Money Monster Review

Coming off the heels of Captain America: Civil War is a small thriller that smartly placed itself in between the summer blockbusters in order to provide a bit of counter-programming. I wasn't expecting this to do much. I was thinking it would do around $7 million or so on opening weekend on it's way to a final total of like $25 million. Turns out it surprised a bit by pulling of a $14.8 million opening, which means it should have enough legs to pull in close to $50 million, which is not bad for a movie with an estimated production budget of $27 million. The movie itself? A billed cast of George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Jack O'Connell will definitely turn your head, especially when you notice the two-time Oscar winning actress Jodie Foster is on board to direct. Granted, Jodie doesn't have a ton of experience behind the camera, but she's been around the scene enough to throw together a decent film, right? That's the theory, anyways. Then you look at the premise. Oh. Hostage movie. Dude has a gun and a bomb and he's threatening to kill people if he doesn't get what he wants. We've seen this a hundred times. It still could be a decent time, though. But it's not. I don't know what went wrong here, but this movie is a laughable mess.

Let's stop for a second here and remind you that a good crime drama is something that I enjoy. In fact, Criminal Minds is one of my favorite shows. I've seen all 250 plus episodes. Thus you can see that if you do a decent enough job with your crime drama, I can be easily pleased. I specifically bring up Criminal Minds because when I saw this trailer, I thought it looked like an average Criminal Minds episode, stretched out into a 100-minute movie. And that's what made me nervous. Like I said, I can be easily pleased when it comes to these, but when you attempt to stretch out what should be a 40-minute TV episode into a 100-minute movie, that's a bit troublesome. First off, you have to justify your existence as to why I should pay money to see your movie when I can just turn on the TV and watch an episode of Criminal Minds or another one of the ten thousand crime dramas we have on TV nowadays for free. Second, you have to do a good job at filling space. This is a story arc that fits perfectly into 40 minutes. 100 minutes, though? That's a two-and-a-half-episode story arc! This is where Money Monster fails. No, it doesn't justify it's existence. And no, it does a horrible job with all that extra space.

As far as the story goes, George Clooney plays the host of a talk show that's centered around money and the stock market. One day as they are just getting into their show, our psychopath played by Jack O'Connell walks on set with a gun and forces George Clooney to put on a vest with a bomb strapped to it, threatening to blow everyone up if he doesn't get answers. Answers to what? Well, George Clooney promised on the show a few weeks prior that investing stock in a certain company was the safest thing to do, so Jack O'Connell literally invested all he had. Yeah that company crashed and he lost all his money. So he walked on set with a gun and a bomb. First off, how did he manage to get on set so easily? That was like the most insecure news building. Second, why? Central to these criminal investigation shows is a really good unsub. That's what Criminal Minds calls them, anyways. "UNknown SUBject." Our villain, if you will. If you paint me a picture of a guy with a really messed up backstory, has some serious psychological issues, or for some other reason would want to realistically go blow himself up or hold a whole news station hostage, then I'm sold. But I don't get that here. Nothing about Jack O'Connell's character screams crazy psychopath and we really don't get much of a backstory for him. The backstory that we do get later on makes the idea that he would walk into a news station with a gun and a bomb even more ridiculous.

That's our first problem here. We don't have a very believable or relatable unsub in this movie. Jack O'Connell is an up and coming actor that I really like and he does a really good job in this movie. But he's just given nothing to work with. you have a bad unsub, you have a bad episode. That's usually how it works. The second big problem is that there is a surprising lack of tension. For the first half of the movie, we are trapped in this studio with a crazy gunman, but never once did I feel George Clooney's life was in danger. A big part of that is that I just didn't take Jack O'Connell's character seriously. He was good at yelling and screaming, but bad at carrying out threats. The whole team could do whatever the heck they wanted and he wouldn't really do anything. A second part of that is that there wasn't a big sense of panic. Everyone on board handled the situation in the most perfect way possible as if this is a situation that happens nearly every week. No one was scared. Camera men acted as if nothing was wrong. George Clooney was talking to this dude as if he didn't have a bomb strapped to his body and a gun pointed at his head. Julia Roberts as his producer talked to him as if she had just gotten out of a class on how to deal with a psycho maniac. Is was too perfect and thus not believable. And the soundtrack wasn't that tense. That's usually the biggest trick to building tension, but I just didn't feel it.

Another huge problem is that the police force in the movie were the biggest group of idiots I've seen in a cop show or movie. Whoever wrote this script must have never watched a single cop show in their lives or had no experience with how police handle these situations. In addition to having a good unsub and a realistically unsettled group of commoners, the other thing that makes cop shows interesting is having a good police team. If this were Criminal Minds, we'd have Hotch, Reid, Morgan, Rossi, and company on the scene quickly and they would be the ones managing the situation. I could envision Hotch or Reid being the one to take over Julia Roberts' spot as producer and telling George Clooney in his earpiece what to do and what to say. They would try to talk to Jack O'Connell if they could to talk him out of this and at the right time they would know when to move in and control the situation without harming anyone. But these police dudes, oh my goodness they were dumb. I suppose I won't spoil their plan, but it was possibly the worst thought-out plan that a police force could come up with to stop a hostage situation. I'm serious. If they were to try that in real life, everyone in that building would end up dead.

I've just scratched the surface here. There is so much more to talk about here, but we've come to the point where I've covered all I really can cover in a spoiler-free review. And this is not the type of movie that warrants a spoiler review. I have read a lot of reviews that have said that this is a good movie when they are in the studio and a bad movie when they are out of the studio. I partially disagree with that. I think this is a bad movie when they are in the studio and a worse movie when they are out of it. But the general idea that this gets worse when they leave the studio is something that I agree with. Pretty much the whole final act of this movie and most of the second half in general is total crap. There were several moments in the second half of this movie where I was literally laughing out loud in my theater. And I don't think it was supposed to be funny. They just throw all realism and logic out the window and try to give us some sort of preachy political message that the stock market and business world is corrupt. Granted that could've worked with a tightened up script as several movies have successfully done that. The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street are two great examples. But Money Monster just fails. They had good ideas, but those ideas didn't translate.

Overall this is not an unwatchable movie by any means. The technical aspects of this movie are done quite well. Camera work and cinematography is excellent. And this has a fantastic cast who all do a great job acting. I mean, this is not the best I've seen George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Jack O'Connell, but they certainly don't act as if they are just here to pick up their paycheck. They are looking like they are having a good time and trying to make this work. They're just given nothing to work with. This movie ends up coming off as a below average episode of any given crime drama that's stretched over the course of two and half episodes. We have a poorly written villain without a believable backstory. We have no tension in the studio when he is holding everyone hostage. We have a dumb police force that makes horrible decisions. And we have the whole second half of the movie that goes in a ton of weird, unrealistic, laughable directions. The movie is currently sitting at 55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.8 on IMDb. I think those are very generous numbers. If you want a good crime drama, just go watch Criminal Minds, NCIS, or any other show like that. Don't bother giving Money Monster your time and money. It doesn't deserve it. I'm giving the movie a 5/10.

Captain America: Civil War Review

This year had quite the showdown scheduled in the comic book movie universe as both Marvel and DC put their big versus movie on the calendar. They were even initially scheduled for the same weekend before Warner Bros. smartly rescheduled Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for the end of March so it could have a full month in theaters before Marvel got their turn. If you want to know my opinions of Batman v. Superman, I just added the link to my review there for you to check out. I wasn't a huge fan of the movie, but I attribute that mainly to Zack Snyder. He's a style over substance type of guy and I honestly don't think he's very good at putting together a complete movie. But I do love DC. I think this Marvel vs. DC argument is a bit silly in terms of people thinking you can only like one or the other. Yes, I've been very positive about Marvel recently and negative about DC, but if Marvel makes a bad movie, I will have no problem telling you. If DC makes a great movie, same deal. That's just not the case right now. DC is struggling and Marvel is on a roll. No, I'm not a Marvel fanboy, but that continues here. I didn't like Batman v. Superman, but I loved Captain America: Civil War.

Right off the bat, one of the things that impressed me the most is how they managed to still make this feel like a Captain America movie. When I first saw how huge the cast was, my thought was that they might as well call it Avengers: Civil War instead of Captain America: Civil War. But no. Despite there being a total of 12 Avengers in this movie, this is Captain America's movie. He's the hero of the movie. He's the one we care most about. He's the one in the center of the plot. The others are mostly supporting characters to his arc. When push comes to shove, the meat of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the relationship between Steve Rodgers and Bucky Barnes. Two friends who become enemies due to the fact that Hydra has now risen up out of S.H.I.E.L.D. and used Bucky as their weapon after messing up his mind. The meat of Captain America: Civil War is a continuation of that relationship. The end of The Winter Soldier sees Bucky starting to remember who he is. In Civil War he is mostly himself, however we learn more about how Hydra managed to use him as a weapon and if one knows those secrets, they can still use him as a weapon. Captain America's struggle is to figure out the best route to take to help his friend out.

Having seen the movie twice now, that's the story that sticks out most to me and it's an incredible one. Captain America has a lot of really tough decisions to make in this movie, especially after the government has decided to take matters into their own hands by creating the Sokovia Accords, which will essentially put the Avengers in their control. The Avengers can't do anything unless they are authorized by the government. Over 100 countries have agreed to this due to the many negative consequences of the Avengers' major battles. This leads to a strong divide as the group known as Team Iron Man are for the Sokovia Accords while the group known as Team Captain America are against them. Which team do I support most? Well of course I side with Team Captain America. As I said, this is his movie and he's the hero. However, the great thing about this conflict is that this is not a black and white issue. Each of the 12 Avengers in this movie have a specific reason why they choose the side they do and it makes perfect sense for each of their characters. This leads to quite the intriguing political thriller with several well-thought out opinions on both side.

I do have to say, though, that the Sokovia Accords storyline is a very cliche one when it comes to superhero stories, whether it be on the big screen, the small screen, or the comic book page. I mean, how many times have we done the vigilante storyline? You know, the story where the government, the police, and/or the people turn against our hero(s) by saying they need to be stopped, arrested, or controlled because the claim is that they are doing more bad than good, despite whatever the intentions may be. This is followed by the hero(s) making the tough decision to keep doing what they are doing despite them now being considered a criminal or a vigilante. Yes, this is the natural progression of a superhero's story arc and thus is almost necessary to keep the realism of the story. But it still doesn't make it less cliche. I put this storyline in the same category as a superhero origin story. It's necessary to do, but it's been done so many times that it's slightly less interesting to watch the hundredth time around. This is how the first two-thirds of the movie was like. It wasn't bad by any means. It just felt like we had done this before. We're just doing it with Captain America instead of Batman, Green Arrow, Superman, or a whole slew of other superheroes.

Another thing that Civil War does that Marvel has loved to do recently is spend a portion of the movie setting up other future movies. This is not an inherently bad thing, but there is a fine line here that Marvel has crossed a time or two. One of the big flaws of Age of Ultron is that they spent too much time setting up other movies and not enough time focused on the current movie. This time around, there are two movies that Civil War sets up that come out next year: Black Panther and Spider-Man: Homecoming. So along with our political thriller, we essentially see two quick origin stories for these characters. Lucky for Marvel, this works out this time around. Black Panther and Spider-Man end up being very integral to the movie. Black Panther adds a ton to the intrigue of the plot while Spider-Man adds a lot of humor during our major battle. I don't want to say too much about these characters because the trailers do a good job of letting you know they are in the movie without giving away what purpose they serve. Thus I don't want to ruin the element of surprise for those who haven't seen this movie yet, but let's just say that I absolutely loved both of them. Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland are perfect additions to the MCU and I'm now stoked for both of their movies next year.

And then we have the villain. Villains are not Marvel's forte. That seems to be a universally accepted idea, even among Marvel fanboys. Ultron? Ronan? Malekith? The Mandarin? The list of sub-par Marvel villains is quite long. Even the ones that are better than the four that I mentioned aren't amazing villains. In terms of great Marvel villains, we have Loki and... who else? Like seriously, can you name a second Marvel villain that is a great villain and justify your response? I would honestly like to hear that. In Civil War, the first viewing I thought we had yet another useless Marvel villain on our hands. But not so fast. Upon further review, Zemo is actually one of the better Marvel villains. But before we get to him, I have to mention Crossbones. They spent all of The Winter Soldier building this guy up and I was excited to see him in action. But wow. I won't spoil what happens to his character in the opening scene, but it legitimately made me angry. Onto Zemo. I don't want to say too much about him in this review, but pay attention to his character. I didn't understand him the first time around because much of what he does is almost in passing. The second time around, I really bought this dude. He may not be ominous or intimidating. Sure, you can even call him replaceable. But he's smart and has some dang good motivations behind what he does.

Up to this point, I've covered much of what happens in the first two-thirds of this movie leading up to our epic showdown that you've seen in every trailer and every poster. It's even alluded to in the title of the movie, so if I tell you that the Avengers fight, you better not be surprised. But the overall movie before this wasn't Marvel's best movie. Yes, it was entertaining. Yes, they did give us a few appetizers throughout. Yes, the political intrigue of the movie was interesting. But the story was cliche and I wasn't sure at that point how I felt about Black Panther and Zemo's place in the movie. And the pacing was a little off. It wasn't as bad as Batman v. Superman, which I swear went like an hour and a half before doing anything. But still, this wasn't as evenly paced as a lot of other Marvel's films. In fact, overall I was thinking this would end up like Age of Ultron for me, but slightly better. Don't get me wrong, I still like Age of Ultron, but there was a lot of issues that held that movie back from being as great as the first Avengers. It ended up in the bottom half of my MCU rankings that I posted after Phase II officially ended. If anyone out there thinks I'm a Marvel fanboy, you better be listening up  because I was about to go against the grain and say this movie wasn't as good as everyone has been saying.

But then it hit. There's two moments that turned this movie from good to great. Moment number one is the epic showdown. There's been a lot of positive buzz about this airport battle and for dang good reason. I kid you not, this is one of the most entertaining scenes in superhero movie history. It's the type of moment I wanted from Batman v. Superman. That battle was only like five minutes long and was a complete letdown, especially with how it ended. "Oh, your mom has the same name as my mom? Cool! I was about to kill you, but now we're besties!" Yeah, lamesauce. The Civil War battle was definitely no letdown. I don't know how long it is, but whatever the time frame, it's perfect. You just have to sit back, relax, shove some popcorn in your face, and watch these 12 go at it. If I were to nit-pick this battle, I would say that the stakes weren't very high. All 12 of them were still friends and they didn't want to actually hurt each other. Team Iron Man just wanted to stop Team Captain America and bring them in. Not once in this battle did you fear for the life of any of them, even though one of the characters does die in the comic book version of Civil War. But like I said, that's a nitpick because this battle is epic. Spider-Man and Ant-Man are probably my two favorite characters in this duel, but every one  of them has some great moments.

Even after this epic showdown, I still felt slightly empty. The showdown definitely kicked the movie up a few notches in my book, but the movie still wasn't completely satisfying. However, enter big moment number two. This comes in the fourth act of the movie. And by fourth act, I mean that this movie kinda has a second ending. Most movies follow a three act formula. Think of that curve you learned in your English classes when it came to storytelling. This follows that curve, but then adds a second smaller curve. Beginning, middle, end, second ending. Sometimes this is a bad thing. But not always. The Dark Knight does this same exact thing as the Two-Face showdown is a second ending and that worked big time. Same thing here. The culmination of Zemo's plan is our second ending here and it is phenomenal. If I were to do a spoiler review of this movie, which I don't think I will, I could spend at least three or four paragraphs on this second ending because it was so good that it alone turned this into one of Marvel's best movies. I'm not going to spoil this ending, but if you've seen the movie, you'll know that there is a "holy crap" moment in this movie that is followed by some pure, raw emotion that had my jaw dropped for the whole final scene. I called the Avengers showdown one of the most entertaining scenes in superhero movie history. This scene is one of the best scenes in superhero movie history. At the very least, it's the best moment in the history of the MCU.

I could go on. There's more stuff I want to talk about when it comes to this movie. I'd like to talk more about Crossbones, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Zemo, and Tony Stark, but I won't here so find me in person and we'll talk. For now just know that I loved Captain America's arc with Bucky. Know that I also loved Tony Stark's arc in the movie. No, this is not a perfect movie. It had more pacing issues than most of Marvel's movies have had and the Sokovia Accords storyline is your cliche vigilante storyline that we've seen a thousand times. But the political intrigue is interesting nonetheless. There's fair points made on both sides and I really bought everyone's individual reasons for making the choices they did. This all led to an extremely entertaining duel between the 12 of them that is followed up by an ending that is definitely the best overall moment in any MCU movie. I'd have to think hard about where this fits in my MCU rankings, so I'm not going to give you a definite answer at this time, but I'm thinking top five. As the kick-off movie for Phase III, this set a very high bar and I'm excited to see where they go from here. I'm giving Captain America: Civil War a 9/10.

Keanu Review

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Key and Peele got to do their own feature length movie? Now you don't have to wonder because it's here! I'm sure most of you reading this review probably already know who Key and Peele are, but just to cover my bases, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele are two of the more popular comedians in our day and our most known for their sketch comedy series on Comedy Central titled Key & Peele, which concluded recently. If you haven't seen any of their sketches, search Key and Peele on YouTube and enjoy. These two are just a blast to watch! To get an idea of how popular they are, they're highest viewed sketch on YouTube, "Substitute Teacher," has over 90 million views. Both Key and Peele have shown up on the big screen before, but Keanu is their first feature-length movie that they have made together. When it comes to comedies, I really only have one requirement. I want to laugh. If I laughed, then the movie served its purpose. And yes, Keanu made me laugh. Quite a bit actually, so it's definitely a movie I will recommend if you want to go and laugh, especially if you are a fan of Key and Peele.

The story in the movie is rather hilarious and never once do they take themselves seriously, so it's important for the audience to not take it seriously. The whole movie is centered around a little kitten that Peele names Keanu. By goodness this is the most adorable kitten you will ever see. Personally I have an unashamed bias there as I love cats. Always have. Always will. So take that for what it's worth. If you hate cats, well, I don't know how you could hate this cat, but whatever. The cat's previous owner gets killed in the beginning by some crazy psychos, who fall in love with the cat. But the cat escapes and winds up on Peele's doorstep. He just broke up with his girlfriend and thus this cat comes to him at the perfect time. There is an instant bond and he practically spends all his waking moment with this cat. However, the cat ends up getting kidnapped by a gang and so Peele enlists the help of his cousin, Key, to go rescue the cat. In order to try to get him back, they have to act as gang members in order to fit in and this leads to an absolutely hilarious journey for these two. Of course this isn't very deep or emotional, but you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride. Is it like a 100-minute-long Key and Peele sketch? Sure. But it works fantastically well!

Like I said, when it comes to comedies, I really just want to be able to laugh. This may seem like a simple thing, but I have to be honest that a lot of comedies these days aren't very tasteful to me. You'll notice that there are a lot of comedies that are released and for the most part I don't review them. That's because I usually skip them. Most of the comedy these days is centered around dirty humor and that just doesn't make me laugh. This isn't just in R-rated, raunch coms either. This type of comedy is present in PG-13 or even subtly in PG movies as well and very much present in modern-day sit coms. In fact, most of sit coms these days are just packed full of dirty humor and that just frustrates me. So I did go into Keanu slightly weary, hoping that there was going to some honest, clean humor that was actually funny to me. This is one of the reasons why I waited a bit to see this movie and thus you are getting this review now instead of a week ago when it came out. I'm happy to report that this movie is genuinely funny. Key and Peele know how to do comedy and thus they have a ton of comedic chemistry in this movie, which is why this works so well. Is the movie full of gut-busting humor that nearly has you in tears the whole movie? Perhaps not. But the humor is consistent throughout.

My biggest criticisms of the movie comes with the action in the movie. I wasn't expecting Keanu to be an all-out action comedy. But that's what it was. And the action honestly wasn't super entertaining. As I stated earlier, this is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all. There's not a lot of drama and emotion in the movie that really grabs you. This is just supposed to be a fun movie where you sit back and enjoy. And suddenly while you are doing so, the movie just starts to get extremely violent and it doesn't really fit with the tone of the movie. The last act of the movie is especially rough when it comes to this as it's almost more violent, gory action than funny humor. I'm not saying that I'm against action comedies. I really enjoyed Deadpool from earlier this year. It's just that in this instance Keanu was tonally inconsistent at times for me. They could've toned down the action as well as some other elements of the movie and made this a PG-13 rated comedy. Not that I'm a huge stickler for ratings as you might've been able to tell, it's just that in this instance I think that would've been a better fit for Key and Peele in this debut. And I also think it would've made them more money. You can't call Keanu a box office bomb due to the fact that it didn't cost very much to make, but this could've done better than $9.5 million for it's opening weekend.

Overall, though, I did have a good time with this movie. This is a shorter review than I've been doing recently, but this is a very simple movie, so I don't feel I need to say a ton to get my point across in this instance. If you like Key and Peele, I think this is a movie that you should check out because I think you will enjoy it. Those two know how to do comedy and they have great comedic chemistry throughout that just makes this movie a blast. The story isn't deep and the movie isn't that emotional. It also probably didn't need to be as violent and graphic as it was as the third act of the movie really wasn't that great. But if you are having a down day and you just want to go see a movie that will cheer you up and make you laugh, this is a pretty good option. Or if you're curious about what Key and Peele's first movie is like, this is also worth checking out. As long as you don't expect something amazing or incredibly awesome, this is a decent movie that you can have fun with. It's no Deadpool, but it's a definitely a good first effort for Key and Peele. I hope these two continue to do movies together because I'd be really curious to see what they can come up with next. My grade for Keanu is a 7/10.

Movie Preview: May 2016

It's been a very healthy year at the box office so far as Disney, for the second month in row, hit a grand slam at the box office. It was Zootopia, not Batman v. Superman, that took the crown in March and it was The Jungle Book breaking out higher than anyone would've guessed that saved April. Despite a whole slew of huge disappointments, headlined by the colossal failure of The Huntsman: Winter's War, The Jungle Book cruised past $250 million in just three weekends and ended up accounting for 30.8 percent of April's total box office haul. The only other two April releases that could be counted as winners at the April box office were The Boss and Barbershop: The Next Cut. Now we enter May, which is the official start of Hollywood's summer at the box office. As always, there are a large number of big blockbusters hitting theaters this summer that will keep crowds pleased. However, this summer is a little more back-loaded than usual in terms of the number of movies. This has happened because most studios have smartly decided to avoid Marvel's Captain America: Civil War. So there will be less movies this month than in the other summer months, but there's still a handful of big releases to talk about, so let's jump right in!

May 6th - 8th-

As has been tradition, and will continue to be tradition, the summer is opening with a Marvel movie. In this case, it could very well be Marvel's biggest movie to date as they are releasing Captain America: Civil War. In an interesting turn of events, we ended up having both major versus movies from our two major comic book studios come out at around the same time, thus making for an epic Marvel vs. DC showdown. DC was able to get the first punch out with Batman v. Superman and it was a pretty good punch as Batman v. Superman opened just higher than both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. However, sour reviews and poisonous word of mouth caused Batman v. Superman to have the biggest drop ever for a superhero movie that opened north of $100 million, thus they will have to settle with a final total of around $350 million domestically. That's nothing to complain about, but when you could've realistically made around $600 million, that's a slight disappointment for DC. Now it looks evident that Marvel will end up on top as Captain America: Civil War looks like it is poised to perform like an Avengers sequel as opposed to a Captain America sequel. In fact, pre-sales for this movie are higher than any previous Marvel movie to date and thus there's a chance that this could actually beat The Avengers in both opening weekend and final total, especially since early reviews extremely positive as the movie currently holds a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with over 130 reviews counted.

No studios are daring enough to challenge Marvel this weekend, but there's always a host of limited releases every weekend. Being that there's only eight wide releases this month to talk about, I wanted to bring up a few of these that have caught my attention. I normally don't talk about documentaries on this blog, but there's one that I feel the need to bring to your attention and that is Elstree 1976. I don't really need to remind you that a movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened last year or that we'll be getting a Star Wars movie every year for the unforeseeable future thanks to Disney now owning LucasFilm. But how about a Star Wars documentary? That's exactly what Elstree 1976 is. It follows ten individuals on their journey to becoming a part of the original phenomenon that opened back in 1977 and how that experience affected their lives. This doesn't follow the actors such as Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, or Carrie Fisher. This follows a handful of smaller actors who played characters like Greedo and Boba Fett as well as some extras. I have no idea how many theaters this is planning on playing in or how wide it will expand. But if you're a Star Wars fan, it might be worth keeping your eye out for this.

May 13th - 15th-

While Captain America: Civil War will be looking to be the fourth movie ever to earn $100 million in its second weekend (it should at least match the $77.7 million second weekend of Avengers: Age of Ultron), two moderate releases will be entering the marketplace hoping to provide a bit of counter-programming. The first of these two is Money Monster. In terms of cast and crew, this movie is fairly loaded. Two-time Academy Award winning actress Jodie Foster is on board to direct. Starring in the movie is George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Jack O'Connell. In the movie, Clooney will be playing a financial TV host while Roberts plays his producer. O'Connell plays an irate investor who takes over their studio at gunpoint. If it seems like your average episode of any given crime drama on TV, that's because it probably is. Crazy guy holding people hostage at gunpoint has been done a thousand times, which is probably why this movie won't break out, despite the good cast. But those who have already seen Captain America: Civil War and aren't looking to see it again might be attracted to this because of the cast.

The other moderate release this weekend will be the horror movie, The Darkness. This horror movie comes to you via director Greg McLean, director of the 2005 horror movie Wolf Creek, a small, decently-received horror movie that earned $16.2 million. What makes this horror movie unique, despite a very generic title for a horror movie? Well, nothing really. McLean says that the story is based on a true story that was relayed to him first-hand many years ago about an actual haunting. As if that hasn't been done in a horror movie before. This haunting comes after a family visits the Grand Canyon. It appears that they are being haunted by some Native American demons originating from the Anasazis. So no, this won't make very much. But it doesn't need to. As I say every time with this movies, they are dirt cheap to make, which means that if this gets to the $16.2 million that Wolf Creek made, that would be a huge win.

Money Monster and The Darkness are the only two movies opening in wide release this weekend. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if both of them debuted below $10 million. There are two more movies opening in a limited release that I would like to talk about real quick. The first one is The Lobster. How's this for a premise. The Lobster is a movie set in a dystopian future where single people are arrested and sent to a hotel where they are given 45 days to find a partner. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal and sent into the woods. And you thought your life as a single person sucked. Imagine if this is what you had to deal with? The Lobster debuted at the Cannes Film Festival at around this time last year and made it's rounds through the film festivals, which included the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. The festival crowds have praised this movie, so now it's about to test the waters to see how it plays out to the general public. Distributor A24 has had it's fair share of luck with these smaller films recently, their most noteworthy movies being Ex Machina, The Witch, and Room.

The second limited release movie that I wanted to mention is Last Days in the Desert. This also debuted at the film festival scene last year, but in this instance it was at the Sundance Film Festival back in January of 2015, so it took a while for it finally make it to the regular theaters, but it's here! And it follows an interesting trend of taking a portion of Jesus Christ's life and making a movie out of it. In February we had Risen, which was about the resurrection of Christ. In March, we had The Young Messiah, which was about the childhood of Christ. And now we have Last Days in the Desert, which is about Christ's time in the wilderness right before his ministry. Playing Christ this time around is none other than Ewan McGregor himself. An intriguing aspect of the film is that McGregor is in a duel role in this movie as he also plays the Devil, who came tempting Christ. Being that this is an indie film released at Sundance, this might not necessarily be a film aimed solely at Christian audiences. In fact, they've taken plenty of liberties with the story and are probably aiming this more at indie lovers than anyone else.

May 20th - 22nd-

If Captain America: Civil War does indeed perform like an Avengers sequel, it should experience a third weekend total somewhere around $38 to $55 million, which are the two marks set by both Avengers movies. That means it should be in a tight three-way race for first place. Competitor number one will be Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. Comedy sequels haven't had the best of luck at the box office recently. A lot of them failed to perform. However, comedy sequels to well-liked comedies that come just two years after the original usually do perform well. Neighbors 2 falls into that latter category and thus should be a success. With a relatable premise of rambunctious neighbors as well as a great cast, Neighbors was a huge box office success back in May of 2014 as it opened to $49 million and ended up with a total of $150 million. Neighbors 2 brings back Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, but this time they are on the same team as Seth Rogen's new enemy neighbors are a group of sorority girls led by Chloe Grace Moretz and Selena Gomez. The Jump Street movies are the comparison that comes to mind here. 21 Jump Street was a surprise hit in 2012 and 22 Jump Street was able to build on that success in 2014 by going stronger. This means Neighbors 2 should be able to eclipse $50 million, but even if it falls a bit short of that, it should still be a success.

Counter-programming is the name of the game here, which is why a superhero movie and a comedy should be able to co-exist. Also able to co-exist with these two genres is an animated movie for families. Thus is why we should have three movies score weekends north of $40 million this weekend. This animated movie is of course The Angry Birds Movie. My personal prediction is that this movie comes in third place this weekend, but I could very well be wrong as that the Angry Birds game does have a huge following. Everyone loves Angry Birds, right? The question is does everyone who loves Angry Birds really care about a movie adaptation of the popular game? And is this a movie that is about three years too late? In terms of the market, family audiences definitely haven't been over-saturated with options yet this year. The last big animated movie was back in March with Zootopia, which thanks in part to zero competition has had a very healthy run. With that run coming to an end here, it feels about the right time for another animated movie to have huge success. Although this certainly won't be on Disney or Pixar level in terms of success. Speaking of Pixar, it is worth mentioning that Finding Dory is around the corner, which may mean that some family audiences may choose to pass on The Angry Birds Movie in order to save their money for Finding Dory.

While the three previous movies will be fighting it out for first place this weekend, there's a third new release this weekend that will come in a distant fourth place and that is The Nice Guys. Given that this is also a comedy, this very well could suffer from coming out on the same weekend as Neighbors 2. However, there is a lot of positive hype for this movie and if that hype is coupled with good reviews, there is a chance that this could have a healthy run at the box office even if it doesn't break out opening weekend. Being specific, this is an action comedy directed by Shane Black. This is a genre that Black is very familiar with. He was a writer for movies such as Lethal Weapon and Last Action Hero. He also wrote and directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Finally, his biggest moment of fame came as the writer and director of Marvel's Iron Man 3. So yes, The Nice Guys is right in his wheelhouse. It is about a private investigator in the 1970's who is investigating a suicide case and has to team up with another investigator who he's not necessarily on good terms with in order to solve the case. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are our two leads and both of them look like they are having a lot of fun with their roles as these two investigators.

May 27th - 30th-

Memorial Day weekend is the first weekend of May where studios feel comfortable releasing big summer blockbusters that directly challenge Captain America: Civil War. There's two potential blockbusters coming out this weekend, this first of which is X-Men: Apocalypse. With this ongoing Marvel vs. DC debate going on, Fox has been desperately trying to make sure people remember that they also have a movie coming out in their X-Men universe this month. Two years ago, Days of Future Past successfully passed the baton in the X-Men universe to the new cast as they essentially used time travel to reboot the series, making everything except for First Class and Days of Future Past irrelevant to the timeline. Apocalypse will bring back all the young cast from those two movies and also introduces recast versions of some older, popular characters such as Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Storm. The stakes in the movie are also higher than they've ever been as they are introducing the villain Apocalypse, played by Oscar Isaac, for this new young cast to take on. All of this means they hope to build on the critical and financial success of Days of Future Past, although it should be noted that for whatever reason, these X-Men movies seems to have a smaller financial ceiling on them as X-Men: The Last Stand still holds the high mark at just $234 million, not counting Deadpool.

Taking a backseat to X-Men: Apocalypse this Memorial Day weekend will be Alice Through the Looking Glass. As mentioned earlier, Disney's live-action remake of The Jungle Book blew past even the generous expectations. Disney will be hoping to replicate that success with this sequel to 2010's Alice in Wonderland, which made $334 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. While not to diminish the popularity of this property as the animated classic from 1951 does have a huge fan base, it should be noted that a huge part of the reason why Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland made so much money was that it was the next big 3D movie following the enormous success of James Cameron's Avatar, which was revolutionary in 3D. Six years later, the novelty of seeing a 3D movie has worn off and in many cases is disliked, so Alice Through the Looking Glass naturally won't make as much money without that added 3D hype. Adding to that is the fact that Tim Burton's movie was generally disliked as it holds a rotten status on Rotten Tomatoes along with an audience score of just 55 percent. This is not the sequel people were asking for. But it still should make a decent amount of money. Just don't expect a repeat performance of the first.

Walt Disney Animation Studios Ranked: DrogeMiester's Top 15

Last year, following the release of Inside Out, I ranked all 15 Pixar films that were out at the time. I had so much fun with that post that I decided I wanted to give the same or similar treatment to the other major animation studios. Up this year I decided to take on Disney themselves! But not all of Disney. Specifically I'm ranking Walt Disney Animation Studios. Yes, Walt Disney Animation Studios is a different animation studio than Pixar and DisneyToon even though all three are owned by Disney, so don't expect anything like Toy Story or A Goofy Movie to show up here. After creating my initial ranking, I realized that this was such a daunting task that I needed to put on my critic glasses and watch these movies in order figure out how to sort these movies. The initial plan was to watch my favorite Disney movies and create a top 10 list. But once I started, I got addicted and I ended up watching all 55 movies and thus I have ranked them all! This post will detail my top 15 while 16-55 will be in the comments. And as always, remember that this is MY list. Not yours. MINE. The magic of Disney is that almost every Disney movie has a passionate fanbase, which means that this will be my most antagonizing list I've done. So please no hating. Let's just have fun with this. Once you read my list, I challenge you to give me your own! Let's begin!
  
15- Hercules

Greek mythology is an area that Hollywood loves to dive into because this area is so rich in story. Personally I'm no expert in Greek mythology, but Disney's attempt to dive into this genre has to be one of my favorite attempts. First off, let me just say right off the bat that I don't give a crap about accuracy to source material when it comes to Disney movies. Keep that in mind as I talk about this movie and others. For me, I've always had a blast watching Hercules go up against Hades and all the other characters from Greek mythology, including a giant version of Scar that I'm guessing could be Leo. And wouldn't it be great having the Muses narrate your life? However, this movie is more than just fun. It also has one of Disney's best romance stories. Disney is pretty good at the love-at-first-sight romance stories where it only takes a few hours or days to find true love. And while this technically belongs in that category as well, Hercules and Meg's relationship is much more complex than most of Disney's other romances mainly because Meg is a very interesting, complex character that is working for Hercules' enemy behind his back, even though she has fallen in love with him against her will really. And of course Hercules' own arc is great as he learns that sometimes what you've been searching for has been right in front of you the whole time.

14- Mulan

There's a slight suspense of belief required for me when I watch Mulan. I just have a hard time believing that she would fool everyone in the army into believing that she was a guy, especially after a handful of them awkwardly run into her while she's bathing in the lake. At least it's not as awful as that She's the Man movie. But like I said, suspense of belief. When I forgive that, I find a rather beautiful and deep story that's one of Disney's more relevant movies. I don't know if it's accurate to call Disney ahead of the times with this as I'm sure gender roles was still a hot topic 18 years ago when this came out. But that's an especially hot topic today as we are in an age of equality and diversity and Mulan does a fantastic job of showing that a girl can definitely perform a job typically seen as a man's job. Sometimes girls can perform that even better, yet sometimes we don't give them a chance. The themes in this movie also remind me of Fiddler On the Roof as both of these stories talk a lot about tradition. Tradition is by no means a bad thing, but sometimes we do things just because of tradition and for no other reason. In those instances, it's okay to go against that. A live-action remake of Mulan is in the works and I think there's a great opportunity here.

13- Big Hero 6

Disney's superhero movie is no where close to as epic as Pixar's superhero movie, The Incredibles, but man was it a great idea for Disney to adapt a fairly unknown Marvel comic book into one of their animated movies. Not only was this very timely as we are in a huge superhero phase in Hollywood, but this also helped Disney continue their hot streak following Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and Frozen. In terms of superhero movies, this isn't the most well-written superhero story or the most well-developed superhero team as there is a lot of superhero cliches throughout the movie, but it is a lot of fun and it has a ton of Disney heart to it. I do realize that this was the umpteenth time that Disney pulled the death of a family member card in a movie, but it gets me just about every time. Especially here. This is a story about a guy who tragically loses his brother that was released the year after I tragically lost my own brother. So it kinda hit home for me. And by goodness does everyone need a Baymax. That's one of the best side characters Disney has ever written. This is obviously not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I don't think anyone would really complain if they showed up somehow since both are owned by Disney. At the very least, I'd be down for a sequel with this team.

12- Frozen

I'm honestly kind of angry that Frozen got extremely popular because now I find myself having to defend my enjoyment of the movie due to how many haters there are. Is Frozen a ground-breaking movie for Disney? No. Is it a fun movie with great music, good characters, and good themes? Absolutely. Personally I'd say it's the best Disney musical since Pocahontas, but that claim is kinda deceiving since Disney went away from the musical genre in the 2000's, so there's not a ton of competition. But I love the music in the movie. I also love both story arcs from Anna and Elsa. Anna is the ignorant one who thinks nothing in the world can go wrong while Elsa is the insecure one due to the fact that she is different than everyone else. Elsa learns to accept who she is and become her best self while Anna learns to be a little more realistic. On top of that, I love the self-aware theme from Disney that you can't marry a guy you just met because personally I believe that Disney created a lot of unbelievable romances over the years. I also think Olaf is hilarious. Frozen didn't make my top 10 favorite movies list from 2013 and I was cheering for The Croods to win the Oscar for best animated feature that year, but I still think Frozen is a good movie that has been unfairly criticized due to how popular it got. And yes, I think it's more entertaining and deeper than Tangled, but not by a ton.

11- Lilo & Stitch

"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind -- or forgotten." Talk about a movie that exudes emotion. Once again, nothing ground-breaking or unique with this movie. But if you pull the right punches, you can deliver a knock-out hit regardless of whether or not you did something different. This is the story of the ugly duckling, who feels lost and alone until he finds his right family. Disney has done the ugly duckling themes several times, but in this one they actually have the ugly duckling book, which Stitch develops an immediate attachment to because he relates to it. And do you know what? Stitch isn't the only one that can relate to the ugly duckling. How many of us have felt lost and alone in life? How many of us have cried ourselves to sleep at night because of it? How many of us feel like a little blue alien on a foreign planet where everyone else seems to have figured things out except for us? Exactly. Stitch is a very relatable character that I really love. I even remember walking out of the theater claiming they stole my voice for Stitch. I'm not good mimicking voices, but Stitch's voice I can mimic quite well and it's been that way since day one. Yes, I do like Lilo and her older sister as well, but this movie is all about Stitch for me.

10- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

I will admit that I do have a special place in my heart for the movie that started it all. Disney's very first feature-length animated movie. And the time and effort that had to have gone into making this in the 1930's is impressive, especially since this movie still holds up very well to current hand-drawn animation. In terms of story, this is easily Disney's worst example of "you can't marry a guy you just met." I mean, Snow White and her prince literally meet for just a few seconds at the beginning before they are madly in love and he comes out of nowhere at the end to kiss her back to life. I suppose you can say this is simply metaphorical, but I like my romances to be more than just metaphorical. Despite this, the story is actually quite strong and that's because of the dwarfs. They are just adorable and hilarious to watch. Their chemistry with Snow White is incredible and their reaction to Snow White getting poisoned is tragic, especially because they think she's gone for good. Speaking of Snow White getting poisoned, this is also a really intense movie with that evil Queen. Snow White running through the woods for the first time? That was too much for me as a child and still creeps me out today. But overall I love it because it adds a great balance to the movie. Disney really hit a grand slam with their first attempt.

9- Wreck-It Ralph

Okay, I will straight up admit that there's a huge bias for me with Wreck-It Ralph. It didn't take years and years of watching this for the nostalgia to get to me. I was punched in the face with nostalgia from day one and I loved it. This is Toy Story with arcade games! I don't call myself a gamer today, but I absolutely love the old 80's and 90's video games. I would much rather sit and play the Super Nintendo all day than the PS4 or X-Box One. No if's, and's, or but's about it. I don't care how cool your modern games are. Nothing beats those old games. Nothing. The fact that Wreck-It Ralph was jammed packed with them for the whole movie had me in heaven. Even the fictional characters had the same feel as the actual characters. The fact that the movie had an adorable story with a little girl that just melts your heart made it even better. The frosting on the cake was the nice Disney message of loving who you are and not buying into awful stereotypes. I'm still mad that this lost the Oscar for best animated feature to Brave. Speaking of which, I also find it funny that Disney and Pixar had reversed roles that year. Wreck-It Ralph totally felt like a Pixar movie while Brave felt like a Disney movie. Disney even officially adopted Merida into the Disney princess club, which amuses me.

8- Zootopia

I totally wasn't planning on including this one in this list. Based on trailers, this looked like a cute animated movie with a fox and a rabbit. I told myself that I would "give this movie a chance" despite being positive that it wasn't going to make my list. But holy freaking cow! This movie shocked me by how good it was. I suppose I won't dive super deep into my reasons for loving the movie because it's still in theaters as of this moment and not everyone that will read this lists sees every movie in the theaters. But talk about a relevant, applicable film. While still being a cute movie that kids will love, the themes in this are so strong that adults should like this more than kids. Racism and diversity are strong themes in this and not in an annoying, politically correct sort of way. In a real way. We also dive into this thing called adulting pretty seriously. I mean, how many of us thought as kids that adulting would be amazing only to realize it's a whole different ball game when we get to it? The final half of the movie is an all-out intense crime drama with a few jump scares and the final act of the movie beats you over the head with a baseball bat, emotionally speaking. And I mean that in a very positive way. If this movie gets the Frozen treatment and starts being hated six months later because of how much money it made, so help me I will find every one of you haters and slap you in the face.

7- Fantasia

In creating this list, I tried my absolute best to not let a movie get on this list for childhood nostalgia alone. I tried to put on my critic glasses and find real, concrete reasons as to why these movies on this list are the best instead of just "I loved it as a kid." If you are one of my siblings reading this list, you will see my top five and laugh at that statement because my entire top are movies that I loved and re-watched a ton growing up. However, this entry is my attempt to prove that I am not crazy with that statement because I hadn't seen all of Fantasia until like a month ago when I started my Disney binge. So there's no nostalgic bias here at all. I just sat down and was blown away. Usually when you make a movie, you write your script and even sometimes film the movie before writing or adding your music. With Fantasia, Disney did things the exact opposite way. They selected a handful of classical pieces and then created an animated segment for each piece that fit the song. And it's incredible. It's by far Disney's longest movie, but it didn't feel like it at all. I was totally blown away by every second of this. Disney had so much success with this that they tried to use the same idea multiple times throughout the 40's and for the most part those other movies didn't quite work out for me. 

6- The Lion King

The Lion King did not make my top five. And I'm more surprised than any of you. Before I started officially ranking, I was sure that The Lion King would be at least a top three movie for me and possible the number one. However, as I took time to analyze each one of these movies, I came across a few elements of the story that didn't quite hold up for me. I also wasn't as emotionally affected as some of the other movies that I ended up putting higher. But as this is a list of my top Disney movies that I am supposed to be praising, I will not dive into my nit-picks. This easily has the most epic Disney intro and just might be my favorite Disney musical. I'm not making that official decision in this post, though. We also have a whole slew of amazing characters. In fact, everyone from our main characters to our side characters to our villains are absolutely fantastic. At its core, this is a story about how people handle grief or other problems in life, which adds some true emotion. Do you run from your problems and try to completely forget everything in your past or do you learn from your mistakes and face your challenges head on? Overall, let's just conclude that an African animal kingdom adaptation of Hamlet with a Disneyfied ending was a fantastic idea. It's also the first movie I remember seeing in theaters.

5- The Emperor's New Groove

There was a point in life where I declared The Emperor's New Groove as my favorite animated movie of all time. But that was declared prematurely without much serious thought on the matter. In seriously pondering this list, that was one of the first questions that I asked myself. Is The Emperor's New Groove my favorite Disney movie? The honest answer was no. But there are a few titles that I will give this movie. This is Disney's funniest movie. It's their most re-watchable movie. It's their most quotable movie. Following it's financial failure as it was a part of Disney's dark days in the 2000's, this gained a huge cult following and for good reason. It's a gag-filled movie from start to finish that doesn't let up one bit and because of that it has me busting up laughing for the entire run time. And it's not just Yzma and Kronk, although those two are fantastic. It's the whole freaking cast. They're all hilarious in their own way. David Spade and John Goodman as Kuzco and Pacha especially have amazing chemistry in this both on a comedic level as well as an emotional level. Sure, you can see the plot coming from a mile away as it doesn't go super deep and it's extremely predictable. But this is a unique instance where that really doesn't matter for me. Kuzco's arc of going from prideful to humble is good enough for me because it's the humor that's the star of the show here.

4- Bambi

Yes, I watched Bambi plenty of times growing up. I've always thought it was a cute movie, but all that really stuck out to me were a few good lines from Thumper and the sad death of Bambi's mother. A top five Disney movie? Ha! I had this in the mid-30's initially. Until I re-watched it and was completely blown away. The best way to accurately describe Bambi is that it is a complete film. You get plenty of cute scenes. You have a lot of good quotes. There's plenty of humor. There's a lot of fun to be had. But it's also a really intense movie at times. It gets tear-jerkingly sad in the middle. There's a touch of politics thrown in there that causes you to ponder without bashing you over the head. It also gets quite romantic after our characters are grown. And finally it's wrapped in a nice Disney bow with a feel-good ending. This has it all. The storyline is simple, but yet everything is very cohesive as every scene has a purpose. Holding it all together is possibly Disney's best score. In fact, the score is so good that the most comparable Disney movie in my mind is Fantasia, which came just two years earlier. The score is so amazing that it's almost as if the score came first then they created a beautiful story about deer and rabbits in the forest that followed that score. I've done no research on this. That's just what it feels like to me.

3- Aladdin

I've always been attracted to the diamond in the rough storyline in Aladdin. I think that's a great story arc that makes Aladdin one of the greatest and most relatable Disney male protagonists. This man is an absolute gem of a character who deserves all the good things in life. But he doesn't see himself that way. He's rough around the edges because he feels he needs to hide who he truly is in order to get what he wants. He spends much of his life lying, cheating, and stealing his way through life. But proving that he is an amazing person, when he does get what he wants, he actually feels depressed because deep down his moral character is very strong and that's what wins out. Luckily Jasmine is able to see him for who he truly is and the two finally get married in the third movie, which is a surprisingly good movie for a DisneyToon sequel. This is also propelled even further by a host of amazing songs such as "A Whole New World," "Friend Like Me," and "Prince Ali." But I also want to point out a whole new dimension to this movie that has recently been added. Have you watched this movie since Robin Willaims' death? If you haven't, go do so! I kid you not, the character of Genie voiced by Robin Williams parallels Robin Williams' life almost perfectly. It's almost like a metaphorical biopic of Robin Williams. It's beautiful. The "I'm Free" sequence at the end makes my practically bawl now. Rest in peace Robin Williams. We all miss you.

2- Pocahontas

Pocahontas is across the board one of the most disliked Disney movies and I don't understand it. I dug deep into the reasons behind this. I pondered it. Then I watched it again trying to see what all the Pocahontas haters are seeing and I just don't see it. In fact, for me it's even better watching it as an adult because I found this to be one of the most relevant and poignant Disney movies ever made. Racism and tolerance are very hot topics in today's society and Pocahontas hits a home run with these ideas that really make you stand back and think about everything going on around you. "They're different from us, which means they can't be trusted," is the ideology believed by both of these clashing cultures in this movie. John Smith goes on about culture and tradition when trying to explain to Pocahontas why he is calling her a savage and then she goes on and sings what might be my all time favorite Disney song in "Colors of the Wind" that is so powerful and helps John Smith realize that he's been wrong in judging these people. This is so applicable in today's society. Think of how many times we have unfairly judged someone or a whole race of people just because they are different from us. "But Adam, this isn't the true story of Pocahontas!" Oh really? Please tell me more about how you wanted DISNEY to tell the TRUE story of Pocahontas. That's not a kid's story. Like I started off with, I don't give a crap about Disney accurately adapting source material.

1- Beauty and the Beast

"Tale as old as time. Tune as old as song. Bittersweet and strange. Finding you can change. Learning you were wrong." Very few movies have affected me the same way that Beauty and the Beast has. While I did love this movie as a kid, I remember a moment about five years or so ago when I watched this for the first time in a long while and emotionally the movie just hit me like a ton of bricks. The Beast had all he wanted, but ultimately he became a victim of pride and nearly lost everything. He was cursed and was given a time frame to learn how to truly love or he would stay cursed forever. Insert Belle. She came into his life and was able to see him for who he really was. Because of her, he was able to change and learn how to truly love. Not some sappy, romantic love. Love strong enough to put his own needs aside and let her go. Obviously you know how it ends, so I don't need to spell it out for you, but this movie is deep. There's a lot of profound spiritual metaphors that are incredible. But this also speaks to me on a very personal level that practically makes me an emotional wreck every time I watch it. It's pretty much a perfect movie and one of my all-time favorites. Disney's live-action remake of this is coming next year. No pressure, Disney.

Supergirl Season 1 Review (SPOILERS)

Last night I was catching up on the 20th episode of Supergirl, thinking of course that there was going to be the normal 23 episodes. As I was watching, I was thinking that this felt like a finale. I brushed that off, though, because I was confident that I had three more episodes. Nope. Turns out that was the finale. I don't know if you've ever had that feeling of thinking you had three more episodes left in the next month, but realizing you didn't have any left until the next TV season, but that's a rather depressing feeling that definitely screams first world problems. I mean, there are starving children in Africa and here I am today upset that I don't have anymore Supergirl episodes to watch? Oh well. I suppose that means I get to write my review for this a month earlier that I initially intended. That's good right? As has been the case on this blog recently, my target audience for this review will be people that have finished the season or people that don't care about spoilers. Yes, this limits my potential audience a bit, but it also allows for me to get all of my thoughts out instead of trying to dance around spoilers and thus I much prefer this way. If you haven't seen Supergirl, go watch it! Then come back and we can discuss the details here. 

First and foremost, there's a lot of people hating on this show, but continuing to watch it. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I guess if you don't like the show, but are holding out hope that it becomes better I can totally see that. But if you're just hate watching... why? There are so many TV shows out there. Pick one that you enjoy. No one is forcing you to watch Supergirl. On the other side of the spectrum, critics apparently love this show. But don't ask me how Supergirl managed to get a 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes while Legends of Tomorrow managed to only get a 59 percent. That doesn't make much sense since the two shows are about on the same level for me. Although you probably shouldn't get me started on the new TV side of Rotten Tomatoes, because that's all kinds of messed up. They really should score each individual episode because giving a score to the season as a whole at the very beginning of the season isn't entirely fair for the shows that start slow and get better or the shows that start strong but crash and burn. As far as my opinion, I realize that this show has it's flaws and definitely starts out very rocky, but I immediately saw the potential of this show right from day one and a little of bit of patience has definitely paid off.

What is it that I immediately saw in this show that I loved? The answer is simple. They do the Superman universe right. If you ask me who my favorite superhero is, my answer is going to be Superman. Specifically, I really love the Richard Donner Superman movies, that being Superman and Superman II. To say they went downhill when Donner stepped away is a huge understatement. But nevertheless, Christopher Reeve is my Superman. Not only is there some great symbolism with the character (whether or not that was the original intentions with the character is beside the point), but it's also just light-hearted and fun. Christopher Reeve brought some lovable charisma to the character and you could tell that his main focus was protecting Earth and loving the people. Those two movies didn't take themselves too seriously, but that's a good thing. This isn't a character that is supposed to be taken seriously. Superman Returns with Brandon Routh did a good job of keeping the tone of Superman even though the story and acting was a bit of a bore. But man was I angry when Zack Snyder and the new DC Universe took Superman and threw him in a blender. Man of Steel was obviously a Superman movie that was made for those people who hate the Richard Donner Superman movies and thus is why I hated Man of Steel in return. They actually did a bit better in Batman v. Superman with the character, but not by much.

Then there's Supergirl. After being absolutely furious with the current DC Universe for making a dark and depressing Superman movie with a Superman who obviously didn't care one bit for Earth and had a backwards moral code, it was a breath of fresh air to see a TV show in the Superman universe that did things right. As far as the character of Supergirl, I personally don't know her as well. I don't read the comics and the only times she's been adapted onto film or TV is that awful 1984 movie Supergirl as well being brought in towards the end of the TV show Smallville, which I haven't seen all the way through. But I don't need to know the specific character super well in order to know how a TV show or movie in the Superman universe should be done. Light-hearted and fun. That's Superman. Don't take things seriously. Don't be dark and depressing. Keep the heart and soul of the character in tact. Supergirl nails this. Supergirl is Kara Zor-El and she is Superman's cousin who is sent to Earth to watch over him. Turns out her pod got knocked off course and she got here a lot later, so she spends her time growing up as a normal girl living a normal, human life. But then certain events cause Kara to come out and become Supergirl. Her cousin Superman had his time to shine in Metropolis, but now it's time for Supergirl to step up and protect National City.

Before I go any further, I have to give a ton of praise to Melissa Benoist as Supergirl. Melissa Benoist is to Supergirl as Christopher Reeve is to Superman. She's absolutely perfect in this role. She definitely has the charm and charisma necessary to pull this character off and make her the lovable hero of the city. She is also so pure and innocent, which I love. You can tell that she has the utmost care and respect for everyone around her. She's not prideful or self-centered. In fact, the well-being of the city is much more important to her than her own well-being. She's here to protect Earth and that's what she cares about most. On top of all that, there's a lot of growth that her character experiences throughout the season. One of the biggest criticisms that anti-Superman people will give is that Superman is too perfect. People find it boring that he can do everything, defeat any villain, and not be stopped by anyone unless they have kryptonite. I can argue that at another time, but one good thing about Melissa Benoist's Supergirl is that she's not perfect. Sure, she has every power that Superman has, but there's a difference between having powers and knowing how to use those powers. When she finally got to Earth, she essentially went undercover as a normal human being and thus she's untrained when it's finally her time to shine. And it takes her time to learn how to refine her powers and use them properly.

In addition to providing Kara with some honest growth both physically, mentally, and emotionally, the other thing that this show does right is provide villains that match her powers. Yes, people do complain that Superman is too strong and too perfect, but if you give him villains that match his power, that's not a huge problem. Yes, in the Superman lore there are plenty of villains that are equal to him or stronger than him. I will admit that some of the Superman movies I do like probably spend a little too much time on Lex Luthor and not enough time on these other villains. Thus Superman seems boring because Lex Luthor is a normal man and Superman is a Kryptonian with a ton of powers. But there are villains like Doomsday and Darkseid that own Superman and make things interesting. Obviously these two villains aren't introduced in Supergirl, but right off the bat we are introduced to a lot of potential villains that could be a good match for Supergirl. There's other Kryptonians that she has to deal with as well as other villains from various planets that have the same strength as her. Then we have Maxwell Lord, who plays the Lex Luthor type of character in this show. He's cunning and smart, but also a normal human being who we don't know if we should trust or not.

I did say that this show isn't perfect and so now let me talk about a few of these areas. First off, this show did have a really rocky beginning. The pilot is essentially her origin story of how she becomes Supergirl. This is necessary to tell because not many people, myself included, know Supergirl's backstory. But they certainly shove a ton into that first episode. No, it wouldn't have been good to spend too much time with this backstory and thus I am perfectly fine with her flying around as Supergirl at the end of the pilot. But they did kinda rush and stumble out of the gate. Personally I didn't hate the pilot. Potential is the word I used after watching it because of the tone and feel that I've previously talked about as well as Melissa Benoist as Supergirl. But it did take time. It wasn't like Arrow or The Flash which hooked you right from the beginning. It took time. Honestly the first half of the season wasn't the great. It's good that they took a light-hearted and fun approach to it, but there were times where it was a little too cheesy and you didn't know exactly what direction they were going with the story. They also throw a whole bunch of characters at you and it takes a bit of time for you to develop an emotional attachment to some of these characters. Thus while it had potential, average is the word I would use for the first half of the season.

The other big problem was that it suffered from the same problem that a lot of CW shows suffer from. Yes, this is on CBS, but it's from the same writers as The Flash and Arrow and thus it feels like a CW show. What I mean in this instance is that there's an overabundance of romance. I acknowledge the fact that just about every superhero has a romance element to it, but I would rather have that romance be a side dish and not a main dish. During the middle chunk of this season, the very complex love web was the main dish and the superhero stuff was the side dish. We have Winn Schott, played by Jeremy Jordan, as Kara's best friend. He is the first to know about her, outside her sister of course, and he's the one that helps her become Supergirl by creating the suit and whatnot. Then we have Jimmy Olsen, played by Mechad Brooks, enter the picture. He was Superman's photographer at the Daily Planet and now he's moved over here. Well Winn has a huge crush on Kara. Kara has a huge crush on Jimmy. Jimmy has a girlfriend named Lucy Lane, who I believe is the sister of Lois Lane. Winn tries to go after Kara. That catches Kara off guard and she doesn't know how to act. Kara goes after Jimmy until she learned Jimmy has his girl. But Jimmy kinda likes both Kara and Lucy, which is a problem. Then Melissa Benoist's real life husband enters the scene and goes after Kara and a psycho girl enters the scene and goes after Winn (she doesn't act psycho at first).

Yeah. It's a messy web and we spend way too long with it. I'm here to watch a superhero show, not a romance-centered soap opera. Not surprisingly, though, the character that Kara has the best chemistry with is the character who is played by Melissa Benoist's real-life husband. The actor's name is Blake Jenner and his character is named Adam Foster. Knowing that him and Melissa were married in real life made it really fun to watch them interact with each other and start dating again. I'm sure they had fun with that. I'm sure that Melissa also found dumping him after two episodes rather amusing. I don't know what the game plan is there, but that was dumped really fast as if they just did that for fun to bring Melissa's real husband in. As far as the actual drama they are serious with, I would actually prefer Kara and Winn get together and Jimmy and Lucy get back together. I don't think that's the game plan here, though. I think Kara and Jimmy is the end game plan, which is the direction they started to go at the end of the season. I don't think they have the best chemistry, but I do think Mechad Brooks is a boss on this show, so it's whatever. Much better than Oliver and Felicity on Arrow or Barry and Iris on The Flash. I do feel bad for Winn. He's the coolest guy on the show, but I feel he's the one that will be stuck in the friend zone the whole time.

Anyways, after going through a rocky beginning and getting stuck in the middle with a way too much romance, being patient with this series really payed off. The second half of this season was really enjoyable and it started when team Supergirl really started to gel. We essentially started with two separate teams. First team was Supergirl with the DEO (Department of Extranormal Operations). The main players are Kara's Earth sister Alex Danvers and the DEO leader Hank Henshaw. The second team is Kara with Jimmy and Winn. Eventually they all essentially become one team. It takes a bit to get used to these characters, but once I did, I really loved them. The real turning point in my opinion is when we learned that Hank Henshaw wasn't actually Hank Henshaw. At first we didn't know if he was trustworthy, which made him interesting as I thought he was going to be the villain. Turns out he is actually J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. Man, is this guy good! David Harewood is the actor playing him and he initially goes from being an interesting side character to almost stealing the entire season. I really liked the drama when the DEO learned who he was and I also liked the personal drama between him as he didn't want to reveal himself. Eventually we have Supergirl and Martian Manhunter fighting together to stop people and that is so entertaining.

It took a while for us to figure out who the actual villain of season one is. Once we learned, that story was decent. We introduce Astra and Alura. Alura is Supergirl's biological, Kryptonian mother. She's technically dead but is around to protect Supergirl and give her advice much in the same way as Jor-El and Superman. Alura's twin sister Astra is not dead and her and her husband Non are the villains. Astra and Kara have a really interesting relationship in a Darth Vader and Luke sort of way. Astra is bad, but she's family and Kara does her best to try to get some good out of her. In a battle, Astra is killed by Alex Danvers, but J'onn J'onzz takes the blame so that Alex and Kara's relationship isn't torn apart and that leads to some excellent drama. Kara is super mad at J'onn, but Alex doesn't have the heart or courage to tell her the truth. It's an amazing sister moment when she finally does. Following Astra's death, Non takes it upon himself to finish her bidding, thus making Non the overall big bad villain here. I wasn't the biggest fan of Non, although I did find him serviceable. I liked the idea of him turning all the humans into drones and Supergirl having to try to figure out how to stop that. Then of course when that fails, he decides he's going to explode all of the humans' brains with this Myriad project that he used to control all of them. The final battle was a little too easy for Supergirl and Martian Manhunter, but it made for a decent finale.

Overall I think this first season did a great job of setting up this universe. I like all of team Supergirl, but I especially like Supergirl and Martian Manhunter as a fighting team. Some people are saying he should get his own show. I say keep him on this show because that makes Supergirl a better show. I didn't talk much about Maxwell Lord, but I also loved his character and I think there is a ton of potential with him. He's evil and cunning at first, but then he joins them at the end to save mankind. Is he good? Is he bad? I don't know. But I like that mystery. I also loved the crossover episode with Supergirl and the Flash. I want more of that. I even would love a mini Justice League TV show much like Legends of Tomorrow, but with the main characters like Arrow, Flash, and Supergirl. Would that be great? Most of all, I really hope Supergirl gets renewed by CBS. Rumors are that they will renew it, but they haven't yet and it's making me nervous. Yes, this show had a rocky start and a lot of people probably gave up on it. But those of us who stuck with it were treated to an amazing second half of the season and thus because of that I think the potential for this show is great! In fact, towards the end of the season, I was actually enjoying Supergirl more than I was enjoying Arrow and The Flash. Both of those shows started to take a dip while Supergirl started soaring.