Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood Review

Quentin Tarantino is back with his ninth film. That number depending on who you ask. If you ask Tarantino himself, he calls "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Kill Bill Vol. 2" as one movie, thus refers to this as his ninth film. And I know it's hard to argue with the director himself, but I'm rebellious because I see those as two movies because they are two very different experiences. Also Tarantino technically made a film called "My Best Friend's Birthday" as his "first" film, which is a partially lost movie wherein only 36 of the movie's 70 minutes exists due to a lab fire. And Tarantino directed segments of the 1995 film "Four Rooms and the 2005 film "Sin City." But sure. He's only made nine movies. And he also says he's going to retire after his 10th movie, so this lets him do one more. Is it going to be a Star Trek movie? Or something else? And is he going to make that movie and stay true to his word? I highly doubt that. But we shall see. Tarantino is certainly an interesting human being, but he makes great movies. And they're so unique that they're pretty much a genre of their own. Before "The Hateful Eight" was released, I did a marathon of all of his films. That was quite the experience. A mostly enjoyable one. Thus I was excited for "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood." Or at least cautiously optimistic.

The thing here that had me a bit hesitant is that, when this movie was announced, I was under the impression that it was going to be a movie about the Manson Family. That had me nervous because Tarantino loves his over the top, graphic violence done mostly for entertainment purposes. I'm certainly not against the idea of doing a movie about the Manson Family. Crime dramas are kinda my thing. I have an odd fascination with serial killers. I love learning about the psychology behind them. But one thing you DON'T do is take a movie about a serial killer and glorify what happened for entertainment purposes. You have to take a very careful, respectful approach, especially when people are alive who were directly affected by the crimes that were committed. I could envision a movie in my head where Tarantino taking on the Manson Family would be very inappropriate, to say the least. So I needed to figure out what this movie really was before I allowed myself to be excited. When the first teaser arrived, it was advertised as a lighthearted comedy about late-60's Hollywood? Say what? It seemed like false advertising. The official trailer made it seem like a movie that showcased how quickly your luck can run out. That seemed better. But it still felt like they were hiding something.

Through all this, Tarantino at some point stated that this is NOT a movie about the Manson Family. And that just had me confused because Charles Manson and his croonies were all cast in the movie. And Margot Robbie was playing Sharon Tate. So how could that be accurate? Could those comments be a smokescreen? When the movie was released at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019, Tarantino essentially made everyone there swear an oath that they would not reveal certain details about the film, which made me feel like he was hiding something. Thus I had no idea what to expect. And, well, I feel like I definitely need to zip my lips after seeing it, making this review a bit tricky. But what I will say is that this is a lot of movie. First off, the run time is 2 hours 41 minutes. I was initially thinking that was one of his longer movies, but "The Hateful Eight" is 2 hours 48 minutes and "Django Unchained" is 2 hours 45 minutes. Several other films of his cross the 2 hours 30 minutes mark. So it seems like he just doesn't have the ability to make short movies. That aside, not only do I say this is a lot of movie because of the run time, but I also say this because because there are a lot of layers in this movie. It's not just a long movie. There's a lot going on here.

The thing that initially jumps out at me is that my thoughts about the initial teaser ended up being wrong. I got the impression there that they were advertising a much different film than what they had. I thought that this was going to be a very dark film that might turn a lot of people off who were less familiar with Tarantino and just went in for a lighthearted romp about late 60's Hollywood. As it turns out, that's a lot more accurate to what this movie is than what I was expecting. While the cast list in this movie is quite large, the story is centered around the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Leo plays a fictional actor named Rick Dalton and Brad plays his stunt double Cliff Booth. Everything that happens in the movie is centered around their story. In fact, a high percentage of the movie's huge cast are cameos from big name actors because Tarantino has such a high pedigree at this point that even making a brief appearance as a minor character is seen as quite the honor. Thus he can cast people like Al Pacino, Kurt Russell and Bruce Dern and only use them in very minor roles. But yeah, this is Leo and Brad's movie. The best Hollywood team-up since "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"? Yeah, I don't know about that. And yes, I have heard that stated. But regardless, this is a great team-up.

On that note, this movie is an excellent love letter to 60's Hollywood. In fact, this movie tries to be so 60's that I would comfortable call this 60's nostalgia vomit. I don't necessarily mean that as a negative thing, but like "Stranger Things" is pure 80's nostalgia vomit, cramming as much 80's down your throat as physically possible, "Once Upon a Time" does the same thing with the 60's, even to the point of mimicking the font and credits style from the 60's. There's lot of 60's music. A lot of 60's advertising. A lot of 60's film posters, movies and TV shows played at certain points. And we get to have a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of Hollywood at the time through the eyes of this fictional character of Rick Dalton. In this fictional universe, he was one of the huge stars at the time and loved playing essentially the same exact character in every movie or TV show he was in. That's the type of thing that people back then ate up. Your John Waynes and Clint Eastwoods of the world were huge, not necessarily because of their versatility as actors, but because they were great at playing one specific character and people loved seeing them play that in every movie. In the movie, when a director tries to disguise Rick Dalton, Rick Dalton is confused. How will they know its him?

I found myself really enjoying this aspect of the movie. It's a fairly unconventional style of film without your typical narrative structure, but it reminded me a lot of a good version of the Coen Brothers' "Hail, Caesar!" The latter film is essentially a week in the life of a fictional 50's film studio. The problem I had with that movie is that it felt like a sequence of disconnected events. The individual aspects were extremely entertaining, but the movie as a whole felt pointless and dull. "Once Upon a Time," on the other hand, strikes a much better balance. Most of it is a day in the life of Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth (or perhaps a couple of days), but both of them were just so entertaining for different reasons. Leo played Rick Dalton in a very eccentric, crazy way. His high mood swings and hyper nature was hilarious. I didn't know Leo could be so funny in a role. He's usually in very serious, dramatic roles. I would almost say he's a great method actor. But a comedic actor? I wouldn't really call this movie a comedy, per se, but there were a lot of funny moments and they were mostly because of Leo's eccentric nature. I was laughing quite hard during his temper tantrums and emotional breakdowns because he was just so off the wall and bizarre.

Brad, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. While Leo was crazy and eccentric, Brad was calm and collected. He didn't seem to have much care in the world, but everything he did do felt very calculated and purposeful. The balance between these two are perfect, thus the on-screen chemistry is fantastic. Just watching these two spend time together as they navigate their regular routines is extremely enjoyable. And it happens quite a bit. In fact, this is unconventional narrative because much of it is these two hanging out, talking, spending time together. When Leo is busy at work and Brad doesn't have anything to do, watching them go their separate ways and do their own thing is also quite enjoyable. If the movie was just this, I don't think I would have much of a problem with that. Granted, there were times where I think Tarantino could've practiced his film editing techniques. While there is a lot going on in this movie, this didn't need to be quite as long as it was. They could've cut 30-40 minutes out and the movie could've had the same effect. But I think Tarantino was having so much time playing around in the 60's that he didn't know what to cut. He was also enjoying giving Leo and Brad so much to do and, for the most part, I was totally bought in. Chilling with them was fun.

Some would claim that this is all the movie is about. And I can't really argue that too much. If you love the 60's, then you'll love this movie. In fact, that's why I think this is going to play very well at the Oscars. I'm not predicting wins at this point, especially since we don't know what the big players are, but the Academy loves movies that are an ode to classic cinema. Since most of the voters are old, white males, they essentially love being able to pat themselves on the back by saying how good they all were back in the day. Thus this could at the very least pick up a whole bunch of Oscar nominations. But no, this is not all this movie is about. Because, remember, the Manson Family are cast in this movie? Charles Mason, Tex Watson, Partricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Squeaky Fromme, George Spahn, Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Fykowski, Roman Polanski and others on both sides of the fence are all in this movie. So to say this is NOT about the Manson Family would be a lie. Or a misrepresentation of the movie. To what capacity, though, and how are they used? That's where I'm going to bite my tongue. I have so much to say, but I can't say any of it. Not in this review, anyways. But a spoiler review might be on its way.

Given that you're going to see a final score at the end of this paragraph, I suppose a vague conclusion of my thoughts on the Manson Family aspect of the film is a necessary thing. If Tarantino had done a completely inappropriate portrayal of this, my grade wouldn't be very positive. But my grade is going to be positive. So I'll just say that, from what I hear, the Sharon Tate family or estate read over this script before it was made and gave their approval of what Tarantino was planning on doing. After watching the movie, I do as well. I honestly think this is a very excellently constructed film that gives a satisfying conclusion. It doesn't just wander into nothingness like "Hail, Caesar!" did. Everything has a point to it. The acting, especially by Leo and Brad, is top notch. Tarantino's directing is superb. It's a well-written script that's executed in a very rewarding fashion. And I think it's the type of movie that has so many layers to it that people can walk out having very different takeaways from what they just watched and I'd say that's pretty fantastic. Given that Tarantino's filmography includes the like of "Pulp Fiction," "Django Unchained" and "Kill Bill Vol. 1," there's obviously limitations as to how high up this can go in a Tarantino ranking, but it will probably wind up pretty high. My grade for it is a 9/10.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Ranked: Phase III

With "Spider-Man: Far from Home" having been in theaters for over three weeks now, Phase III of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in the books. As such, it is now time to rank these 11 movies, meaning I have been really enjoying the process of watching and re-watching a lot of them in preparation for making this list, which was a tricky one to put together because I actually enjoyed all 11 of these to various degrees. Some fell in place rather easily, but a lot of them were so close together that it stressed me out. That resulted in plenty of Phase III Netflix binging because most of them are currently up on Netflix... for now. If you don't follow the MCU as closely as I do, Phase II concluded with "Ant-Man" in 2015 while Phase III began with "Captain America: Civil War" in 2016. That gave us a solid three years of Phase III, which concluded the Infinity Gauntlet story arc while giving us a quick hint of what's next for Phase IV, which begins next May with the long awaited "Black Widow." Before we begin, a quick warning. There will be spoilers for "Captain Marvel," "Avengers: Endgame" and "Spider-Man: Far from Home" here. I'm not saying you have to close this if you haven't seen either of those, but you might want to quickly scroll past their respective paragraphs.

11- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

I will contend that the Marvel has not yet made a bad movie. Even the likes of "Thor: The Dark World" and "Iron Man 2" have enough good moments in them to save them from being outright terrible, even though neither of those are movies wherein I really care to go watch again. But in my opinion, "Guardians 2" came awfully close to being that first bad movie in the MCU. That was really disappointing for me because, even though I was more harsh on the first "Guardians" than most, I always had hope that the sequel would be where this crew would shine now that their origin story is out of the way. But for the first half of the movie, it was painfully unfunny with not much focus or direction, no character development, decent songs that simply didn't stand out, and not much in terms of story. Luckily things kicked into full gear in the second half, especially when Ego revealed what he did to Star Lord's mother. And the Yondo stuff was beautiful. But even with all of this, it still felt like more of a filler episode of a superhero show with Ego being more of a monster of the week rather than a consequential villain. When the most interesting part of your movie was the introduction of Adam Warlock in the credits, that's a problem. But hey, there's hope for "Guardians 3," right?

10- Black Panther

Does this selection make me racist? The cynical white dude didn't like the black superhero film. Well, if I'm getting my "I would've voted Obama for a third term" moment out of the way (that's a "Get Out" reference if you didn't catch that), I love the character of Black Panther. His introduction in "Civil War" was excellent and made me super excited for his movie. When we got that movie, the look of Wakanda was amazing and there were a lot of other excellent characters, including a very sympathetic villain in Killmonger. I even loved the African-themed score. So all the pieces were in place for this to be a great movie. But for crying out loud, regardless of how culturally relevant your film is, I NEED A FRACKING STORY. That's where this movie fails. The first half of the movie is actually rather boring. After years setting up Andy Serkis' Ulysses Klaue, they toss him in the trash for the sake of a plot device. Kendrick Lamar's excellent soundtrack gets used as background noise at best. Then after wandering around in nothingness for a while, the second half of the movie becomes "The Lion King," but with Wakandian characters. Then we finish with a final battle that ranks as one Marvel's worst. The Russo Brothers did a much better job with these characters in their three movies.

9- Ant-Man and the Wasp

Coming directly after "Avengers: Infinity War" was quite the task. For me personally I think this was well timed because, after a movie so emotionally heavy and traumatizing, I rather enjoyed being able to just sit back and relax while enjoying a simple Marvel movie without a ton of stakes or emotional weight. In hindsight, though, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" does suffer quite a bit from the lack of Edgar Wright. Granted, Edgar Wright left the original movie before it was finished, but his influence was present throughout, which is why "Ant-Man" is one of my favorite Marvel movies. "Ant-Man and the Wasp" lacks the sharpness, the wit and the creativity of the first, but it's still a solid movie. I really liked the inclusion of Laurence Fishbourne as one of Hank Pym's original partners Dr. Bill Foster, aka Goliath. And I liked his connection with our movie's main "villain," that being Ghost. I put that in quotations because she's really not a villain. She's a fascinating character with a really good arc, played fantastically by Hannah John-Kamen who just happened to have gone through a lot in her life and was at the end of her rope. Also, completely stealing the show (well, kinda, she is in the title) is Evangeline Lilly finally dawning the Wasp suit. She proved she belongs in the MCU.

8- Spider-Man: Far from Home

This is our most recent film in the MCU. One that I thought that was going to kick off Phase IV, but learned in April was actually the final film in Phase III, much like it was "Ant-Man," not "Avengers: Infinity War" that closed off Phase II. Given that this is our most recent movie, I will still tread lightly. However, I will get into a bit more details than I did in my review, so be warned. The thing I liked most about "Far from Home" was the contrast between it and "Homecoming." In "Homecoming," Peter Parker was so full of adrenaline after "Civil War" that he only cared about the superhero stuff. He had to learn to properly prioritize his home life. But in "Far from Home," Peter has just had enough superheroing for a while. He just wants to escape and spend time with the girl he likes, and his other friends, on a class trip to Europe. All of that was phenomenal. Where the movie slightly lacks is in the superhero stuff that, while entertaining, doesn't really provide anything new. Specifically we have Jake Gyllenhaal bringing his all to Mysterio. He makes that character crazy and intimidating. And there's some legit "Doctor Strange" level trippiness with Spider-Man vs. Mysterio. He's just not as interesting of a villain as Michael Keaton's Vulture due to the way his character was written. 

7- Captain Marvel

Brie Larson really set off the angry, white internet trolls camping out in their parents' basement with her press tour of this movie. They were so angry at her comments against white males that they started an aggressive anti "Captain Marvel" campaign that failed so miserably I find it hilarious. Brie Larson had the last laugh there as "Captain Marvel" became the latest MCU film to top $1 billion worldwide. All that aside (especially since she was REALLY just trying to be inclusive to the minorities), I legitimately enjoyed "Captain Marvel." Is it as good as "Wonder Woman"? Of course not. But few superhero movies are. Was it super political? Sure. But that didn't bother me. I've watched and enjoyed all four seasons of "Supergirl," which is exactly what this show reminded me of. Carol Danvers and Kara Danvers even have nearly identical names and fairly similar stories. It was "Supergirl" meets "Star Trek," I should say. Carol Danvers is part of a Star Trek like team of Kree, trying to figure out who she is and what her powers are, while they fight off the enemy team of the Skrulls. But... PSYCH! The good guys are bad and the bad guys are good. It was fun, especially when she unlocked her full powers. Continuity errors with the MCU are my biggest complaints.

6- Spider-Man: Homecoming

It was rather risky to reboot Spider-Man yet again after "Spider-Man 3" and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" both killed their respective Spider-Man franchises. But Sony needed to continue to make movies somehow or else they lose their rights. So they went in complete panic mode, putting into production an animated Spider-Man movie, a Spider-Man-less Venom movie, then came crying to Marvel for help in making a new live action Spider-Man movie. Turns out all three avenues were hugely successful. With "Spider-Man: Homecoming," the deal to let Spider-Man be a part of the MCU if Marvel helped Sony make better movies was absolutely brilliant because that gave us a completely new and fresh version of Spider-Man who actually looked and acted like a teenager (even though Tom Holland is not). Marvel also very cleverly shook up the Spider-Man lore a bit so this didn't feel like a rinse, wash and repeat. The movie did lag a bit in the high school drama element, but it's more than made up for with Michael Keaton's villain Adrian Toomes, aka Vulture, who is such a normal, relatable human, yet becomes very intimidating when he needs to. That moment when he's driving Peter and Liz to the dance. Holy cow! One of the best moments ever in a Spider-Man movie as well as the MCU.

5- Captain America: Civil War

Even though I jokingly refer to this as "Avengers 2.5," I still am impressed at how much of a Captain America movie this still feels like, despite having nearly everyone in the MCU in it. The continuing story of Captain America and Bucky is the forefront here, and Helmut Zemo is introduced as a rather compelling villain, who is vastly underrated when it comes to MCU villains. But of course the Iron Man vs. Captain America conflict is the main show in the movie. In which case, I find myself rather easily entertained when we bring all of these characters together. It's just a lot of fun. However, I am a bit critical of this movie for two reasons. One, they killed off Brock Rumlow, aka Crossbones, in the opening act for the sake of a plot device. Two, the whole vigilante story arc is very tired on me. Every superhero series has to cross the bridge of government/city vs. the superheroes and this was the MCU's version of that. So I was slightly unimpressed with it as a whole, despite being entertained, especially with the airport sequence. Even though that battle had zero stakes, it was still super fun. HOWEVER, the movie saved itself with the end battle of Captain America vs. Iron Man, when there was stakes. It was an extraordinary finale that helped bump this movie up several notches.

4- Thor: Ragnarok

"Thor: Ragnarok" easily wins the award for the biggest surprise in the MCU. I'm one who will defend the original "Thor" as a vastly underrated film. It's emotional and entertaining. A great introduction to Thor. But it is one that gets a bit lost in the shuffle. And it's certainly not helped by the fact that "Thor: The Dark World" is one of the worst in the MCU, only saved from being an outright terrible movie by Loki. Thus I was kinda done with the character of Thor and wasn't really looking forward to a third Thor movie. That is until I saw the trailer, which had me stunned. And of course the movie itself was absolutely incredible. Director Taika Waititi, known for "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" and "What We Do in the Shadows," not only saved this franchise, but completely revitalized the character of Thor and transformed him into one of the MCU's best characters. This he did by letting Chris Hemwsorth be his silly, goofy self while constructing a narrative that was zany and fun. It was one part "Planet Hulk" and another part "End of Asgard," but not in a dark and dreary sort of way. But through the hilarious aspects of the film, Thor himself is given a great arc in the film, thus this movie has a surprising bit of emotion. All this comes together in what is one of the MCU's most rewatchable films.

3- Doctor Strange

I often get very picky with origin stories these days. It's just very easy to get caught up in all the origin story tropes and make a fairly boring and cliche movie. I call it origin-story-itis. With that in mind, I myself was very surprised by how captivated I was with "Doctor Strange" because this very much is an origin story that follows a lot of traditional formulas. I think the biggest reason why I was so captivated was because this is a movie that completely changed the MCU by introducing elements of magic and sorcery along with introducing alternate dimensions in being able to manipulate time and space. It was a brand new world for me, thus it felt fresh and unique. I also really loved Stephen Strange's arc in the movie. Yes it was fairly traditional, but the execution was done so well that it reminding me of Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins," which is the gold standard for origin stories. Stephen Strange going from a selfish, arrogant doctor to the Sorcerer Supreme was an excellent journey. Then when he got that point, and became good with the mystic arts, this was one of the most wildly entertaining movies I've seen. The space and time manipulation reminded me of the world-building dream sequences in "Inception." Thus we have "Batman Begins" meets "Inception." An impressive combo.

2- Avengers: Endgame

And we have our final two. Picking between "Infinity War" and "Endgame" was very stressful for me. I had to give "Endgame" a couple of months for the dust to settle, then I rewatched "Infinity War" on Netflix shortly before seeing "Endgame" for a second time. And even then I argued with myself quite a bit before finally choosing "Infinity War" as my favorite. But really it was like picking my favorite "Lord of the Rings" movie. Yeah, if you force me I will say "Return of the King," but the three movies are really just one giant movie, just like "Infinity War" and "Endgame" really fit best if watched together. When push comes to shove, my compromise is that the final battle sequence in "Endgame" is my favorite moment in all of the MCU due to the culmination of 11 years and 22 films with the conclusion of this Infinity Gauntlet story arc. It's a film that rewards the fans who have been there from day one. So from Cap yelling, "Avengers assemble!" to Tony Stark stopping Thanos after saying, "I am Iron Man," that's the pinnacle of all Marveldom. But this is a post where I'm ranking movies, not best moments. That's where I realize that there's a lot more to nitpick with "Endgame." Even though it's one of the most rewarding movies ever, as a whole it's not as good of a film as "Infinity War."

1- Avengers: Infinity War

If I'm being honest, watching "Infinity War" after knowing the events of "Endgame" does make for a different experience, but I still can't push aside the wide-range of emotions that I was experiencing while watching "Infinity War" for the first time. I remember going into the movie somewhat skeptic. Yes, I like my Avengers team-up movies, but this was the moment that every movie in the MCU prior to this one was building up to. It needed to more than just a fun adventure in stopping the next big baddie. The movie needed to mean something. It needed to have stakes. Thanos needed to become the Darth Vader of the MCU by mopping the floor with the Avengers and, likewise, "Infinity War" needed to become the "Empire Strikes Back" of the MCU. That was a high bar to set and I didn't think they could do it. But the did. And for the first time in an MCU film, I was nervously sitting on the edge of my seat having no idea what was going to happen and who was going to make it out alive. Seeing characters that I grew to love getting wiped out and not knowing if they're coming back was quite traumatic. This was a movie all about Thanos. And the construction of the film as a whole in setting him up as this supervillain was beautiful. And in the end... he won. How often does that happen?

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That does it with my ranking of Phase III! But how does Phase III fit in with the rest my rankings of the MCU? Yes, I've compiled that list, too. But first, my ranking of Phase I and II:

Phase I:

1- The Avengers
2- Iron Man
3- Thor
4- Captain America: The First Avenger
5- Iron Man 2
6- The Incredible Hulk

Phase II:

1- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2- Iron Man 3
3- Ant-Man
4- Guardians of the Galaxy
5- Avengers: Age of Ultron
6- Thor: The Dark World

And now to put it all together! All 23 movies in the MCU ranked! Just keep in mind that this big master list is the one that is most subject to change, especially since there's some of them that I haven't watched in a while. But for now, this is what I'm going with:

Phase I - III:

1- Avengers: Infinity War
2- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3- The Avengers
4- Avengers: Endgame
5- Doctor Strange
6- Thor: Ragnarok
7- Iron Man 3
8- Iron Man
9- Ant-Man
10- Captain America: Civil War
11- Spider-Man: Homecoming
12- Guardians of the Galaxy
13- Avengers: Age of Ultron
14- Thor
15- Captain Marvel
16- Spider-Man: Far from Home
17- Ant-Man and the Wasp
18- Black Panther
19- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
20- Captain America: The First Avengers
21- Thor: The Dark World
22- Iron Man 2
23- The Incredible Hulk

And now it's your turn. Let me know how you rank Phase III and/or the entire MCU!

The Lion King Review

It's been an excellent year for Disney thus far, at least when it comes to the box office. Thanks to "The Lion King" opening to a massive $191.7 million at the box office this past weekend, they now have five of the top six highest grossing opening weekends at the domestic box office, with the other one being "Spider-Man: Far from Home," which they do benefit from in other ways even though Spider-Man still belongs to Sony. In terms of quality, though, that's a bit of a different story. Yeah, sure, I've liked both Marvel films this year that they put out. And Toy Story 4 from the Pixar realm was a very pleasant surprise. But when it comes to these live-action remakes, they've not had the best track record. "The Lion King" is the third one from this year, but even if we look back to where the trend started from with "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010, I've been about split down the middle. This year specifically has given us "Dumbo" and "Aladdin." I hated "Dumbo" and enjoyed "Aladdin." In regards to "The Lion King," even though the animated film is one of my personal favorites and is arguably Disney's most popular film, I've always been a bit nervous about how a live-action adaptation was going to end up. Turns out I was right to be skeptic because this is a very rough ride.

I don't want to simply regurgitate everything that everyone else has been saying, so I'm going to try to make this as personal as possible, but the reason I was skeptic about this is that it seems like this was a lose/lose for Disney. Given how perfect the animated movie is, if they change anything then I'll be wondering why they felt the need to do so. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if they simply make the same exact movie, then what was the point of that? You see the problem? Now I can currently think of 191 million reasons why it was a good choice to remake this, but money aside, what's the purpose of redoing "The Lion King"? What does it add? All it really teaches Disney is that if they just throw some lazy nostalgia at the screen, millions of people will flock to Disney and give them all their money. No need for creativity. People might demand more original movies, but Disney won't give them that because that's all lip service. When original movies do come out, the same people that were demanding them will ignore their existence because it's not a property they're familiar with. But since everyone loves "The Lion King," they'll gladly give Disney their $10 to go see it again, even though it is the exact same movie, because yeah, that's the exact route Disney took here. It's shameless.

I suppose, in theory, you could get away with doing a carbon copy of another film as long as you provide the same amount of energy and passion as said original. I was one of the people that got conned into liking "Beauty and the Beast" because I thought the execution of the film was done well, even though it was mostly the same thing as the classic animated original, but with a few added details to get it to the length of a modern film. It was a similar thing with "Aladdin" this year. Even though "Aladdin" actually did plenty of things differently to set it apart, the general structure is the same. But there was a lot of passion and energy to the film. All the actors seemed like they genuinely cared about the project and they did a dang good job of singing and dancing in order to make it a fun spectacle. But with "The Lion King," the biggest surprise for me is that this new movie has no soul. The original movie might have simply been an adaptation of "Hamlet," but with animals. And Disney may have even borrowed a lot from "Kimba the White Lion," despite refusing to admit to it, but none of that negatively impacts the film because there's so much emotion and so much care put into every aspect of the movie. There's a reason why it's Disney's most popular film.

This new one, though, is so baffling because it seems like they're going though the motions. And I don't even know where to point the finger. Jon Favreau, who did an excellent job with "The Jungle Book," is here directing. And we have a great cast that includes Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alfre Woodard, Billy Eichner, John Kani, John Oliver, Beyoncé and James Earl Jones. Yet no one really sounds like they care. I mean, bringing James Earl Jones back to revoice Mufasa seems like an excellent choice, but not even he puts much energy into his performance. It almost feels like Jon Favreau told everyone to sound as dull and monotonous as possible for some sort of cinematic effect. I don't know why he would say something like that to everyone, but that's the only thing that makes sense in my brain as to why the entire cast sounds so uninterested. The only two characters that even sounded like they were having fun voicing their characters were Seth Rogen as Pumba and John Oliver as Zazu. That's out of the main characters, anyways. Florence Kasumba made Shenzi the hyena sound as vicious as possible, but she was barely in the movie. On top of that, most of the line delivery was off. They were saying iconic lines, but in rushed and flat tones that gave it no weight.

Another big problem I had is that this is a movie that didn't translate well into live action. And yes, we can have that argument if you really want to. I know a lot of people that are so passionately adamant that this is NOT live action and they'll go to their graves defending that point. I don't disagree and I'm very well aware of the fact that the whole thing was done on a computer, but I really don't care. It was made with the intention of looking photorealistic, so that's why I call it live action. Because it looks live action. And they did such a good job that the final result is a bit jarring. It looks like we are watching a nature documentary when suddenly the animals start talking. Instead of the voices sounding like they are coming from the animals, the voice over is painfully obvious. It sounded like a serious-toned RiffTrax version of a nature documentary. It was unnatural. But yet only some of the animals seemed to have the ability of being able to talk. The rest were just normal animals who were animated so realistically that they didn't seem like they had any idea of what was going on around them, which made it really confusing as to why they were all gathering to celebrate Simba's birth when all the lions really cared about was eating them for dinner.

When it comes to this, I'm having a hard time pinpointing the difference between "The Jungle Book" and "The Lion King" in this regard. Both movies were made by Jon Favreau. Yet when I watched "The Jungle Book," I totally believed that the animals were talking. It felt normal. But in "The Lion King" it didn't. It was strange. It got even stranger when they started singing. Their singing voices were definitely not coming from them. Given that animals don't naturally participate in dance numbers, it was a bit odd seeing them doing so. But they didn't fully commit to the absurdity of it all, so it felt more like a half-hearted dance number just because they had to. In reality, with this super realistic tone they were going for, it would've probably been better if they had not had any music, but yet that would've been total blasphemy. The other part that made the live action animals in this a bit weird is that animals don't naturally emote, especially not lions. It seems like they were trying to be realistic to that, which is a problem because this is a story that requires a lot of emotion. These animals need to have the facial expressions to make both the serious tones of the movie as well as the comedy fully work, but they handcuffed themselves by not allowing that.

As I think about it, maybe this is why the cast was told to be less interested. If animals don't give much emotion, maybe they thought it would fit best if they didn't provide much emotion themselves. But even that doesn't excuse the line delivery. A lot of the characters didn't spend much time pausing and thinking about what they were going to say or how they were going to react. They just spouted off pre-rehearsed lines with no time for reaction. One example is when Timon and Pumba were trying to figure out what to do with baby Simba. Pumba suggests that maybe they should keep him because if he grows up, then he would be on their side. Instead of Timon pausing for a bit and then suggesting the same thing as if it were his idea, thus showing that he processed what Pumba said, but didn't want to give him the credit, he gave the line immediately after Pumba finished, almost to the point of overlapping or interrupting him. Stuff like this happened the entire movie. But not just with individual lines. It happened with a lot of scenes. Scenes that we knew were supposed to happen, so they just jumped right into them without giving proper time to set things up. Like when Simba and Nala reunited. Even just a few extra moments to set up their love song would've helped.

All of these core issues came together to make it so I wasn't emotionally invested in this film. I was supposed to care about Simba, but I didn't. I was supposed to be traumatized when Mufasa died. But I wasn't. I was supposed to be terrified of Scar, but I found him dull. I was supposed to be entertained by Timon and Pumba, but I didn't laugh. I was supposed to be blown away or touched by the spectacle of the musical and dance numbers, but I didn't even feel like singing along. The movie never really grabbed me from the start and as we progressed through the plot, I became increasingly frustrated at what was happening. I think it boils down to the fact that this is a movie that simply doesn't translate well into live action, nor is it a movie that really needed a remake. There's certainly things you can get away with in an animated film that don't work in live action. When you combine that with the fact that it really seemed like there wasn't a lot of passion put into this project, I ended up getting a bad taste in my mouth because I don't know the last time I've walked out of theater that screamed "CASH GRAB" this loudly. And the fact that it worked so well with this destined to be Disney's latest $1 billion film is troubling because it teaches Disney that they don't need to be creative.

Thus when I rank this movie with all of the other live action remakes from Disney, this unfortunately will end up towards the bottom of the list. A big part of that reason is the fact that I think this could be very damaging to the movie industry and for Disney going forward. Given that Hollywood is a business, they're always trying to replicate success. And when they find something that works this well in terms of how much money it made, they're going to copy that formula. With Disney specifically, I can see them taking serious notes from this performance and apply it to the likes of "The Little Mermaid" or "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," two movies that I think could use a modern update, but now probably won't get one because Disney knows they can make a crapton of money by simply creating a carbon copy of their classic films. There are positives of this movie that I could talk about, but I left with such a frustrated feeling that I'm not in the mood. There's also more negatives, like them butchering "Be Prepared" or removing Rafiki's speech to Simba, but I think I've made my point clear without needing to completely dissect every scene. So my frustrations with the film itself as well as the potential implications has led me to give "The Lion King" a 5/10.

Crawl Review

Here's a movie that was barely on my radar entering the summer. Looking at my Excel charts that have all my summer predictions that I made back in April, I only pegged "Crawl" for a $3 million domestic total. Not that many of my predictions for the summer have been very accurate this time around, but I have no idea what I was thinking there. I think I was looking at "Hurricane Heist" as a comparison, but even that made $6.1 million total domestically. Luckily I was a little more aware of this when it came to my July movie preview, wherein I pointed out potential comparisons such as "47 Meters Down" ($11.2 million opening), "The Shallows" ($16.8 million opening) and "Geostorm" ($13.7 million opening). That general range is exactly where "Crawl" landed, getting a hair over $12 million this past weekend, suggesting a run that could hit $40 million total, depending on how well it holds. "47 Meters Down," it's closest comparison, finished with $44.7 million domesitcally. Given it's shockingly strong reviews, I think it could hit that. Said strong reviews are actually what got me out to see this. It's current Rotten Tomatoes score is 85 percent after 101 reviews, which probably even surprised Paramount given that they decided not to screen this for critics.

If you're done with me talking about numbers, I suppose I'll start talking about the movie itself. The thing is, this movie is so simple that there's not much to say, so numbers are a good supplement. But anywho, if you are one who doesn't follow the release schedule as closely as I do, "Crawl" fits perfectly into our terror in the water subgenre of horror, which is quite popular of late. Shark movies, of course, have been popular since "Jaws" in the 70's, but there has been a re-invigoration of this of late with "The Shallows" in 2016, "47 Meters Down" in 2017 and "The Meg" in 2018. "The Meg" is a movie that absolutely exploded last summer with a $45.4 million opening and a $145.4 million domestic total. Not to mention it also did a total of $530 million worldwide. So don't expect this to slow down anytime soon. In fact, we have a second one this summer with "47 Meters Down: Uncaged" opening in August. But "Crawl" is not sharks. It's alligators. That's why I have to be slightly more generic by saying terror in the water rather than shark movie. But "Crawl" is not just alligators attacking people. It's alligators attacking people during a category 5 hurricane, which is a hilariously insane premise, which is why I think my mind initially jumped to "Hurricane Heist."

Specifically with this premise, Haley has been a swimmer her whole life. Right now she is a swimmer for the Florida Gators (haha, this movie is clever, right?). Upon finishing one swimming practice, Haley's sister Beth calls her and wants to know where Dad is. Haley doesn't know because her and Dad aren't on the best of terms. Granted, Dad was the person responsible for pushing her so hard to excel in swimming, but adulting happened and family drama ensued. But given that a category 5 hurricane is about to hit, Haley decides that she is going to be a decent human and figure out where Dad is because answering phone calls he is not. Haley figures out he must be at their childhood home, but city people won't let Haley drive there. She ignores them and drives through anyways, which is a good thing because she finds Dad unconscious at the basement of their home and is about to drag him to safety when... alligators. Because, you know, swarms of alligators are always hanging out during hurricanes in Florida, waiting to eat everyone who didn't heed the evacuation mandates. And said alligators are certainly not going to let you escape to the top of the house so you can wave down the rescue helicopters. 

That there is our movie. But lest you think I summarized the entire plot, I really just summarized the opening act. The rest of the movie is really just a short 87 minute film where Haley and Dad try to escape the alligators. The movie is essentially split into "levels," which include different parts of the house. Because, logically speaking, the second you escape one part of the house, the water is going to rise and the gators are going to invade that part of the house, too. The simplicity of this film, both in concept and in run time is what makes this an effective film. The plot may seem a bit absurd, but the specific story here is quite simple. Escape the alligators before they eat you. And the movie doesn't overstay its welcome. No dull moments. No fluff. Not a whole lot of characters. It's short and to the point. And also extremely tense. No, this is not a "Sharknado" style film that is purposely bad, made to get you to laugh as loud and often as possible with your group of friends. Rather, this movie is one that takes itself very seriously, leaving you on the edge of your seat the entire time. It tries to go for the "Jaws" style of horror movie and does a pretty good job at it. While "Jaws" made people not want to swim in the water, "Crawl" made me want to avoid Florida like the plague.

The obvious thing that makes this work so well is the alligators themselves. Now I don't know a whole lot of about the nature of alligators. I don't know if they're the type of creature that groups together and attacks anything that's in their path. I don't know if they try to trap their potential food and hunt them down or if they would eventually get bored and swim away. I don't even know the statistics about alligator attacks on humans. What I do know is that this movie used them effectively. They don't feel crazy and exaggerated. They feel like normal, carnivorous animals that just happen to be in the same enclosed space as a couple of humans. This is also not a jump scare fest or a gore fest. A lot of the tension comes in just knowing that they're there, lurking in the waters or hiding in the shadows. Haley initially crawls around to find Dad and we see an alligator crawling in the distance, but she doesn't. The alligator doesn't even show up at the moment to attack them or her, but the fact that we saw it and she didn't, makes this very nerve-wracking. Then she ends up in the wrong place and the wrong time and there they are. The build up to these moments are done so effectively that when the alligators are actually chasing them down or dragging them, it's terrifying.

The other thing that makes this work is that the movie makes you care about these two characters. Haley is a very likable girl played very well by Kaya Scodelario, who is most well known for her role in the Maze Runner movies, as well as that final Pirates of the Caribbean movie that most people outside myself ended up skipping. She didn't necessarily jump out at me in those movies, but she doesn't very well in this one. The tension between her and Dad is very real. You can feel the drama between the two of them in the way they bounce off each other with their interactions without the movie having to dump too much background and exposition on you. But yet you also feel the relationship between father and daughter. Despite their disagreements, they still care about each other and want the other to escape. When things feel hopeless with the alligator situation, that's where the emotion is at its highest. And yes, Dad does have a name. His name is Dave and he's played by Barry Pepper. He does a great job of selling this emotionally conflicted character. Just by the way he talks and carries himself, you can tell that he's been through a lot. Because of this interaction, you genuinely hope they make it out alive.

Any concerns I had about the movie can be resolved by reminding myself that I'm watching a movie about alligators attacking during a category 5 hurricane. There's no reason to be super nitpicky about this one. I could complain that Haley and Dave really shouldn't be capable of walking by the end of this movie or that they are somehow able to survive a lot better than the sacrificial offerings that show up to quickly get eaten by alligators. But if our main characters both got eaten in the first 20 minutes, that would be a pretty anticlimactic horror film. So I'm fine with things being a bit easy at times for them so that we can have a feature-length film that remains tense the whole way through. There's probably plenty of other things that could be pointed out as well, but when push comes to shove, if you paid money to see this in theaters, you paid knowing that you bought tickets to a movie about alligators hunting people in a category 5 hurricane. It's the type of movie where you're expectations going in are rather simple. This doesn't need to be an Oscar-winning drama. It just needs to be a fun horror film with alligators and it succeeds in that goal. In fact, I think it's one of the more effective terror in the water films. A perfect movie night with your friends. My grade for "Crawl" is an 8/10.

Midsommar Review

Ari Aster, the director of last year's "Hereditary," is back at it with another unique and challenging horror film. When it comes to horror, typically these unconventional horror films are my cup of tea, which is why "Midsommar" was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. "Hereditary" made my top 10 list from last year, so all you had to do is tell me that Ari Aster has another film coming out and I'm on board. In general terms, horror is a tricky genre to get right simply because fear affects everyone differently. What's scary to some people is not scary to others. But even then, if you find something that is scary to you, there's the subject of whether or not you are willing to subject yourself to that. At the same time, though, horror is a very broad genre that often gets a bad name. If you say, "I hate horror" in the same vicinity as "Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies," I'm going to look at you funny because monster movies are a genre of horror, especially ones like "Jurassic Park" that make you scared of the monsters. But I digress. My favorite types of horror films are the ones that go beyond the typical jump scare fest and dive into something deep. In doing so, the genre can have more to say and do so in a more profound way than any other genre. 

That being said, "Hereditary" is a bit of an interesting case. It's not as insanely profound as something like "The Witch" or "The Babadook," nor is it as entertainingly rewatchable as some other horror classics. I mean, it's not one that you're just going to casually pop in on Halloween evening. But it did something that few horror movies have ever done. It messed me up. I was scarred for weeks after seeing "Hereditary," which was impressive to me because I've seen so many horror films that I'm pretty thick skinned. I'm not going to jump 10 feet in the air every time a loud noise is made or when a monster jumps out of a closet. You have to do better than that. There's plenty of horror movies that some will tell me "that was the scariest movie I've ever seen," but I watch and am not scared at all. I try not to sound all high and mighty with that, but that's just what happens when you watch a lot of horror films. Yet I suppose this also goes back to fear affecting people differently. I brag about how tough I am when it comes to horror, but lift me up 10 feet in the air or release a bee into the room and I'll completely lose my mind. That's why the episode of "Black Mirror" with all the killer robotic bees was one of the most disturbing things I've sat through. It was almost too much.

Anyways, what made "Hereditary" such a disturbing film was the extreme level of shock value that caused this previously happy family to completely devolve. I don't want to get into specifics, but it was quite the experience. After taking some time to get over it, I ended up buying it on Black Friday and I find it immensely entertaining to watch with the right crowd, mostly to see their reactions to how crazy and insane it is. When it comes to "Midsommar," this is movie that almost puts "Hereditary" to shame. It's like Ari Aster purposely set out to create something shockingly disturbing with "Hereditary," then when that movie became a box office hit, thus giving him the attention and recognition, he set out to one-up himself. Given that I made it through "Hereditary," I thought I was prepared for "Midsommar," thus I rushed out to see it on the morning it came out, which was last Wednesday, July 3. Prepared, I was not. I could've rushed home, typed up a quick review, and had that all ready for the extended fourth of July weekend. But walking out of that theater, I knew that wasn't even going to be a remote possibility. Even now I don't feel prepared to write a review of this, but I know if I wait too much longer, my window of opportunity here will be lost, so here we are.

I've seen a lot of people comparing this to "The Wicker Man." Not the silly Nicholas Cage version in 2006, but the original 1973 film. Because that's been such a popular comparison, I wanted to make sure I acknowledge that, but I've not seen "The Wicker Man," so I'm not going to be doing any comparing. What I will say is that "Midsommar" is one of the most unique horror films I've personally ever seen. Perhaps that would change if I had seen "The Wicker Man," but I haven't, so it is what it is. The premise behind "Midsommar" is simple enough. A group of friends travel to a small town in Sweden to witness a ritualistic festival. One of the friends has decided to do his thesis on this group and other groups like them, so they make a vacation out of it. Adding a bit of drama into the mix is that our lead character Dani, played by Florence Pugh, has gone through a traumatizing experience with her family and thus decides last minute to join her boyfriend Christian, played by Jack Reyner, on this trip as he was one of the friends who was planning on going. That adds plenty of relationship drama as Dani and Christian aren't in the best position with each other, but Christian can't get himself to break up with her due to what she's been through.

This leads to a movie that initially is not scary. Not intense. Not dark. In fact, it's a very slow-moving drama for much of it. We were at least halfway through the movie and I wasn't convinced that this was even a horror movie. Even the most unconventional horror films are at least building to something or have some sense of darkness built in. This movie is very bright, very colorful, very friendly, and very warm. I even got the feeling early on that this would be a fun place to visit. I often like visiting different religions and different cultures. As long as you're not casual and disrespectful like Will Poulter's character in the movie is, an experience like this could be a very positive one where you experience a different part of the world that you didn't realize existed. Obviously my feelings on that completely changed by the time the end of the movie rolled around, but that's the vibe that the movie sets up. Given that this is an Ari Aster movie and I had prepared myself for the worst, I was expecting there to be a time in the film where the tone completely shifts and the madness ensues, but that didn't really happen. We are introduced to unique rituals, but nothing feels out of the ordinary, thus the movie manages to maintain its warm, friendly feeling throughout.

I don't want to get into specifics with this film because it's one of those movies where me talking too much about the second half of the film will ruin the experience, but there is an inciting incident that kicks off the madness. However, even with that, the movie never loses its bright tone. We never really have an intense score that kicks in, telling us when to be scared. Given that the setting is a place that is bright and sunny for 20 hours a day, the lighting in the film is literally bright and colorful for most of the time. It doesn't start to get wet and stormy. There's no monster that is creeping around the corners that starts picking off characters one by one. Weird things will happen, but the movie treats them like they are perfectly normal occurrences, moving on like nothing ever happened. That's what makes this such a unique horror film. This isn't one of those situations where you feel like yelling at your main character to get out of there before the scary monster kills him or her. Rather it feels like a situation where you might act exactly like some of the main characters because nothing feels off. Thus the movie ends up completely catching you off guard because you somehow saw none of it coming, even though it was all right in front of you the entire time.

In ways I can't explain in this review, that's what makes this the most unsettling and disturbing. In "Hereditary" there were things that happened that had me immediately reeling in my seat, feeling quite uncomfortable. "Midsommar" was a much different experience because there were only a few moments that were immediately disturbing. Rather, there were things that happened that I didn't think twice about when they actually happened, but then 20 or so minutes would pass and I would be like, "Wait a minute..." It was then that the horror and dread set in. No, this movie leaves nothing ambiguous. Sure, there might be themes to discuss and motivations to wonder about, but the physical events that happen are not hidden and are not left for interpretation. It just takes a long time for it to dawn on you what's actually happening. Then when you hit the end and everything gets revealed, it might make you sick to the stomach. At least that's what happened to me. This was such a happy and bright film, but yet there was nothing pleasant about it when I was walking out of the theater. It's a very dark, grim and disturbing film, all hidden under the disguise of happiness and sunlight. In fact, I walked out feeling quite upset and almost angry at what I had witnessed.

That's why I knew I couldn't review this right away. I wasn't lost in thought on my way home at some deeply profound horror film that I had witnessed. I wasn't impressed at how intense or disturbing the movie was. I was flat-out angry that I had been subjected to this movie, especially considering some of the content that happens both on and off the screen. As I said before, it feels like with "Midsommar" that Ari Aster was out to one-up himself by making something more disturbing than "Hereditary," but in doing so I was thinking that perhaps he crossed a line. At the same time, though, I didn't want to just carelessly toss this to the side, like I knew some people did with "Hereditary," given that movie's D+ Cinemascore, or many other independent, unconventional horror films that I love that suffered the same fate with general horror audiences. "The Witch." "The Babadook." "It Follows." "It Comes at Night." All of those were trashed by audiences. I didn't want to be like them with "Midsommar," but suddenly I was catching a glimpse of what it was like to hate one of these films because of how uncomfortable and different it was. Sometimes you want the simple comfort food. Maybe it's better to have that pizza or hamburger rather than try the exotic foreign dish.

In letting my feelings subside a bit, the angry feelings did go away and instead I have been able to contemplate on what it all means and what the purpose of it all is. I'm not saying I woke up on Independence Day, which was the day after I saw this, and suddenly came upon the decision that I had seen the best thing ever. Instead, I was rather comfortable with my decision to just binge "Stranger Things 3" while also spending time with family and friends all weekend. That was a pleasant distraction. But the passage of time definitely helps alleviate the initial shock of walking out of that theater. And that's why this has been one of the most challenging movie experiences that I've had. Maybe challenging isn't always good, but it's something that I can at least respect. Eventually I do want to return to "Midsommar" to come up with a final determination on how I feel, but I need more time. This week or this month is not going to be the time for me to return. I'm going to enjoy rewatching a few MCU Phase III films before I type up that ranking. I hope to enjoy myself with the more simple entertainment of "The Lion King" and "Hobbs and Shaw." And then we'll see about "Midsommar." But for now I leave it with a 7/10. But that's a temporary score. It might easily change.

Stranger Things 3 Review (SPOILERS)

It's been quite the incredible sensation witnessing how far-reaching "Stranger Things" has been. It seems like everyone I've interacted with over the last three years since it debuted in July 2016 has either seen or heard of "Stranger Things." I've heard conversations from people who I didn't even know cared much for movies or TV shows talking about "Stranger Things." Of course I've watched and loved both seasons, so I was excited to finally dive into season 3 after they made us wait an extra year for it. I mean, I want my yearly fix of "Stranger Things" so I was rather upset that I wasn't treated to that last year. I guess I can appreciate quality over quantity. But they waited nearly two years between seasons, yet only gave us eight additional episodes. Come on Duffer Brothers! Get on it! But oh well. It is what it is. I'm just happy I was able to get my "Stranger Things" binge in this weekend. That felt good. Given that we're now three seasons in, if you're going to watch this season, you've most likely already watched, have started watching or have planned on watching this season. I don't need to convince to jump on board. Thus there's no reason to dance around spoilers. This is going to be a spoiler-heavy review. If you haven't watched, come back when you have and let's talk.

When it comes to my specific thoughts on the first two seasons, I thought season 1 was an excellent setup to this universe. There was a lot of mystery and intrigue that all paid off with the revelations at the end. Add to that an excellent cast of characters in a perfect combination of Steven Spielberg meets Stephen King and boom. We've got ourselves a show. With season 2 I was ready to jump right and explore this world in more depth. Turns out they decided to use the same exact formula as the first season, that being spending a lot of time with the mystery and intrigue as they set something new up and waited until the end of the season to reveal what was going on. This kinda threw me off a bit because I was ready to jump in from episode 1 in picking up where we left off. I didn't need three or four episodes setting things up again, especially since these seasons aren't that long. Well, as it turns out, the Duffer Brothers are treating each season like a movie rather than a season of a TV show. They all need to have a beginning, middle and end, while preferably being able to stand on their own. I honestly roll my eyes at this. I like the idea of everything being interconnected rather than each season only being loosely connected to the previous one. But whatever. Life moves on.

Thus while I did enjoy season 2, I thought the first half was kinda boring. While the last few episodes were phenomenal, I finished the season not feeling 100 percent satisfied. I was also fine with the little spin-off episode setting up a family of other laboratory experiments. It gave me a bit of an X-Men vibe as they seemed to be setting up a bunch of people with powers like Millie Bobbie-Brown's Eleven. Or El. But I suppose that's a conversation for another day because everyone else hated it, so the Duffer Brothers seem to have completely scrapped that idea. It was also nice to have El there with the rest of the gang for the whole third season instead of just showing up at the end due to a series of events that pushed her away in season 2. Going into season 3, I didn't really know what to expect and that made me happy. I purposely avoided all trailers, which is what I try to do when it comes to my TV shows. If I'm already invested in the show, I don't like previews of what comes next, especially since a lot of those give away way too much plot. In this instance, I'm glad I didn't because I just now went back and finally watched those trailers and, yeah, now you know why I don't watch TV show trailers. There was WAY too much that they showed, plenty of which from the final episode.

When it comes to the this third season, I honestly think it had a much better flow to it than the second season. Although admittedly that may be the case because I was more prepared following the second season. I knew that the Duffer Brothers liked treating this as a movie rather than a TV show, so even though I didn't know what to expect in terms of plot, I kinda was guessing that the organization of the season was going to be similar. Instead of building on the previous season and expanding the lore, we were going to spend half the season setting something up so that we could have an epic showdown in the last half. If I'm oversimplifying things for a second, the first season they were up against a Demogorgon, the second season the Demodogs and now in season 3 they have to face the Mind Flayer, all of these coming from the Upside Down, our alternate dimension with all these monsters. In season 2, the Mind Flayer was controlling Will. And even though El seemingly closed the gates to the Upside Down in season 2, as it turns out, the Russians are trying to reopen the gate via their secret lab beneath the new town mall. Enough of the Mind Flayer's influence infects the rats, causes them to explode into a biomass, which combines into a Mind Flayer like monster, adding more victims along the way.

That's the essence of it, anyways. Instead of Will being the one controlled by the Mind Flayer this time around, town bully and hottie Billy Hargrove gets caught at the wrong place at the wrong time when trying to go on a weird and scandalous date with Mrs. Wheeler and becomes the Mind Flayer's new host, seemingly having no control over his own humanity, that possibly because he has no genuine human connection to help him out given that he's either trying to angrily push everyone away or seduce older women. Karma, I suppose? Dacre Montgomery certainly does a great job at possessed Billy. He's one of the highlights of this season, excelling in his expanded role with more to do than just being an idiot. In the meantime, the rest of our cast ends up getting split up into three groups. Dustin, Steve, Steve's new friend and coworker Robin, and Lucas's little sister Erica discover the secret Russian hidden base under the mall and investigate that. Joyce Byers drags police chief Jim Hopper around as she's trying to figure out why all the magnets in the town aren't working, while ending up getting chased by a Russian Arnold Schwarzenegger ("Terminator" anyone?). Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are trying to hunt down this Mind Flayer that's starting to cause issues.

As I said, I liked the flow of this season better than season 2, but again there is a whole lot of setup. We start early on with Billy getting possessed, then a slow chain reaction begins, with each of the individual parties picking up on a slightly different piece of the puzzle. It was kinda frustrating to me that the season was taking its sweet time for everyone to fully connect the dots. We were in episode four or five before things really started to pick up and come together, which is fine if this was a 10-12 episode series, but there was only eight episodes here, meaning that there was only a few episodes left in the season when I felt like we had just begun. If I'm not mistaken, it was the final episode when all parties finally came together. I would've liked three or four episodes after that, but instead we just had the finale. I think what helped me overcome these specific complaints is that I was invested in each of the individual story arcs. I ended up feeling bad for Billy being controlled by the Mind Flayer. The chemistry between Steve and Robin was hilariously perfect. When they were joined by Dustin, then later Erica, their little band was a romp. I liked all the bantering between Joyce and Hopper because it felt real. Then all the teenage drama with the rest of them was engaging.

This is what really makes this show work. They've built up these characters so well that I find myself invested in them well enough that I can watch them interact. And our main group of kids have all arrived at the stage of life where they're trying to figure things out. They're not really kids anymore. But they're not old enough to be fully mature, thus they all make mistakes. Mike doesn't know how to handle things when Hopper takes him for a drive and yells at him for essentially doing nothing but make out with El all day. Thus Mike lies to El the next day, which hurts her. She's even less aware of how to deal with things given her past, which is why I liked all the girl time with her and Max. Then we have Mike, Lucas and Will trying to figure out what in the heck to do, so they resort to complaining like teenage boys. Will then wants to distract everyone by playing their games, but Mike and Lucas act like snobby teenagers, basically calling Will's ideas childish, causing a rift there. And even though the actual plot with the Mind Flayer is only inching along, there was a lot of character growth. Then we have the likes of Nancy, Jonathan, Steve and Robin being too old for the high school stuff, especially given the actors' ages, trying to figure out how to manage life after high school.

I found this all to be interesting enough to fully engage me while we're slowly building up the 80's horror stuff. To that latter part, though, I don't think this season was quite as intense or suspenseful as previous seasons, but I still had a lot of fun with it. We basically started with an army of infected rats that slowly started to infect a lot of the townspeople, mostly being "red coats," aka side characters who aren't important to the plot and are only there to be offered up as sacrifices while all our main characters come away unscathed. The fact that I never felt a sense of danger for any of the main characters did compromise the suspense. But I still had fun with this monster. As each infected animal or human became too infected, they exploded into biomass and merged together, thus making the monster even bigger and bigger. Thus the further we got along in the season, the more I wondered how they were going to stop this thing, especially since our resident deus ex machina, that being El was having troubles of her own. Instead of just relying on El to solve all the problems at the season's end, all of the average, normal characters had to work together to stop the Russians and stop this monster. It made for a much more fulfilling finale as they all felt equally important for the resolution.

To that resolution, though, I'm a bit conflicted. Yeah, the actual action sequences were a ton of fun, but they did one thing that kinda bothers me. They killed off a character out of the blue without there really being the need to do so. Given what I said earlier, I never felt our main characters were ever in danger. None of them ever got captured by a monsters. No one we cared about got infected and turned into monster goop. No one was ever really in a situation where you feared for their life. But then in the final battle they randomly decided to kill Hopper, one of the show's best and most popular characters. And it didn't seem necessary. He was out there fighting the Russian Terminator. In said fight, he acted a bit careless and put himself in a position to go kaboom when the machine blew up. Even though he ended up beating Russion Terminator, he just stood there and gave Joyce the OK to blow him up when she blew up the Russians' weapon. I felt like she could've waited 10 seconds for him to walk back to her so they could turn the switch together. Thus his death didn't feel like a necessary sacrifice for the plot. It felt like the token death. Like the writers sat in a room and said, "Who are we going to kill this season?" Thus it felt a bit cheap to me. Not properly planned out.

At the same time, though, is he really dead? The final scene of the season, the one that teases the next season, is the one where the Russians feed the random Russian dude to the Demogorgon. Surprise! The Demogorgon is still alive! Either that or the Russians have a second one captured. However, before that's revealed, one of the Russians says something to the effect of, "No, not the American." That in response to them picking out which prisoner to feed to the Demogorgon. Said American is Hopper, right? It has to be. We didn't actually see him explode. He just kinda disappeared and it was assumed he died, especially after the newspaper headline said he died. But we didn't see it. He's coming back next season? If not, that's dumb. But if so, that's acceptable. I guess we'll have to wait for season 4 to figure that out. And I'm fine with a cliffhanger ending like that. As far as the rest of said resolution, that all made sense. After Joyce's second boyfriend gets killed in two years, she's had enough of this town. Her moving away makes sense. That means Will and Johnathan are leaving with her. And since Hopper is "dead," El gets adopted into that family and she's leaving, too, thus splitting up the gang. But that didn't feel forced. That felt real and emotional.

In summary, what I've always said about "Stranger Things" is that it's 80's nostalgia vomit. And I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way. It's just that bringing back the 80's is one of the biggest fads of our modern era of media. If a TV show or a movie can just shove 80's nostalgia down your throat, then we'll all eat it up. Can you call that a gimmick? Perhaps. But I often am just as guilty of buying into it. I loved "Ready Player One" and that was mostly just 80's nostalgia vomit as well. That's why I think "Stranger Things" become so popular. It was 80's nostalgia vomit done right. Yes, it shoved all of the 80's down your throat, but it also captured the spirit of why we all love that era. It was more than just a show of references and gimmicks. There's great characters. Strong themes. Good stories. Fun monsters. Plenty of suspense. Pretty much everything that makes Steven Spielberg and Stephen King stuff enjoyable, without either of them being involved. And they're still going strong because they've kept up the consistent quality, which doesn't miss a beat in season 3. I don't give grades to seasons of a TV show. Grading individual episodes I feel is the right way to go, but I'm not going to do that here. Just know that each episode would get at least a GOOD rating.

Spider-Man: Far from Home Review

We've now officially made it through three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Initially I was thinking that "Spider-Man: Far from Home" was the beginning of Phase IV, because, you know, "Avengers: Endgame" is kind of a good... ending. But nope. Kevin Feige announced earlier this year that "Spider-Man: Far from Home" is the ending of Phase III, just like "Ant-Man," not "Avengers: Age of Ultron," was the ending of Phase II. Makes sense, I guess. But now it has me really curious as to what exactly is in store for Phase IV. We know they have a lot scheduled. Two movies next year. Three movies in 2021. Three movies in 2022. But they haven't announced any specific titles. All we can really do is make guesses as to what they could be based on previous movies that either set up sequels or made enough money that you know a sequel is coming. Then, of course, there's rumors flying around about various projects and casting news. But nothing official. And now I have July 18 - 21 circled on my calendar because that's San Diego Comic-Con and they better tell us something there. At least tell me what's coming out next May because, given that that's 10 months away, they have to be really far into production, right? Anyways, I digress. Let's talk about this final Phase III film.

"Spider-Man: Far from Home" is the 23rd film in the MCU and the second one that's NOT distributed by Disney. Because, remember, Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man. They didn't give away the rights to Marvel and Disney. They came up with an agreement that they'd let Spider-Man be a part of the MCU if Marvel helped them make a better Spider-Man movie. That's because I was one of only five people on Earth who actually enjoyed "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." The rest of the world thought it was trash and it failed at the box office based on what Spider-Man movies should be doing. That's when Sony panicked and both planned the animated Spider-Man movie and struck a deal with Marvel in yet another reboot that would translate into "Spider-Man: Homecoming." That animated thing worked out pretty well, too. So now Sony is really happy, especially since their "Venom" was also a major success, meaning they have three different Spidey avenues to go down. Even though I personally would've liked more Andrew Garfield, I'm certainly content because Tom Holland has done a great job. I'd still argue that Tobey Maguire is a better Peter Parker and Andrew Garfield is a better Spider-Man, but Tom Holland is the best combination of the two.

Now after making it through the Homecoming dance wherein the father of his date was the sinister villain Vulture, played excellently by Michael Keaton, and after surviving the events of "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame," Peter just wants to escape the superhero life and go on a fun European vacation with class and hopefully spend a lot of time with his new girl crush, that of Zendaya's MJ. We also learn that things are a bit crazy at school following the events of "Endgame" (SPOILERS for that movie, by the way). Some students are five years older. The students that got snapped came back at their exact same age as when the snap happened. And despite being finished with midterms, the school decided to start the year over when everyone came back. And now somewhere along those lines, Peter, Ned, MJ, Flash and friends are going on vacation with their science teachers to Europe, as I mentioned before. Because of the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing, Peter's feeling a lot of weight on him due to a lot of people expecting him to step up and be the next Iron Man. Because, you know, Iron Man died saving the world. I told you spoilers were happening. But Peter doesn't want to be the next Iron Man. He just wants to be a kid.

Things are going well for Peter until Nick Fury interrupts his vacation because they need help with these elementals that are wreaking havoc around the globe. There's a sand monster, a wind monster, a water monster and soon to be a fire monster, the latter of which is the worst of them. And there's no other available Avengers to go help Nick Fury with this. So Peter begrudgingly decides to help, partially because Nick Fury gives him no choice when he pulls some strings to direct their vacation to a different part of Europe. Luckily Spider-Man isn't the only hero that shows up to help with these elementals. A magic-wielding hero by the name of Quentin Beck, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, shows up from another Earth in the multiverse after claiming the elementals destroyed his Earth. Peter and friends initially nickname this guy Mysterio because they don't know much about him, but he becomes a good friend and mentor to Peter, who doesn't have a whole lot of people to talk to about this superhero stuff. And, yeah, Mysterio is supposed to be a bad guy in the comics, but this Spider-Verse that the MCU has set up has already veered far away from the comics, which has worked nicely so far. Plus, anyone who is caught up on the Arrowvese certainly understands multiverse stuff.

And that is about as far as I'm going to take this whole plot summary thing. The only part of this movie I've described is what the trailers have set up. And even though, in typical Sony fashion, there are some moments that shouldn't have ever been put in the trailers, they actually did a pretty solid job of hiding the bulk of this plot. All this stuff I've described is only the initial setup of the film. Perhaps the first 20-30 minutes. This movie takes you on a lot of twists and turns. With some of those twists, I was like, "Well, duh, of course that was going to happen." While other twists I was genuinely like, "Wait... what?" And the problem here is that my opinion of this film relies quite heavily on the execution of some of these hidden plot details, making this a bit of a tricky review to write. Make no mistake, a "Spider-Man: Far from Home" Review 2.0 is definitely required here to give my full thoughts, but I don't think that review is ever going to get written because there's too many other things that I want to get to, like my ranking of Phase III of the MCU, so I'm going to do my best to beat around the bush and dance around spoilers in order to somehow get my thoughts out. Just know that you might have to message me or talk to me in person if you want my full thoughts.

Much like "Homecoming," this movie is one-half high school drama and another half superhero stuff. It helped that director Jon Watts, who Marvel pulled out of nowhere to directing "Homecoming," was able to return to "Far from Home." That meant he was able to establish some consistency from one movie to another. In many instances I even think that he did a better job at. Specifically I think he did a much better job at the high school drama element of the movie. Even though I really liked "Homecoming," my one big flaw was that the movie just kinda aimlessly floated around with all the high school stuff. There wasn't a whole lot of focus or direction. Just kids living through high school and there were parts of the movie that I got bored. "Far from Home" adds a lot more focus in those elements. I think one benefit here is that we're not just following the kids through school. We're honed in on this vacation. Peter has some specific goals that he wants to follow through on and most of the drama is centered around these goals. There's a lot of contrast here with his character because in "Homecoming" he was overly obsessed with being a superhero and now he just wants to be Peter Parker. That adds a level of maturity that helps him become a better hero.

While Tom Holland does an excellent job here, I think the standout here is Zendaya. I've come to really like Zendaya as an actress, but I was surprised that she carried a big portion of the emotional drama here. In "Homecoming" she was mostly sidelined because it wasn't revealed who her character was until the end of the film. Now that we know she's MJ, the Peter Parker and MJ romance gets center stage. None of this feels forced, though, as it's a very naturally built relationship between the two of them. Peter simply wants to express how he feels about her at the appropriate time, but his socially awkward personality makes it so expressing his feelings is a hard thing to do. In the meantime, MJ has a very unique personality. She's strong-willed and independent, but also quite straightforward and blunt at times, with a hint of a sarcastic sense of humor. It's hard to come up with the exact adjectives to describe her, which is why Zendaya has the chance to shine. She's such a fun character to watch and her interaction with all the characters is gold. You don't know if she's going to let Peter in, but then there's some subtle moments where the audience gets clued in on the fact that she really likes him, too, but also doesn't know the exact way to approach this.

In the middle of all this, Peter keeps getting dragged away to do his superhero stuff, which makes you feel for him because you really want to see him get the opportunity to be a high school kid, but yet you admire his commitment to doing what he needs to do in order to keep everyone safe. He wants to just disappear and ignore all the danger around him, but he just can't, which is why is such a great superhero. However, this is where the review gets a bit complicated because I have a lot of thoughts on all of the superhero stuff, but I can't give you any of them. Instead I'll just say that "Homecoming" as a whole is a significantly better movie. Even though "Far from Home" is more refined in the high school drama elements of the movie, it's a lot more rough around the edges when it comes to all the superhero stuff. If you're one of these people who is burned out with all this superhero stuff, "Far from Home" really just delivers more of the same stuff you've been given a hundred times. And when we have Sony pushing so hard on all of their Spider-Man stuff, with this latest reboot, his involvement in the Avengers movies, as well as the animated "Into the Spider-Verse," we've been given a lot of Spider-Man to the point where it's suffering from overexposure. Thus we now require a bit more in terms of quality.

The reason why "Homecoming" worked so well was because of the specific plot revolving around Michael Keaton's Vulture. He was more than just your average comic book villain. He felt like a regular, working man who had some legitimate frustrations with all of this superhero stuff. And the way his story arc weaved into Peter's story arc was quite remarkable. The scene where he's driving Peter and his daughter to the dance is one of the most intense moments in any Spider-Man movie. Then we jump to "Into the Spider-Verse," which was one of the most emotionally-driven origin stories I've seen and also implemented one of the most entertainingly bizarre story arcs regarding all the Spider-People from different parts of the multiverse having to work together. Both of these Spider-Man movies managed to transcend the genre in certain ways to make them feel unique. "Far from Home" certainly has some fantastic sequences in it that caused my jaw to hit the floor, but as a whole I walked away with the feeling that it was simply another superhero movie. A placeholder for whatever happens in our next Spider-Man movie. Given that I enjoy superhero movies, I was sufficiently entertained, but nothing really jumps out at me as being super unique.

I know you're going to read those last two paragraphs and scream at your computer saying, "But Adam, [insert reasons why this movie was amazing]." I know. I get it. And I probably agree. But I can't elaborate here. I just... can't. There are specific reasons why this movie doesn't work quite as well as "Homecoming" and certainly not as well as "Into the Spider-Verse," but I just can't talk about them. There's also elements of this movie that are absolutely fantastic that I really want to bring up. But I can't talk about them either. And I'm this close to just giving in and typing a spoiler review, but instead I'm going to leave the ball in your court. If you actually read through this review and I've made you curious enough that you want to know what the heck I'm referring to, then come talk to me because there's a lot to talk about. Just know that I really did enjoy this movie. I saw it at midnight after a long day. I was tired when the movie started and it kept me awake the whole time. There's just certain things that hold it back from being a truly great Spider-Man movie. In fact, I'd still call it the fourth best Spider-Man movie behind "Spider-Man 2," "Into the Spider-Verse," and "Homecoming." And it's another solid entry in Phase III. My grade for "Spider-Man: Far from Home" is an 8/10.