Goosebumps Review

I remember a time in my life when Goosebumps was the thing. Everyone read the Goosebumps books and everyone loved the Goosebumps books. And when I saw "a time in my life," I'm referring to Elementary School. I think it was 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade? Somewhere in that time frame. For me that was late-90's. It would've been 1996 when I started 2nd grade. If you're a 90's child like myself, you know what I'm talking about. The first Goosebumps book was written in 1992 and the original series of books had 62 books. Counting all the different spin-off series' written by R.L. Stine, there's somewhere around 200 books written and that has equated to 400 million copies sold. So yes, this is an extremely popular series and I was unashamedly right in the middle of it loving these books. When a movie was announced and the ensuing trailer came out, a lot of people were hating on it, thinking it looked terrible. I personally thought it looked like a fun Halloween affair for families. I kinda expected a dumb story with sub-par characters, yet fun monsters that led for a fun movie that critics would hate, but family audiences would enjoy. But holy cow, what I actually got shocked me. No this is not a perfect movie, but it's much better than I expected and thus I think it will become a Halloween classic that you should definitely see in theaters this month.

With around 200 books total in this series and 62 in the original series, there's a whole heck of material that they could've taken from for this movie. When I first heard that there was a Goosebumps movie being made, I assumed that they were going to adapt one of the books into a family-friendly Halloween movie. If successful, this could lead to a whole slew of successful sequels based off of the more popular characters. This is not the direction they took, though. Instead, they created a fun lore around author R.L. Stine. In the movie, Stine is someone who is very lonely and actually started writing the books because he didn't like children or people and he wanted to scare them all. Well, these books became super popular and thus he kept writing. But before too long, there was a certain spell or magic put on these books where the characters literally came off the page. Thus each of the original manuscripts had to have a lock put on it because if it was opened, the monster from the book would be released and you'd have to chase it down and trap it back in the original manuscript. You can guess how our story goes. A certain chain of events happen where all the books are opened and all the monsters are unleashed upon this small town and R.L. Stine and a group of three kids have to figure out a way to stop all these monsters and trap them back in the books.

Like I said, I expected a movie that had a dumb story, sub-par characters, and fun monsters. What really surprised me was this movie was the exact opposite. This movie has a great story, amazing characters, and slightly unimpressive monsters. I'll get to the monsters in a bit, but I really want to praise the story and the characters first. Our main character that the movie follows is actually a kid who is moving with his mom to a brand new town. This is a rough time for both of them because his dad and her husband has recently passed away and they just want to move to a place to start new. The chemistry and emotion between this mother and son is played fantastically. It really gets to you and thus you are emotionally invested in this situation right from the beginning. Then the kid meets this girl next door. Immediately you might think cheesy, teen love story. Based on the trailers that's what I thought, too. But no. This isn't a cheesy, teen love story simply because nothing about these two characters or their relationship is cheesy at all. These two have excellent chemistry as well and the direction the story went with them was excellent and believable. Our main kid actually acts how a normal teenage boy would act and the second they both discover that they have a connection, in comes R.L. Stine, the extremely over-protective dad. I don't want to say too much about R.L. Stine, but he's actually written as a very deep character and the father/daughter relationship there is also a great one.

So yes, with all this I was blown away. That's three separate relationships that immediately intrigued me. The stories with these relationships were very well written and thus very interesting to follow. There's a whole lot of depth and intrigue to this movie that I totally did not expect. And then on top of that, we have a pair of side characters that provide excellent comic relief. The first of these side characters is a guy named Champ. He plays a character who is really confident, yet really nerdy. He's not very good with the ladies and thus the popular kids at the high school never take him seriously, but that doesn't stop him from trying. Champ sees that our main kid, whose name is Zach, is the new kid at school with no friends, so he decides to be his friend and try to come up with a plan where they both fly solo at the upcoming dance. Noticing this friendliness, Zach takes advantage of Champ and uses him to help him save the girl next door, whose name is Hannah, from her crazy father. We then learn that Champ is easily scared, yet also an R.L. Stine fanboy and so his interactions with everyone is just hilarious. Our other side character is Zach's aunt, who comes in for "moral support." Yet she doesn't really provide much actual support. She's just this off-the-wall person who makes every scene she's in hysterical.

Thus the brilliance of all this is a combination of great writing and great acting. In terms of writing, I expected the monsters to be released right at the start, but they were bold enough to take time to develop their characters and establish a story that the audience can really care for and this worked like a charm. And by goodness is the acting great all around. Jack Black is our biggest name. He's often a hit and miss for me. When he's in his more adult-themed roles, he is not a funny person at all. But when he's in his family-friendly roles, the man is a comedic gold. Being that this is the family-friendly Jack Black, I was excited for him and I was really impressed by his character, especially because this was a much more subdued role for him. He was not the comic relief in this movie. His role was a dramatic, serious one and he was fantastic in it. Yes, he did have a few funny moments in the movie, but they were more subtle moments and not like Jack Black's usual humor. Our main trio of kids are fairly new on the scene, but not completely unknown. Jack is played by Dylan Minnette, who was great in Prisoners. Champ is played by Ryan Lee, who was great in Super 8. Hannah is played by Odeya Rush, who was great in The Giver. All three of them are actually 18-19 year old kids playing high school students, which I appreciate. Too often we cast people in their mid- to late- 20's to play high school kids, which is silly to me. All three of these people, like I've said, do a great job in this movie and I'm excited to see where their respective careers go.

See this is a Goosebumps movie and I haven't even really talked about anything Goosebumps-related yet. That's how surprising this movie was. But now let's talk about the Goosebumps aspect of this. The best thing about the Goosebumps books is that they are scary and intense, but not too scary or intense. As an 8-11 year old kid, this was perfect for me. I wasn't ready to dive into any Stephen King level books at that point. That was too much. But Goosebumps was perfect. There was real danger in the books, but it wasn't too over the top and thus was a lot of fun. That's exactly the tone that this movie takes. There are real monsters in this movie chasing everyone with the intent to hurt or kill them. This is real danger. But it's not too much danger. It's perfect for someone who is about 8 years old. This is too scary for little kids. Don't take your 4 or 5 year old into this movie. But if your son or daughter is nearing 10 years old, this is a great movie for him or her. I think this also bleeds over to the teenage years. This is a perfect Halloween movie to put on at Halloween parties for people in their teenage years. If you are an adult looking for something super scary, super terrifying, or super gory for your Halloween, this is the wrong movie for you. Unless you are a Goosebumps fan like myself and want an excellent nostalgic trip for Halloween.

Now you did read my statement earlier that the monsters in this movie are the worst part of this movie and you were probably wondering when I was going to actually talk about that. The time for that is now. Like I said in the previous paragraph, the tone for this movie is right. It's scary enough, but not too scary and it really respects the target audience. But if I'm being realistic here, the CGI in the movie is what's terrible. Let's take the werewolf for example. That was one of the most iconic monsters by R.L. Stine and thus I was excited for it to show up. But when it did, the CGI werewolf was so bad that it made the chase scene with the werewolf a lot less exciting. This was the same thing for a lot of the monsters. We had a great overall story with some amazing characters that I was fully invested in, but when it came to the monsters, they were the least exciting part of the movie, which was slightly disappointing. That said, not all of the monsters were bad. Believe it or not, there is a main monster in this movie and that is Slappy the dummy and he is actually a really good character who I do believe wasn't CGI. He was an actual dummy. At the very least, he looked like an actual dummy. The lawn gnomes were the same way. The were great characters that actually looked real, thus the scenes with them were excellent. Had all the monsters in this movie looked as good as these, this would've been the perfect Halloween movie.

In wrapping this review up, towards the end of the movie, R.L. Stine said that the perfect story has a beginning, a middle, and a twist. He also said that all of his books had to have a moment where our character experiences growth. The great thing about this movie is that it follows this formula that is in fact used in all of the Goosebumps books. At the beginning, we actual spend time setting the movie up. We establish great characters and interesting story arcs between the characters that make us care. The story that is set up is a great one. The middle of the movie is fun and exciting. Some have compared this to Jumanji in the way it's set up and I think that's a pretty good comparison. It moves fast as our characters have to deal with all sorts of monsters that show up out of the books. No, not all the monsters are great and that's because of some poor CGI, but overall they aren't too distracting. The movie does have some twists at the end that I won't talk about other than to say that I bought them. And yes, our characters do experience some beautiful moments of character growth. So overall, this is a very good movie. Not a perfect movie, but one that I think will and should develop into a Halloween classic that is show at Halloween parties for years to come. My grade for Goosebumps is an 8/10.

Bridge of Spies Review

We're getting really close to the time where Marty McFly arrives into the future. In that fictionalized version of the future from Back to the Future Part II, Marty looks up at the cinema and sees advertised that the top movie of the week is Jaws 19. While the Jaws franchise didn't quite make it to that many sequels (they stopped after the atrocious fourth chapter, Jaws: The Revenge), the writers of Back to the Future Part II were onto something with their choice of movie. The original Jaws movie was directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg and now the man is back this weekend with Bridge of Spies. Although Bridge of Spies won't be the top movie of the weekend (early reports are that this honor will belong to Goosebumps), it will definitely be heavily advertised at theaters this upcoming Wednesday, October 21st, the day that Marty McFly arrives. Marty may be confused on what the heck Goosebumps is or who in the heck this Guillermo Del Toro dude is with his newly directed Crimson Peak. But he'll definitely be able to recognize Steven Spielberg. If he had time to relax and he wanted to go to a movie, I'm sure that the Spielberg name-brand recognition would cause him to see this movie. And I think he'd enjoy himself.

"Directed by Steven Spielberg" is all I needed to be intrigued by this movie. While his record isn't flawless (I personally wasn't a fan of War Horse or A.I.), he's typically pretty good at bringing excellent films to the table. When he's doing a historical movie and the big name star is Tom Hanks, that makes things even more intriguing. Specifically, this movie is a Cold War drama. If I'm being honest, I don't know a whole lot about the Cold War. I mean, I know the basics, but not a whole lot of details, so I was excited to dive into this and see what Spielberg had to teach me. I'll let you learn a lot of the details yourself rather than telling you much of the plot, but basically we follow a man by the name of James Donovan. You may know this guy's story. I didn't. If you are like me and you don't know who this guy is, he's the defense lawyer of Rudolf Abel, a Russian spy that the United States captured. Everyone in America is wanting this guy to be killed immediately because he is a Russian spy here in the United States. Who cares about due process or a fair trial, right? James Donovan, who is played by Tom Hanks, has a few other ideas. What about the constitution? Doesn't everyone deserve a fair trial? In the meantime, while we're being all upset about what Russia is doing and we want to immediately kill their spy, our government is doing the same exact thing. We send spies over to Russia. And guess what? One of them gets captured. Thus we dive into some really interesting themes.

Like I said, I didn't know much about the Cold War, but the whole thing essentially revolves around Nuclear weapons. Russia thinks we have Nuclear weapons and are going to attack them at any time. Thus they send spies over to the United States to figure out what we are up to. At the same time, we think Russia has Nuclear weapons and are going to attack us at the same time. So we also send spies over to Russia to figure out what they are up to. Is this fair? Do we justify this under the name of war and call it okay? Because honestly a lot of this seems really shady. I mean, all the Americans in this movie were whining and complaining that Donovan is vouching for this Russian spy to get a fair trial, but do yet they don't bat an eye at the fact that our government is sending guys on secret missions that "don't exist"? We're sitting here at home hoping that the Russians treat our guy with love and respect, but we want to send their guy to the electric chair immediately and we're going to vandalize James Donovan's home because he is standing up for the Constitution? Bridge of Spies isn't a movie that is taking a side on who is right and who is wrong. It's not a movie with a political agenda. It's just showing some of the honest truth of what happened at this time. Personally I'm also not taking a stance. I'm not saying that the United States was full of a bunch of idiots. I just thought this whole thing was really intriguing and thus the movie captivated me.

I will admit, though, that this is a movie that you have to be patient with. Yes, there are several really intense scenes scattered throughout that have you on the edge of your seat, but for the most part this is a very action-less movie. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that the movie would be this way. This isn't the Revolutionary War. It isn't the Civil War. It isn't one of the World Wars. This the Cold War. Much of the movie takes place in court rooms or in people's houses as the trial is discussed. Then we have conversations in offices discussing secret plans and having secret conversations that "don't exist." Then there are a whole heck of a lot of negotiations and other things like this where it's just people talking to other people figuring out what is to be done. There's also two very distinct halves to this movie. The first half is the court scenes like I mentioned and the drama following the Cold War. I'm not going to tell you what the second half is about, but it's certainly not action packed. Talking, talking, talking, talking. Not much doing. Thus I can definitely understand people going to this movie and getting bored with it, especially since it's 141 minutes long. There's also been people that, despite liking it, admitted that the second half is a lot more boring than the first. I'm not going to dispute that. The second half isn't as good as the first half. But it didn't kill the movie. Like I said, you have to be patient with the movie and if you are, you can take a lot from it.

I suppose the whole take away from what I'm saying is that you need to know what you are getting yourself into when you go watch this movie. There's a lot of biopics and historical dramas out there that are very effective at telling stories and presenting themes without being fast-paced or being filled with a ton of action. This is one of those movies. It's slow. It's long. It's not that intense of a movie. But yet I wasn't bored. I was really taken by all of the characters on both sides of the spectrum. I enjoyed the historical aspect of it. I don't think this is a movie that's intended on telling the whole story of the Cold War, just one specific story line during the Cold War. But I found it fascinating. Spielberg really put a lot of effort into very carefully crafting a really genius movie that you can learn a lot from and apply, not just to the past, but also the present as a lot of the themes in this movie apply to situations going on today, not just the Cold War. Just don't go into this movie expecting a ton of action or a lot of thrills. If you don't like historical dramas or biopics that take their time to slowly tell an interesting story with a lot of deep themes, then don't see this movie. It probably won't be for you. But if you do like biopics and you do love historical dramas, then this is your style of movie.

Now let's spend a moment with Oscar talk. A Spielberg-directed historical drama is huge Oscar bait and I have almost no doubt that this movie is getting a ton of Oscar nominations. I'm thinking best picture, best director, best actor, best supporting actor, best screenplay. All of that jazz. If it doesn't, quite frankly I'm going to be shocked. But am I going to be cheering this on? Probably not. And I don't mean that in a terrible, mean way. If it wins these things, I will be fine. I just personally think that it's not the best picture of the year, thus a best picture win would be a little much for me. A nomination? Absolutely. Very deserving. But being nominated is good enough in my opinion. And same goes for the acting. Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance are the two big acting names getting Oscar buzz following this movie. Both of them do a great job. Tom Hanks always seems to give his all when he's doing a movie and this is no different. He is fantastic in this. But I don't think his performance is deserving of an Oscar win. It's not one of the best of his career. If we look back at his top 5 performances that he's given in his career, this probably isn't a movie that we will feel the need to mention. Will I be upset if he wins? Absolutely not. A nomination is good enough. And even if he doesn't get that nomination, I won't lose to much sleep. Same thing guys for Mark Rylance as our Russian spy. He was really good in the movie. He was also surprisingly funny. But I don't think he gave an Oscar-winning performance. I'm just going to say all that right now because I know these conversations will be had in the not to distant future.

All in all, Spielberg has yet again shown why he is one of the most popular directors in Hollywood right now, if not the most popular director. The man has been making excellent films. I talked about Jaws in the beginning of this review. Jaws was 1975. That was 40 years ago. And that wasn't even his first movie. But in those 40 years, he has consistently put out classic after classic. He followed Jaws with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Not to long after he started the Indiana Jones trilogy. Then there's E.T. Then in the 90's he did Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan. In the current century, he's put out Minority Report, Catch Me if You Can, and Lincoln. This isn't even counting all the movies he helped write and/or produced. These are just a few great examples of his directing. The man is a movie genius and I think all of you knew that. Bridge of Spies is no Jurassic Park or Saving Private Ryan in terms of the intensity level. If you are looking for that when you go into this movie, you might be disappointed, because this is a slow-moving historical drama. Thus a better comparison might be Lincoln, which was also fairly recent. I think it's safe to say that if you loved Lincoln, then you should see Bridge of Spies. Or if you just want to see a Spielberg movie in theaters, then you should go see a Spielberg movie in theaters. I really loved this movie and I think you will too. I'm going to give Bridge of Spies a 9/10.

Sicario Review

Two years ago there was an absolute gem of a movie that came out called Prisoners. It was a very dark, unhappy crime drama about a guy whose daughter gets kidnapped by a psychopath. The guy then takes matters into his own hands when he sees that the police aren't doing their job like he thinks they should. For some reason, I never actually wrote a review of the movie. What's more mysterious, though, was my exclusion of the movie from my list of favorite movies from that year. I think I was caught up on the ending after first viewing it or something like that. Anywho, it was one of the best movies from 2013 and thus now fast-forwarding again to this year, when I saw the advertising of another movie that was from the director of Prisoners, starred Oscar-nominated actors Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Torro as well as future Oscar-nominated actress Emily Blunt (she's becoming overdue now), and came out around the same time of year as Prisoners, I was totally down. I didn't quite see it as early as I wanted to, but I'm now making up for that. If you haven't seen Sicario either, then I highly recommend you doing so.

Sicario in Mexico means "hitman." I don't speak Spanish. I've never been to Mexico. That's just what the movie told me in the beginning. It also told a brief history of the word, which I found fascinating, but can't quote to you because I don't remember. That introduction was a good setup for this movie, which is a very dark and gritty look at the war on the Mexican drug cartel. The movie starts out with Emily Blunt as an FBI agent who is part of this group that invades this house not too far away from the Mexican border. We're somewhere in Arizona, I believe. They go into this house and holy fetch do they find disgusting things. Everyone is horrified and throwing up, so they decide to investigate further when suddenly "boom goes the dynamite!" Whether or not that is literal or figurative is something that I won't say. I'll be using that phrase interchangeable without telling you which it means for the sake of being vague. Point is, disgusting things are found, a surprising thing happens, and suddenly Emily Blunt is being recruiting for some sort of team to go solve a certain issue at the heart of the problem, which requires searching for a very bad man down in Mexico.

This is actually a very slow-moving movie. Given the subject matter, I thought we were going to speed up quite a bit and get very action-packed and intense in the second half of the movie. Not quite. Intense, yes. But intense in a different way. This is a movie that builds and builds throughout the whole movie. Yes, it's slow-moving, but it's not a bad slow-moving. It's a very good slow-moving movie. We start out with quite the jarring opening scene that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Then when we start our actual journey, we start out with a little bit of tension. Something feels off, but we don't quite know what. Then we see some disturbing images as we go that add a little more tension to the movie. Then Emily Blunt's character starts to realize that she's gotten herself into something that she didn't really sign up for her, but there's not really any going back. As her character gets more uncomfortable, we as an audience get more uncomfortable and thus even more tension is added. Then we get the sporadic, random moments where a "boom goes the dynamite!" moment gets thrown in which adds even more tension. You get the feeling that this is leading to something big and when that thing happens, the suspension and tension has built up so perfectly that I had a jaw-dropping experience at the end of this movie.

There's almost nothing more satisfying in film for me personally than a thriller where the tension is built up perfectly and that tension leads to a very rewarding finale. This is exactly what happens in this movie and there's several aspects of the movie that really make it work. The first is the acting. There's plenty of side characters in the movie that all do a good job, but I'm going to focus on our three main characters played by Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Torro. First up is Emily Blunt. When we have a dark thriller like this, the typical human reaction is to want there to be at least one good character that we can latch onto and care about. If everyone in the movie is a horrible, despicable human being, we often panic mentally because there is no one to latch onto or care about. If done right, this can still work out very well, but it's a lot harder to pull off. This is not something we have to worry about, though, because Emily Blunt is the character that we get to latch onto and dang is this woman good in this movie. She is a name that I've known for some time now, but she really caught my attention in last year's Edge of Tomorrow and followed that up fantastically after her role in Into the Woods, which I think was Oscar-worthy. Now she's stepped up her game even more with Sicario and is officially a force to be reckoned with as she's now become one of my favorite actresses. She does a fantastic job in this of making us feel really bad for her as she is essentially an innocent victim caught up in a disgusting situation.

Then there's the other two. Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Torro. Most people are saying that Benicio Del Torro is the big attraction here while Josh Brolin doesn't really stand out. I half agree with that. Benicio Del Torro is definitely the big takeaway from this film, but I liked both of our Marvel baddies (Brolin plays Thanos and Del Torro is the Collector - both appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy and both will feature prominently in future Marvel films). Brolin is essentially the one who recruits Emily Blunt and is "explaining" to her what is going on. At first you think he's just fine. No one to worry about. But it doesn't take long before you realize that something is up and that's he's actually a fairly sketchy, yet interesting character. But then there's Del Torro. Yes, he is absolutely fantastic. At first he's just really mysterious. Unlike Brolin, you immediately know that something is off with him, but he's very quiet and subdued for much of the movie. Then as we move further along into the movie, we dive deeper and deeper into his character. I'm not going to spoil anything, but needless to say, the second half of the movie is the Benicio Del Torro show. Yes, I love Emily. Yes, I would love for her to get her first Oscar nomination with this movie. But if I could only pick one person to nominate from this movie, Del Torro is my choice and once you've seen this movie, you'll most likely agree with me.

There's two other aspects of this movie that really make it work. Yes, we have a really interesting, realistic, dark story that is fascinating. Yes, we have a trio of actors who knock it out of the park. But this movie wouldn't have worked without the score by Jóhann Jóhannsson. In the musical world, this man is also becoming a force to be reckoned with. He got his first Oscar nomination last year for his beautiful score in The Theory of Everything. He's also responsible for the score from Prisoners, so he seems to be following director Denis Villeneuve around as he'll also be doing the score for Villeneuve's film for next year. But these are three amazing scores that this man had done that I think will lead to more and more projects for him in the future. The other aspect that really made this movie work was the absolutely amazing cinematography work done by the master himself, Roger Deakins. There's a reason why this this man has been nominated for 12 Oscars, 7 of those nominations coming in the last 8 years. Every movie he does is beyond beautiful and it's a darn shame that he's come up blank 12 times now at the Oscars. Give that man his Oscar! Come on Academy! I'm not one for lifetime achievement awards, but this wouldn't be one of those. He deserves a win because he is the best in the business and Sicario is of course no different.

Overall, this isn't a movie I can actually recommend for everyone. It's very dark, gritty, and disturbing at times and thus is not for everyone. But man is this a work of art that paints a beautiful, realistic picture of what the drug cartel can be like. It's shady and it's evil and sometimes drastic measures are taken by people to try and stop it. Sometimes that works out and sometimes that doesn't. This is not an action-packed, entertaining movie like some other movies about the drug cartel. This is a slow-moving, dark thriller where the suspense is built up perfectly. Helping add to the movie's brilliance is a great trio of acting led by the mysterious and deep character played by Benicio Del Torro. The movie also has an absolutely brilliant score by Jóhann Jóhannsson and is also one of Roger Deakins' best cinematographic pieces to date. I hope Oscar nominations are coming this movie's way, but if not you can at least be assured that the movie is very well done and worth seeing if this is the type of movie you like seeing. Director Denis Villeneuve blew me away with Prisoners and blew me away again with Sicario, so he is definitely on my radar as far as directors to watch out for. My grade for Sicario is a 9/10.

Supernatural Season 10 Review (SPOILERS)

Over the past several months, I've been slowly rolling out my reviews of the most recent seasons of the TV shows that I've been watching. My initial goal was to get them all out within a week or two of the finales which took place in May. That didn't happen. Instead I ended up releasing them about a month or so apart, which I actually kinda liked. Instead of getting an explosion of TV show reviews within a week or two and then none for the next year, you get my TV show reviews spread out. Whether or not I do the same thing next Summer is to be determined. We'll see what my schedule is like and how I'm feeling. This review of Supernatural is my final review from this past season. From network TV that is. I might get a review of Daredevil out around the time Jessica Jones gets released if I can finish that season in time. Long story there that I don't need to talk about here. Nevertheless, with this review of Supernatural season 10, my goal was to get it out right around the time season 11 started. The season 11 premier was last week, so now that you have that on your mind, I figure it's a good time to dive into what I thought of the previous season. As I've been doing with these recent TV show reviews, I will be talking about spoilers. If you haven't finished season 10 yet, go finish that then come back and read this review.

For a long time now, Supernatural has been by favorite TV show. I wasn't with them at the very beginning, but my younger brother introduced me to the show back in 2010, around the time that season 5 was finishing up. It didn't take me long at all to get hooked and since I didn't have much going on that Summer, before season 6 started I binge-watched the entire show. I've been following the brothers live on TV ever since. No, seasons 6-10 haven't been as good as season 1-5. But it's still watchable television. The series as a whole is still my favorite current TV show. When comparing the most recent seasons only, I will admit that season 10 of Supernatural wasn't my go to show. Season 1 of The Flash took that title. In fact, Supernatural got pretty far down the list of shows I was excited for each week. But it's far from the point of giving up on the show. In fact, I will be with them to the end. Whenever that comes. The initial plan was a five season show. When season 5 rolled around, they decided to continue instead of ending. For some reason I was under the impression that their new goal was ten seasons. Nope. Who knows how long they will be going now. They haven't said. Some wonder if the CW is going to ask them to stop. That's also not the case. CW is going to let them go as long as they want to go. I'll come back to this thought a bit later, but now let's dive into season 10.

Despite the issues that I've had with the most recent seasons of Supernatural, there's been a few things that have always remained consistently good. Two of those consistencies is that each season has begun well and ended well. This season is no different. The initial premise was especially interesting. Season 9 wasn't the best, but it ended in a rather shocking way. Dean had become a demon. That cliffhanger nearly killed me. How in the world were they going to solve this and where was it going to go? This is where we started off season 10 and I was really stoked. Each season has always had it's own big baddie. What if this season's big baddie was Dean? That would make for quite the epic season as Sam tries to figure out what in the heck he needs to do. Does he try to save Dean? Does he kill Dean? What if Dean starts killing a whole bunch other people and becomes an even worse monster? Wouldn't that mean Sam would be forced to think of the greater good and stop Dean for good instead of selfishly trying to find out a way to save him? This could also lead up to an amazing finale after a crazy, wild ride for the whole season. I was excited. This season was going to be good.

But no. That's not what happened. It only took us a few episodes before Demon Dean had been cured and sadly this season went south pretty fast. Instead of a story line where Dean was the main villain and Sam needed to figure out what in the heck to do, the season instead became about Sam and Dean trying to find a way to get rid of the Mark of Cain. Back in season 9, Dean had accepted the Mark of Cain from Cain himself with the intention of using it to kill Abaddon once and for all. This goal was accomplished towards the end of the season as he used the First Blade to kill Abaddon, but then the Mark of Cain started to completely mess him up and after he was killed by Metatron, the Mark of Cain, with the help of the First Blade and Crowly, resurrected him and turned him into Demon Dean. That's how season 9 ends. I wanted more Demon Dean in season 10, but instead we cured him pretty fast and now the brothers need to figure out how to get rid of the Mark of Cain before it completely messes Dean up in a more permanent way.

See this is actually another example of the brilliance of Supernatural. Throughout the whole series, they are always taking ideas from various lore and implementing them in their own creative way. This lore comes straight from the Bible. In the Bible, Cain was a friend of Satan. He loved Satan more than he loved God. Satan told Cain to kill his brother Abel, who was a righteous, God-fearing man. God wasn't too happy with Cain when this happened, to say the least. Because of this, God cursed Cain and gave him a mark. Those are two different things, the curse and the mark. I don't need to dive into what the curse and the mark actually are in the Bible, but Supernatural uses this story in their own creative way. Cain is actually a character that we meet. Part of his curse has been to not suffer death. Thus he's still around when Sam and Dean are on the earth and in fact we learn that he is a demon. This mark he has on his arm has done a lot of awful things to him. Of course this isn't quite the way the Bible actually tells the story, but it's a fun twist that had the potential to make things really interesting. You have Cain. You have the Mark of Cain. You have the First Blade that Cain used to kill his brother. But potential is the big word here and in my personal opinion, potential with this story was wasted.

First off, like I've said several times now, keeping Demon Dean around longer is what needed to happen. The Mark of Cain turned him into this awful thing and that should've been at least slightly more permanent than it was. They can cure him in the finale if they want and deal with the after effects in the next season, but they didn't. Instead we got a season that was mostly comprised of them trying to get rid of the mark and honestly I found it a little boring. A good storyline weaved into the season is the most important thing for Supernatural and when this storyline was boring, it made the whole season pretty boring. I liked their attempt to go back and use the formula from the first few seasons, that of a lot of monster-of-the-week episodes with a brilliant and intriguing story weaved in. But when the story just doesn't work out, it really negatively effects the whole season. Yes, there were some pretty good monster-of-the-week episodes in this season. But they weren't good enough to hold this whole season together.

The other missed opportunity with this came with the villain. Yes, Dean would've made a great villain, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Cain. In season 5 our main villain was Lucifer. When it comes to Supernatural, Lucifer is a villain that simply cannot be topped. That's the part of the problem with these later seasons. In deciding to go forward with the show, they haven't been able to find a main villain as good as Lucifer. But here they finally had a great opportunity. When you've already done Lucifer, isn't Lucifer's biggest follower the perfect option for the next best villain? Cain would've been an amazing villain. But the actual character of Cain only shows up in two episodes. He's mentioned in several more, but actor Timothy Omundson only shows up once in season 9 and once in season 10 and then he is killed by Dean. What a waste. Sure, perhaps Omundson had a really busy schedule and couldn't do more than he did, but if that was the case, they really should've found someone who could've committed to a larger role and written him in more. Instead our main villain is probably Rowena. She's an extremely manipulative witch and is also the mother of Crowley. However, one episode of her was all I could handle, yet we got a whole lot more of her and we aren't done yet.

So yes, this season lost me rather quickly. There were plenty good monster-of-the-week episodes. Episode 200 was especially fantastic. That was episode 5 of the season and was titled "Fan Fiction." It was the episode where Sam and Dean run into a Supernatural play being put on at this small school. It was also the episode where Chuck showed up once again for a brief moment. He was the prophet from season 5 that was initially intended to be God. That wasn't actually stated during the show, but it was revealed behind the scenes that this was the initial goal for Chuck's character. But that didn't happen and Chuck was gone for several seasons and thus God is still a mystery. But having Chuck showing up makes me wonder of they are going to use him as God after all. I was expecting him to show up again in a bigger role towards the end of the season, but that didn't happen either. I'm not too upset with that. In fact that makes me excited for when they finally decide to bring him back. Instead we have to deal with what we've got and that is a lot of Rowena and Metatron. I haven't talked about Metatron yet. He was a season 9 baddie and was really interesting for that season. But I'm kinda done with him as well. I want something big. I want something epic. Cain could've been epic. But he was underused. Demon Dean could've been epic. But that was wrapped up way too quickly.

Now I said that two consistencies of Supernatural is that the seasons always start well and end well. I spoke about how things started well. I touched on how the middle of the season lost me. There's more I could've said like the annoying brother drama and the recycled storylines that involve that drama. But I think I've said enough for now. Before signing off, I do need to mention that the show once again remained consistent with the endings as this finale was pretty good. Was it as epic or shocking of a finale like some of the previous seasons? No. But it was still pretty good. Sam has forced Rowena into figuring out the spell that gets rid of the mark. Dean has made the decision that he is a lost cause and summons Death to kill him. Death says that he can't do this and tells Dean that the mark is a key that keeps the darkness locked in. Death offers to send Dean to a place far away where he won't disturb anyone. Dean calls Sam to come to him so he can say goodbye, but then Death says that Sam needs to die because Sam won't stop until he finds Dean. This leads to a rather intense final scene that has you on the edge of your chair as you are watching. It ends with Dean killing Death instead of Sam (which kinda doesn't make sense if you think of it, but oh well), and Rowena completes the spell that removes the mark. And just like Death said, the darkness is released. Things happen with Rowena, Crowley, and Castiel, but I don't need to discuss that. The season ends with Sam and Dean being submersed in the darkness.

Bam! That's was a great ending. What is this darkness and what happens to everyone because of it? That's a question for season 11 to answer, which has already started off pretty good. Overall, this season did what the last several seasons have done. Start well, lose me in the middle, and end with a bang. The main actors are great as always. I'm talking about Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Mark A. Sheppard, and Misha Collins. A few of the side characters were great as well while a few more bothered me a bit. But it's the writing at this point that needs to improve. I've been waiting for them to get back to their former glory that they experienced with seasons 1-5. But they haven't yet. Seasons 7 and 8 got close, but the last two seasons have dipped down. I really hope this ends on a high note, but that's the big issue that I will end this review on. What's their goal with the show? How long are they going to go? I know I will be sad when the show ends, but at this point I have no idea what their end game is. Quite frankly, I'm not sure if they have an end game. It feels like they are just wandering through and that worries me. They need to come up with an end game. If they have one, they need to tell us what it is. Season 11 isn't the end. Is it season 12? 13? 14? 15? At this point, I honestly hope it's 12, but we'll see.

Pan Review

We're on quite the kick right now in Hollywood with our live-action adaptations of Disney's animated works. This idea is definitely not a new one, but we've had a recent explosion of live-action animated Disney adaptations after Alice in Wonderland earned over $1 billion worldwide in 2010. We got two Snow White movies in 2012 (Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror). Last year gave us Maleficent, a weird Sleeping Beauty adaptation. Early this year we had Cinderella. Now Peter Pan gets his turn with yet another adaptation of the classic story. And this is just the beginning. I'm not even going to begin to list all the live-action animated Disney adaptations that are coming up. The list is long. It's not just Disney doing it. A lot of studios are in on the party. Pan here is Warner Bros. Now before I get myself into trouble, I am very well aware of the fact that Peter Pan didn't originate from Disney. He was created by author and playwright J.M. Barrie in the early 1900's. Disney's version came 50 years later. But it did come, which is why I'm grouping Pan in with these other live-action animated Disney adaptations. I will do the same with upcoming movies The Jungle Book and Tarzan next year even those weren't Disney movies first, either.

In addition to following the trend of live-action animated Disney adaptations, this also follows the trend of Peter Pan adaptations, so we're hitting two birds with one stone here. For some reason, every 10 years or so, Hollywood thinks it's time for a new Peter Pan movie. In 1991 we had Hook. In 2003 we had P.J. Hogan's Peter Pan. Now in 2015 we have Pan. There's also been plenty of TV, play, and book versions of Peter Pan. Why we need so much Peter Pan in our world is beyond me. This is why I respect the idea that Pan filmmakers had of doing something different with the character. This movie is a prequel where the villain is Blackbeard, not Hook. In fact, Hook is a friend of Peter and this was our chance to see how Peter rose to be the hero he is in all the other Peter Pan stories. This was a good idea. It's similar to the idea that Steven Spielberg had of telling the story of what would happen if Peter actually went to the normal world and grew up. It's something different. Thus makes it fresh. On top of this idea, the movie had a great director in Joe Wright and a fantastic cast which included Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, and Garrett Hedlund. Thus I was initially excited for this movie. Then the trailers started come out. Oh my word. This looked atrocious. I was hoping I was going to be wrong about that. But I wasn't. This movie is awful.

See, having the idea to do something different and unique is a good idea. But there's definitely a line that shouldn't be crossed because if you go too different with a beloved story, you're going to get hanged by the people who actually enjoy the original story and characters. When it comes to Peter Pan, I don't know where exactly that line is, but Pan didn't just cross it. They sprinted past it and are so far into left field with the story that we can't even see where they are. It's not even clever or good in its own right. It's just weird and dumb. If we pretend for a moment that this was the only Peter Pan movie to ever exist, I'd have no interest in the character because nothing in this movie worked. We start out with the most generic, cliche orphan scene. Mother leaves baby at the steps with a note, promising that she will return for him one day. We then jump 12 years into the future and the leader of the orphanage is an angry old lady who hates kids. They get mush as food while the old lady hogs all the good food for herself. Peter and his friend then come up with a scheme to break into her office and find her secret stash. They get caught and punished. Blah, blah, blah. I was bored. I just wanted the pirates to come kidnap them and take them to Neverland, because I knew that was going to happen. It was in every trailer.

But then the pirates actually came and kidnapped them and took them to Neverland. It didn't take long for me to want to go back to the orphanage. This movie is set in World War II and thus when the pirate ship is escaping, it gets stuck in a battle with some fighter planes. Then we go to the most fake version of outer space where Peter is floating around and picking up Jupiter with his hands. We then fly around to some sort of weird area with big water bubbles that have islands in them. Or something like that. What in the freak is going on? I was confused and weirded out. Just get to Neverland already. Arriving there was never that weird and complicated in other versions of Peter Pan. Why did we need to make this version look like everyone is experiencing some sort of psychotic break? I didn't get it. But then we got to Neverland. Things didn't get better. They got worse. One of the first scenes in Neverland is Hugh Jackman leading everyone in that initial scene in song. Okay, this idea is fine. But the song choice? Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Now this is a fantastic song. But I remind you that this movie is set during World War II. Why in the world are we singing 90's music when the movie is set in the 40's? Did we go through a time warp where this song exists? It makes no sense.

This wasn't the point in the movie where the movie got bad. As I've stated, up to this point nothing in the movie was good. But I could've forgiven a lame introduction if they were able to capture the magic of Neverland. I may not be as huge of a Peter Pan fan when compared to some of my friends, but I still understand why Neverland is so amazing. It's the ideal place for when you are a kid. As a kid, you never want to grow up. You don't want to have to deal with such things as love or work. You just want to be able to play with friends and have non-stop adventures for the rest of your life. That's what Neverland is. It's a fun, magical place where kids get to be kids for their whole lives without having to grow up. Say what you want about the other adaptations of Peter Pan. You can find fault with Disney's animated version of Peter Pan. You can find fault with Steven Spielberg's Hook. You can find fault with the 2003 Peter Pan. But all three of these movies got the idea of Neverland right. I personally don't think I'd call any of these three movies a masterpiece, but I enjoy all three with Hook probably being the best of them. The biggest problem with Pan is that Neverland doesn't feel magical at all. It was a bore. I wasn't sold on the world. I thought the characters were poorly written. The story was a complete mess that got worse as it went on. The rules of Neverland in this version didn't make sense. The history that they tried to tell felt way off. The ending was absolutely atrocious. Everything that makes Neverland and the characters withing so beloved are gone in this movie. Nothing is right. And when I mean nothing is right, I mean nothing is right.

Let's talk about some of these characters in this movie. I wasn't able to latch onto any of them, which is really disappointing because there are some good actors in this. Let's start with Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard. The guy is one of my favorite actors for good reason. He's had so many iconic roles now in his career and he's nailed all of them. Was he bad in this? No. But he's not that great either. I can tell that he's having fun with the character and doing the best with what he's been given, but that last part is the problem. He's been given nothing to work with in this. Blackbeard is not a very compelling villain in this at all. Then we have Hook, who is usually the villain in Peter Pan. This time he's friends with Peter and although I like this idea, I hated Hook in this movie. Someone told Garrett Hedlund to do this weird, annoying voice the whole time. Whoever had that idea and told Hedlund to continue that the whole movie deserves to be punched. Next up is Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily. She's probably the most likable character in this, but there's probably bias in that statement because I absolutely adore Rooney Mara. She's just fantastic. But the huge elephant in the room there is the fact that we have a white girl playing a Native American character. Unfortunately I'm jumping on the band wagon that this was a bad idea. It just didn't work. Finally there is Levi Miller as Peter Pan. I really feel bad for the kid that this was his introduction as an actor because he's just not a good Peter Pan.

The other thing is that this didn't even look good visually. I'm usually not one to complain about CGI. You can have a good movie that's mostly CGI. But the key there is you have to make it look convincing enough to convince me that you had real sets and are in a real world. This looks like we are in a computer, not in Neverland. It looked like the actors were acting in front of a green screen the whole time and not on actual sets. This was especially bad when they were flying around on the ship. When someone was falling out of the ship, I didn't feel any fear or dread for the character because the world they were in was so fake. Earlier this week I saw The Walk, which was another movie that was probably shot on green screens. But they did a perfect job at making me feel like it was real. This is 2015 that we are in. It shouldn't be that hard to make a visually stunning movie where Neverland feels real. This is the one thing that this movie should've gotten right. But not even this was right. Even Hook had a much better Neverland visually speaking and that movie is now 24 years old. That's kinda sad when you think about it.

All in all, this is one of those situations where I'm really confused that a movie this bad got made. This is Joe Wright. He's made some good movies like Atonement and Hanna. As the director, he is responsible for a whole heck of a lot of horrid decisions that were made in this movie. It makes no sense. Then we have people like Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara who looked at the script for this movie and decided that it was a good idea for their careers to go forward with this project. How does this happen? I don't understand. This should've been a good movie. There should've been at least a few things that were done right. But no. Nothing about this movie is right. If you are a fan of Peter Pan, get prepared for your beloved story and characters to get ripped into shreds and thrown into a blender. This is a disaster. If you are a parent with kids aged 5-8 who aren't very familiar with Peter Pan, this might be a movie they'll enjoy. Kids usually aren't very critical. Outside that audience, though, this is a movie that deserves to be skipped. It was one of those times where the movie theater started to feel like a prison. I was writhing in pain and agony the whole time. This is one of the worst movies of the year. Not quite as bad as Fantastic Four or Jupiter Ascending, but that's not saying very much. My grade for Pan is a 4/10.

The Walk Review

I hate heights. Always have. Most likely always will. I do force myself to suck it up at times and deal with heights if it means a really good time or an amazing view. Like roller coasters. I love roller coasters. But I'm definitely the type of person who will look at a roller coaster and have to convince myself it's going to be fun. The worst part, of course, is the part where you slowly climb up. Speaking of theme parks, if you've ever been to this small little theme park in Farmington, Utah (close to where I grew up), there is this really slow, really tall ride called the sky ride that is like a ski lift that will transport you to the other side of the park. I hate that ride. Las Vegas. There is a roller coaster/thrill ride thing on top of the Stratosphere. I went on that. Most terrifying thing in my life. But it was awesome. Hiking. I love hiking. I love the view at the top of a mountain. But if the mountain is really steep or I have to climb by a ledge, I usually feel like I'm going to die during the hike. Get the point? So when I first saw this trailer where the camera shot up the side of the World Trade Center and then zoomed in on a man standing on that ledge, I knew I was in for a ride when I saw that movie. And then I saw the trailer in 3D IMAX and I was terrified. And super excited. Yeah, that about describes this movie, The Walk. It was one crazy adventure.

If you don't know your World Trade Center history, in 1974 when the towers were nearly complete, a French man by the name of Philippe Petit decided to hang a wire across the World Trade Center towers and walk across it. Yeah. That's crazy. And now, 41 years later, the great Robert Zemeckis has completed a movie where we get to go with this man as walks across. And because it's 2015 and we have a lot of amazing film technology, this experience is brought to us in the amazing 3D IMAX format. I've become quite the fan of this format since an IMAX theater was built in my current city not too long ago, yet I realize that not everyone has the luxury of watching movies in this format and those who do often aren't willing to fork out the money required. Because of this, I don't usually give you the recommendation that a movie absolutely needs to be seen in 3D IMAX. But I'm going to give that recommendation here. This movie needs to be seen in 3D IMAX. If there is no IMAX theater near you, then at least see this movie in 3D when it expands this upcoming weekend because walking with this crazy man as he pulls off this stunt is rather breathtaking.

The movie itself is definitely a tale of two halves. There's a lot of people complaining that the first half of this movie is really boring and awful. I'm not going to go as far as to say that. I think the first half of this movie is very important. We start off in a rather interesting way and that's by going to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character of Philippe at the top of the Statue of Liberty where he's going to tell us this story of a life-long dream that he had. As the movie goes on, he not only narrates the movie, but we often go back to him on the Statue of Liberty for him to give us an introduction to whatever scene is about to happen. I don't know if this was really necessary. I don't think we really even needed a narrator, but we got that and more. But whatever. I'm not giving too many negative points for that. But needless to say, he tells us the story of how he became a high-wire artist and how he came to this dream of doing this crazy high-wire stunt between the World Trade Center towers. Like I said, I feel this was an important part of the movie. We needed to introduce the movie. We needed to set the set the stage for this guy and introduce all of the side characters that led up to this. All that said, I will admit that this first half did drag on. I knew we couldn't have the whole movie on top of the wire, but during this first half, I was a lot more interested in us getting to the second half as opposed to watching what happened in the first half. I wouldn't say I was bored, but I was slightly uninterested.

But then the second half of the movie came. Normally I avoid the second half of the movie like a plague when doing a movie review, but in this case the second half of the movie IS the movie. It's the spectacle. It's why you go to this movie. All the advertising has focused on this half. A man walking on a wire between the Trade Centers in 3D IMAX. It shouldn't be a surprise that this happens. That he makes it to this point. It also should be no surprise to what happens in the end. I won't divulge, but this isn't a movie about a man plummeting to his death. I say all of this, because it's not the end result that matters here. It's the journey that matters here and by goodness is it a crazy journey. The thing they did here is very illegal. And there's a lot of people there everyday working on getting these buildings finished. Thus they have to come up with this master plan to make it all work and everything has to go perfectly. Essentially it becomes a heist movie and it is super exciting and intense. You know they are going to make it or there wouldn't have been a movie made, but that doesn't diminish the experience. Then we get to the walk. And holy freaking cow was this terrifying. I can't accurately describe in words the feelings that I felt during the finale, but nonetheless it was super tense.

I can't praise the visual effects and cinematography enough. The fact that they pulled off what they did is incredible. It literally felt like Joseph Gordon-Levitt was actually walking on a wire between the Trade Centers. And it felt like they pulled off some crazy camera stunts to be up there with him. But this is literally impossible. Not only is it impractical to ask an actor to pull off such a stunt, but the World Trade Centers don't exist anymore. I have no idea how they did this. I'm not even going to guess. I will say that I would be really interested in watching a documentary on the making of this movie. You know, the ones that usually come on the special features of the DVD? But whatever it is that they did, it is incredible and breathtaking because it feels absolutely real. Now there's been some reports that people have been sick or thrown up because of the intensity of this movie. That didn't happen for me. I was just blown away. And curled up in a ball, literally on the edge of my seat. It was also fun noticing the reactions of people around me. They were all freaking out, too. Girls let out screams at points. Guys probably did too. Needless to say, it was a very vocal and noisy theater and I did not blame people one bit.

Finally, I do need to talk about the acting in this movie because I really loved it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a very recognizable name at this point in his career. I doubt there are many people who haven't seen Inception and/or The Dark Knight Rises. This movie he transforms himself quite a bit. Partially in look, but mostly in voice. JGL's hair is usually short and clean. This movie it's long and messy. And he goes with the French accent because Philippe Petit is French. Yes, it is kinda weird hearing a completely different voice coming out of JGL's mouth, but I bought into it. In fact, it made it so I was able to see the character of Philippe Petit instead of JGL and I really liked that aspect of the movie. An Oscar worthy performance? I wouldn't be bothered one bit. I don't really think it will happen in this case, but I do think the man has an Oscar nomination coming his way in the near future because the man is a great actor and does a great job in this movie. He also has a really good supporting cast around him. Charlotte Le Bon is the supporting character I liked the most. She plays his girl. I kinda love her. But I also do have a thing for girls with French accents, so perhaps there's some bias there. And finally, I do have to give a nod to Ben Kingsley. The man is excellent in every movie he's in and this is no different.

Overall, this is a movie that I highly recommend you see and it's a movie that I would highly recommend you see in 3D IMAX. In fact, I honestly don't know how this movie will hold up in a normal movie screen or on a TV. I fear that watching this event happen will cause this to be a slightly boring movie, whereas seeing it in 3D IMAX will take you to the top of the World Trade Centers and allow you to walk the wire with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which could be seen as a once in a lifetime experience. I've seen a lot of movies in IMAX this year and this movie is definitely the best of the year in that format, slightly beating out Everest, which I saw last week in IMAX. Yes, the first half of the movie is pretty slow, which is why I'm not going to give this movie as high of a grade as I want to, but the second half of the movie definitely makes up for it. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance as Philippe Petit is rather excellent. I don't know if it's going to give him an Oscar nomination this year, but I do think it foreshadows an Oscar nomination in the near future. As a whole, I will give the experience that is The Walk an 8/10, which is the average score of the movie itself and the 3D IMAX experience.

The Martian Review

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Okay, no, this isn't Star Trek, but I was planning on opening this review with some sort of statement on space and thus I decided why not use the best space monologue ever written? I could've used the Next Generation updated version in the great voice of Patrick Stewart, but I decided to go with the original monologue. Anywho, space is a place that I've always loved going via TV show and film. It just plain out fascinates me. Thus I've been really happy these last few years at the fact that big budget space movies have become a tradition. We started two years ago with Gravity as we got trapped in space with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. That ended up being my favorite movie of the year. Last year, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar was my most anticipated movie of the year. I had no reason to believe that a Christopher Nolan space drama would be anything less than completely epic. Turns out it was my most disappointing movie of the year as a piece of crap ending ruined an epic beginning. But hey, I was still ready to put that experience behind me and look forward to the big space movie this year in The Martian. I didn't quite know what to expect or how this one would be different, but people loving the book it was based off of and critics praising the movie in early screenings made me super excited going in. It was a very busy weekend for me, so I couldn't get it out when I wanted to, but I am happy to report to you that in terms of my personal enjoyment, this is more on the level of Gravity than Interstellar.

The common comparison for this movie is that it is a combination of Cast Away and Apollo 13. I walked out of the theater thinking that it was like Cast Away and Gravity. But the Apollo 13 comparisons are definitely warranted as well. Perhaps we can say that it is Cast Away plus Apollo 13 plus Gravity? Whatever the combination, I'm here to tell you that I think this is a better movie than all three of those, which is a huge statement from me because I really like all of those movies. Like I said, Gravity was my favorite movie from 2013. If you haven't seen The Martian yet, you may be wondering what sets it apart from the rest of the space or survival movies. Because I'm not going to lie, this looks like a very predictable movie going in. There's a lot of survival movies nowadays and there's only so much you can do with one of these movies and call yourself unique. I don't want to say too much about the plot, but Matt Damon is part of quite the team of astronauts on Mars when a huge storm hits, threatening the survival of the whole crew. Matt Damon gets hit with a piece of shrapnel and is assumed dead, so the rest of the team makes the tough decision to get out of there so the rest of them don't die as well. Turns out this was a huge mistake because Matt Damon is alive and now they've left him all alone on Mars.

Pretty run of the mill, right? Not quite. I'm not going to spoil this movie, but there are definitely a few things that really set this movie apart and I want to dive into those. But first I feel the need to talk about the visuals in this movie. Even if the movie itself was run of the mill and super predictable, this movie would still be a very enjoyable movie because of the visual effects. This is definitely where director Ridley Scott excels. Even in his more sub-par movies like last year's Exodus: Gods and Kings, you can't argue with the fact that his movies are consistently beautiful. Exodus: Gods and Kings had it's issues with story, but was absolutely gorgeous. The scene where Moses parts the red sea and the children of Israel cross? Wow! Absolutely incredible. Same thing here. Like I said, I love space. Seeing space shot so beautifully is always a treat for me. Whether it's the crew in space overlooking Earth or Mars or whether it's Matt Damon on Mars, this is amazing. These may be the best Mars visuals ever. I felt like the movie was actually shot on Mars. I'm convinced that they got their whole crew to fly out there with Matt Damon. Then when we got the shots of Mars from right outside its atmosphere, holy fetching cow! Those were jaw-droppingly gorgeous. This movie was worth it just for that and thus I'd definitely say that this is a must-see in theaters.

But as I said, this movie is more than just a visual treat. There's some themes in this movie that are so strong and will stay with me for a very long time. The first of these is some real world application of subjects like science and math. Oftentimes high school students find themselves in school, studying subjects that they feel are completely irrelevant for their life and future. The common questions is how will I use this in my life? This movie teaches how you can use these subjects in everyday life. No, I don't anticipate many people in their life will be trapped on Mars, but Matt Damon's approach to things teaches very good problem-solving principles. The whole movie is him moving forward one step at a time. He doesn't start out by trying to figure out how he is going to escape from Mars. He starts small. I'll give an example from the trailer. Food. He realizes that his first problem he needs to solve is that he needs to figure out a way to grow food on a planet where food doesn't grow. So he uses his knowledge of math and science to plan out a way to solve this. Like I said, we're not going to be trapped on Mars in our lifetime, but we will have problems of our own that we will need to solve and we can use these principles that Matt Damon uses with problem-solving to better our lives. If we get as much education as we can. Learn math. Learn science. Learn these other subjects. We will be much better off in our lives in whatever our situation is and we definitely can use these.

The other great principle that this movie teaches is the importance of having a good sense of humor. Most survival movies are quite depressing. The person is all alone on an island or in the middle of the ocean and they understandably go through a lot of emotional, mental, and physical problems. Some of them become psychological as the person trying to survive is losing his or her mind. Thus most survivor movies become dark, gloomy, and depressing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's very realistic, in fact. However, The Martian is an outright hilarious movie. I heard this going in based on plenty of reviews. But I was still wondering how they were going to pull this off because there are very few signs of comedy in the trailers and this seems like the type of movie that wouldn't be funny. But Matt Damon is cracking joke after joke after joke. And they all land perfectly. I was loving it. Then I thought about it afterwards and realized that this was perfect. It is, shall I say, scientifically proven that laughter is good for your physical health. You can definitely tell that Matt Damon is struggling emotionally. He hates being there. There are many times where you feel that he is about to break. But he keeps a positive outlook. He continues to be humorous in his approach. That helps keep him alive.

This is what sets this movie apart from other survival movies. Like I keep saying, we aren't going to be in a situation in our lives where we will be trapped on Mars. But just like with the problem-solving aspect of this movie, having a positive outlook in life is a principle that is definitely important for people to learn. Life sucks. Hard times will come. You can either mope and cry about it, or you can have a positive outlook and have a good sense of humor. Obviously there is a time and a place for everything. There are times in life where you probably shouldn't tell a joke. But a smile is contagious. A laugh is contagious. Both of these will make most situations better. A happy person is a person that will live longer. And if not, at least you will live an enjoyable, worthwhile life. A wise man once said that there is a space between action and reaction. You can choose to be happy whatever your situation. Another wise man once said to come what may and love it. Yes, this is easier said than done, but if these principles can be mastered, your life will be a lot better. And when you see someone who has mastered this, it is very influential and makes you want to do better. Matt Damon's character in the movie, while not perfect, masters this principle and thus The Martian is an extremely inspiring movie because of it.

Yes, there are other aspects of this movie that also make this incredible. I could dive into all of them, but alas there is no time. Yes, the cast is great. Yes, they all do a great job. In fact, this movie is absolutely loaded. I could spend three or four paragraphs talking about the whole cast and how well they all did, but I'm not going to. Needless to say, Matt Damon gives on Oscar-worthy performance. This is one of the best performances of his career, which is saying something because the man is one of my favorite actors. Also, this movie feels real. Is all the science and space stuff perfectly accurate? I don't know and quite frankly I don't care. But this movie felt like it was telling the true story of a situation that actually happened. I loved that sensation. It made the possibility of man going to Mars exciting. All of this combined with beautiful visuals, amazing story (which does get really tense in the second half), and very strong themes that teach very important life lessons make this my favorite movie of the year so far. The only issue I had is that I wanted to see this movie in IMAX and that wasn't available. But the 3D is still pretty good. Not Gravity-level good. I wouldn't say this is a must-see in 3D, but if you do you won't be disappointed. That said, if that's the only issue I had with the movie, that's pretty darn good. My grade, of course, is a 10/10. This is a future classic and one of Ridley Scott's best.