? There is literally nothing distinguishing the Quantum realm from anything that has been in Guardians of the Galaxy. Not only that, but the Star Wars comparison goes all the way down to having rebels, people who play both sides, faceless goons, etc. The only difference is you have to shrink instead of fly into space to get there.

They really had an opportunity to get goofy with it, and they just didn't for the most part. The most creative part is the alien that you drink his juice in order to understand the quantum realm's languages. That's it.

With MODOK, I'm sort of mixed with him. I like the way they introduce him, and explain why he looks like that, but it feels like they can't decide whether to make him a comic relief character or a competent secondary villain. And him heel-face turning at the last minute because Ant-Man's daughter told him to not be a dick was just dumb. Way to kill off another interesting villain from your comics, Marvel. Please stop doing that.

Speaking of Ant-Man's daughter. Ooof. I don't think it's the actor's fault, but damn she's annoying and badly written. They try and make her sort of this woke zoomer archetype who gets arrested for protesting a homeless removal effort, but it felt like a comittee of boomers were writing this character to appeal to zoomers instead of actually paying attention to what they're actually like. Cool she has a suit though.

What else? Um...Hope had next to nothing to do. She was just there for the ride. At least Hank Pym did the ant thing with the smart ants, and Michelle Pfeiffer was the instigator of the plot, and should've been the protagonist to be honest.

Yeah, that's it. Watch it for Kang. Rest of it is dumb.

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it was going to be another "Internet Bad" movie. Basically a movie that is meant to dissuade kids from doing stuff on the internet. But it's kinda the opposite.

Essentially the Grimcutty monster feeds off the hysteria of the parents. It is an invisible monster that stalks and attacks children, hurting them while also convincing the parents that the child is doing something naughty and bad that they found on the internet. When the parents are worried about what their child is doing, that's when the Grimcutty appears and attacks the child. The only way to fight it is for the parents to trust the judgement of their child. It is a very positive message about communication between children and their parents, and is explicitly against the harm that being overly attentive can deliver to the child.

However, that is not to say the movie is good. The movie is quite bad. The acting is especially bad, particularly from the parent characters. The design of Grimcutty, as sort of an amalgamation of Jeff the Killer and SCP 1471 (look those up if you don't know what they are) is horrible and goofy looking. The effects are particularly bad, and the horror is uneffective. They reveal the monster in the first two minutes, which is a big no-no if you want a suspenseful movie.

The movie is also pretty preachy about its message. The movie ends with an extended ASMR (not kidding) monologue by the main character, explicitly explaining to the audience what the point of the story was. Like the ending to an Aesop Fable or a Veggietales episode. There is no room for interpretation or discussion. It's ham-fisted at best. Even if I agree with and support the message of the movie, the way it's delivered is bad.

So the good stuff first. Dwayne Johnson, despite his ego driven promotion of the film, is pretty good as this character. I really enjoyed seeing him do edgy superhero shenanigans, and for a PG-13 film, this movie does go pretty hard. I wish they had a backbone and kept it rated R, but that's sort of expected.

The action was pretty good overall. The use of slow motion was a bit overbearing but there were some fantastic uses of it. And the other superhero's powers were done quite well. I really liked Doctor Fate. Despite his powerset being very similar to Doctor Strange, the way they write the character is very different and I do appreciate the effort. He's just a charming old man who cares about the people he works with. It's great.

Hawkman is a bit obnoxious, Atom Smasher is a one-note character, and Cyclone has nothing to do really, although I like the visuals for her powers. I think they mostly work as a group, the Justice Society.

Now the bad.

The plot is ALL OVER THE PLACE. It was a complete mess. Abandoned plot threads, unintentional red herrings, it was overwritten and underedited. The film was in development hell for a long time, and it REALLY shows.

The kid character was annoying. He should have been cut from the film entirely, he ruins the tone. No offense to the actor, he did okay for a newbie actor who has a badly written role.

The civilian characters (by which I mean the ones who don't have powers) are probably the worst part. They're just uninteresting. The main girl who wakes up Black Adam, it's unclear what her motivation is for entering the tomb in the first place. Why is she also looking for the crown? Did I miss something? Like I know that they want to stop the mercenary army that controls their city, but why are they looking for the crown. Also, how did they miss that the bad guy that is in charge of the mercenaries is pretending to be their friend? How did that happen?

Also how did she know what to say to wake up Black Adam? How did she know Shazam? Speaking of Shazam, he isn't mentioned at all. Like they both have the same powerset, Black Adam is to Shazam what Venom is to Spider-Man. Not even a cameo? They made Superman the end credit scene cameo, but not Shazam?

Like the Wizard is in this movie, but not the current Champion? Also they completely retcon what the Wizard tells Shazam about Black Adam. In the movie, Black Adam is the father of the Champion, but the Champion decides to give his dad the powers. But in Shazam, the entire motivation of the Wizard was that he was looking for a suitably moral person to fill the shoes of the Champion, because he regretted giving Black Adam powers. It's like the creative teams of both movies didn't cross reference notes or something.

Also another nitpick. Where did the Justice Society come from? This team of established superheroes that haven't at all appeared in any other story. They just come out of nowhere. Like, the whole arc of Batman forming a team in the Justice League movie makes no sense now, because there's already a super wealthy government backed superhero team with a very similar name. Were they formed after the Justice League? When were they formed? Who sues who for copyright infringement?

Anyway, I would say that Black Adam is a fun movie that has some very well directed action sequences, but makes no sense if you think about the plot for more than two seconds.

So heavy spoilers in this review

So the big moment of this show is the absolute shattering of the fourth wall, with She-Hulk going into the "real" world to confront the writers and then Kevin Feige (not really, it's a robot who represents him) about the creative choices of the show.

Decent premise for an episode, for sure. It parallels similar moments in the She-Hulk comic series, which is cool. However, just because you lampshade the Deus Ex Machina, doesn't mean it's suddenly not a Deus Ex Machina. Entire plot threads that are pivotal to the show are simply dismissed outright. They justify this choice by making fun of the big climactic final episode that has become a cliche in MCU shows, and having a bunch of characters appear out of nowhere nonsensically.

But we need to remind both the audience of the show and the creators that just because you perform self-awareness, doesn't mean that the creative choices are 'good.' The climax is still rushed and unjustified, even if you say it is in the show. Doesn't fix the issue.

The show is still an MCU show. None of the issues are fixed. It's unfortunate, I wanted to like this show, I disagree with a lot of the more reactionary tenencies of a lot of MCU fans, but this show isn't good. It doesn't deserve an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. There are only 2 episodes that I really liked. I just want good shows, please Disney! Also let your VFX workers unionize.

Is having an affair with your clone the same as incest? I don't know but it's close enough that quite a few people found the premise of this episode uncomfortable. I personally didn't mind the story, it was goofy and silly and inconsequential to the rest of the series.

I really like the addition of Space-Beth as a recurring character in the show, I thought she was going to be more of a one-off character when she was first introduced but the way that the writers continue to find uses for her is cool, even if this particular episode is one of the more controversial ones.

I think the show is at its best when it explores these weird sci-fi concepts, as long as it doesn't go too overboard with it like the sperm episode last season. This episode is fun, and the way it ended was the best part.

As I was watching this movie in the cinemas, I was wholeheartedly thinking that this movie was a 10/10, up until the third act.

The romance came out of nowhere. I knew from the trailers that romance was going to be a part of the story, but there was no real romantic chemistry between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, so when she wished that the Djinn would love her, I felt like it was a bit out of nowhere. I think they could've developed her attraction to Idris genie a bit more than just springing it on the audience. Maybe make the movie a bit longer to do that.

But besides that, this film was a spectacle. Essentially it's the story of Idris genie recounting all the times he fell in love with mortal women, and all the times he was cursed to live in a bottle. Spanning a literal three thousand years, the film is more about love as a broad concept than the love between the two main characters (which as I said before was underdeveloped in my opinion) and the way it was shown in little vignettes was great.

George Miller really shows his visual chops in this film. I do think that he is one of the best directors when it comes to the cinematography and effects of his film. Mad Max Fury Road is one of the best action movies of all time, and the direction is the main reason why. Even Happy Feet is a looker, despite the weird and mediocre plot. Miller continues to impress with this feast for the eyes.

I highly recommend this movie. It is up there with Everything Everywhere as one of the best looking movies of the year. The only issue I had was the rushed third act, but everything before that was fantastic.

I'm surprised by the low reviews for this movie. It's really not a bad movie at all. Derivative? Yes, but not a bad effort.

Tells the story of Evie, a poor black woman living in NYC who discovers after taking a DNA test that she's related to a rich family from the UK. She is swept up in the happiness of finding the family and privilege she always wanted, and becomes attracted to the young and handsome lord of the manor. She soon notices that something isn't quite right, and tries to find a way to escape.

I have two major criticisms: the wonky tonal inconsistencies, and the rushed climax. So for the first 2/3 of the film, it feels like one of those Hallmark romance, or a fairy tale playing up the regular woman falling for the handsome prince. However it keeps cutting to scenes with the maids where the vampires kill them randomly. It's like the film was trying to remind the audience that, yes, they were watching a horror movie, not a romance.

Then they have to rush the end, where Evie discovers that the handsome prince is actually a vampire, and that he wants her to be one too. Will she embrace becoming a rich vampire who can live comfortably on the backs of the working class (the political subtext is quite blatant in this film also) or will she tear things down? This could've been better developed, but it was still a fun climax

I thought it was mostly fun. Gotta love movies where the rich get defeated by the poor. It's definitely derivative and on the nose, but despite this it was a good time.

Thor Love and Thunder is two movies. The first movie is another Thor Ragnarok, a goofy Taika Waititi comedy with lots of improv and silliness. The other is a dark and gritty story about Gorr's grief for his lost child, and how it parallels Thor's grief for the impending loss of Jane.

The issue is it doesn't quite balance that. I'm not sure if that's the fault of Taika Waititi's direction or producer meddling, but either way, the film is a bit 'off'.

The good stuff is good. Christian Bale as Gorr is fantastic. He nails the portrayal of both the grieving father, and the corrupted evil mastermind. Jane's story as Mighty Thor is also very compelling. If I could say one thing, would be that she should've been the main focus of the movie, with regular Thor as a side character/comic relief for an otherwise dark story told straight.

That, or just save the Gorr story for a later time, and have another goofy Thor comedy ala Ragnarok. Have him hang out with the guardians more or something. I don't know. The problem with this movie is that with the slightly reduced run time of 2 hours, and the inconsistent mix of tones, the film feels unfocused and rushed. Which is disappointing, because of the two stories that it used up (Gorr's and Jane's).

Injustice is an adaptation of the DC video game franchise and comic book series, which is set in a universe where Superman gets tricked by the Joker into not only killing Lois Lane and his unborn child, but destroying all of Metropolis with a nuclear bomb that was set to explode when Lois's heart stopped. This traumatic event sets Superman on a path where he says "enough is enough" and decides to become the absolute ruler of Earth for himself.

However, this movie doesn't...do that? Not really. The same origin happens, the same gruesome death of this universe's Joker, but after that, since they only have like an hour and 10 minutes to tell this massive story, they just have Superman be kinda mean and solve a bunch of world problems by forcing bad people to not be bad anymore. Like 'oh no, he forced Israel and Palestine to sign a peace treaty and he got rid of the nukes, how horrible!" Like the lynchpin of the story, the turning point where people realise that Superman has 'gone too far' is when he massacres a bunch of Joker sympathisers. The other characters treat this like it's a massive deal, and that the Joker people just had disagreements with Superman, but keep in mind that in this universe Joker literally nuked a city. Yeah, I feel about as bad for these kids as I do for the people condemned in the Nuremberg Trials.

Like this Superman is meant to be a fascist, right? He doesn't really act like it in this movie though, he's at worst a dumb authoritarian who gets tricked by Ras Al Ghul into unleashing a truly unreasonable authoritarian monster onto a small town. Superman himself doesn't do anything like that. He lets Catwoman off the hook when he catches her stealing, he says he only cares about violent crime, so it's not like he's killing people for littering or whatever, that's what the evil robot Ra's builds does.

Anyway this movie is dumb and way too short. Play the fighting game or read the comics instead.