Now You See Me 2 Review

Three years ago I was blown away by the surprise summer hit Now You See Me. If you haven't seen that movie, close this review now. If I'm to talk about this sequel, I need to tell you why I loved the first movie, which requires some mild spoilers. First off, the magic sequences in the movie was a ton of fun. Far-fetched and unrealistic? Perhaps. But still a ton of fun. And our group of magicians were fantastic. They had such great chemistry as a group and you could tell they had a ton of fun making the movie. But all that was the icing on the cake. The real reason why I loved the movie is that the movie itself was a magic trick. The theme of the movie was that magic was all about misdirection and slight of hand. The whole time you are focused on the group of magicians when the movie was really all about Mark Ruffalo's character. His story isn't hidden. In fact, it's right in front of your face. But you're so focused on the group of magicians that you don't pay attention to Mark Ruffalo's story. Misdirection. Slight of hand. The second time around the movie is a completely different film because you know where to focus on. Genius. But could they do it again with the sequel? This seemed like a standalone film that got a sequel because it made money. Thus I was skeptic. But to my great surprise, they did! They captured the magic once again!

First things first, we need to address the Rotten Tomatoes score for both of these movies. I honestly believe the first movie should be in the 80's or 90's. This sequel should be in the 70's or 80's. Both should be certified fresh. But the first one has a score of 49 percent and this sequel is in the 30's. Ouch! Like seriously. What the freaking heck is wrong here? I try not to dwell too much on the Rotten Tomatoes scores for movies I review, but this just appalls me. These professional, Rotten Tomatoes certified critics got this franchise dead wrong. And this is also more than just dumb fun. These aren't guilty pleasure movies for me. These are fantastic films that I will passionately defend here. And I feel I have a lot of support because both movies got a Cinemascore of A-. Both movies are in the 7-range on IMDb. Both movies have positive audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes. The financial future of the sequel is TBD, but the first movie scored an impressive $351.7 million worldwide total, $117.7 million of that coming domestically. The fans have spoken. We like these movies! Now if you are on the side of the professional critics and you hated the first movie, I don't know why you would bother with this sequel. But if you are one of the many that loved that movie like I did, this is a must-see summer film.

That's a long introduction, but a necessary one in this case. The story of this movie is one that I was concerned about. The first movie did such a great job of wrapping things up in a big beautiful bow, that I didn't think this movie was necessary at all. Turns out this is a Star Wars type of situation and Now You See Me 2 is The Empire Strikes Back. Now if you walk out of this review thinking that I just said this movie is as good as The Empire Strikes Back, I'm going to slap you in the face. That's not what I'm going for with this comparison. But in terms of the story, Star Wars does very well as a stand-alone film. They didn't need a sequel. But we got one, and aren't you glad we did? In terms of story, The Empire Strikes Back is a pure revenge film. Darth Vader and company are out for blood after good owned by Luke and company in the first film. Plot-wise, that is the direction this franchise goes. In Now You See Me, this group of magicians, along with Mark Ruffalo, completely own Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. In Now You See Me 2, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are out for revenge against the group of magicians, who are now officially called the Horsemen. The Four Horsemen, plus Mark Ruffalo and maybe some others. So I'll just go with the Horsemen. This revenge plot I immediately bought. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are out for blood and thus our Horsemen need to step up their game.

Let's talk about the magic in this movie. Personally I'm a complete sucker for magic. No, I'm not good at performing magic tricks. But sitting down and watching a good magician perform is one of my personal favorite things. Thus a movie centered around magic usually will suck me in every time. Is the magic in these movies completely realistic and believable? Eh. Not really. And it's certainly not the actors themselves doing the tricks. It's of course complete CGI for at least most of it. But if your hold up with these movies is how believable the magic tricks are, then I'm going to give you a huge eye roll right now. That's like watching an action movie and complaining about the legitimacy of the stunts or hating Star Wars because they don't always follow the laws of physics or have faulty astronomy. These magic scenes are an absolute blast! Just like the first one, half of the magic is explained and half of it isn't. The scenes that are explained are believable enough and the scenes that aren't are just so freaking entertaining that I don't care how believable they are. What really carries that is our Horsemen carry themselves very well as magicians. Does it feel like sometimes they are actual magicians pulling off real magic? Maybe. But that didn't bother me at all. It didn't bother me in the first and it didn't bother me in this.

Speaking of the Horsemen, this group is just fantastic. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, and Dave Franco are back from the first movie. The three of them have so much chemistry. They all bring their different personalities to group that meshes perfectly together to create this fantastic group. Isla Fisher was the final member of the group in the last movie, but she is not back in this. She got pregnant or something like that and wasn't able to return. That happens in this business. When an actor from a franchise dies, is going through personal issues, decides to stay home and be a parent, or something else along those lines, you just have to move forward. Now You See Me 2 does not miss a beat with Isla Fisher's replacement as Lizzy Caplan is our new female Horsemen. Did I like Isla Fisher. Absolutely. Do I miss her in this movie? Absolutely not. Lizzy Caplan is a brand new character who joins the team, it's not Isla Fisher's character re-cast, and she fits in perfectly. She adds a spice and an energy to this team that Isla Fisher couldn't add. Thus it doesn't take you long at all to completely forget that Isla Fisher ever existed in this franchise. Also with this group, in addition to having great chemistry and pulling off the magician facade super well, they are also hilarious. Their comedic timing was perfect and it caused several moments of gut-busting laughter for me.

Supporting cast. There's a lot of them. We have Mark Ruffalo as the leader of the Horsemen. As I said, the first movie was secretly all about him. Now that the secret is out, his story continues on the forefront as it's partially his story once again. There was a lot of tension between him and Morgan Freeman in the first movie and that continues here. In those scenes with Mark Ruffalo and Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo really shines. Ever since he took over as the Hulk in The Avengers, Mark Ruffalo has evolved into one of my favorite actors, both in the big blockbusters as well as in the smaller indie/art house films. And of course I don't need to tell you that Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are fantastic. Those two are in like every movie and even in cases where the movie they are isn't fantastic, you know you are going to get an A+ performance out of them and that's of course the case here. Joining the club this time around is everyone's favorite wizard back in another magic movie, Harry Potter himself, aka Daniel Radcliffe. I don't want to say too much about his role, but I really loved him in this movie. We all watched Daniel Radcliffe grow up on screen and I've got to give it up to him. He's turned into a dang good actor. It took a while, but I've finally been able to see him as Daniel Radcliffe instead of just Harry Potter.

There's a few more characters here, but I've covered the main ones. We do have Chinese superstar Jay Chou in the movie. I'll leave him a secret, though. We also have plenty of FBI characters. Not going to lie, the FBI in this movie was a lot less interesting in this movie than the first one. Speaking of Jay Chou, the movie smartly panders to the Chinese audience as in addition to having him in the movie, at least half of our movie is over in Macau. If you haven't got the message, them Chinese people love their movies. There's a lot of movies nowadays that will actually make more money in China than in the United States. Furious 7 is a great example of that as it earned a whopping $390 million over there compared to its very good $353 million in the states. In terms of the plot of the movie, I'm going to push on the brakes a bit. I didn't give you that much of a premise and there's a reason for that. You need to experience this plot yourself. I do have to admit that there are times in this movie where the plot did drag a bit and some scenes didn't connect too well to the overall plot. For a little while, it almost seemed like they were wandering a bit through their plot and despite some very entertaining scenes and great characters around the board, I wasn't completely sold on this the entire time despite the fact that I was very much entertained.

But it came around. As I've mentioned several times with the first movie, the plot of that movie was its strength. Those who said the plot was weak and all over the place really should be slapped. The theme here was magic and the movie pulled off an actual magic trick with its plot. So genius. The big thing I was looking for with this movie is what are they doing next with the plot. Is this just a cash grab or is there an actual purpose here? There definitely is purpose here. The revenge aspect of this movie that I've talked about was pretty good. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman did a great job of building off the events of the first movie and made this movie seem like a natural and necessary progression of the plot. But this is more than just your typical revenge plot. It's a continuation of certain things that happened in the first movie and without giving away anything, it takes things deeper. Part of the genius of the first movie was that there was a huge shock value at the end of the movie that made for a completely new movie the second time through. That's not quite the case here. I didn't have a jaw-dropping experience in the final act of the movie, but I did really appreciate what they did with it. It made for a very believable and natural sequel, which is often hard to pull off.

In the end, I was very skeptic at the idea of sequel to Now You See Me. Not only did I think they tied a very nice bow on the end of the movie, but I didn't think that they could replicate the joy that I had with that first movie. I got the magic trick, but can you pull off another magic trick? The answer is yes. The film does drag at times, but there were so many scenes that I found super entertaining. Our group of Horsemen are fantastic. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, and Dave Franco capture the same great chemistry that made them a great group in the first movie and Lizzy Caplan is a perfect new addition. I had a blast with the movie and I laughed a lot. I also loved the continued story of Mark Ruffalo and especially loved the scenes with him and Morgan Freeman where he totally shined. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine were back for blood and they were great as always. Daniel Radcliffe joins the club and does an excellent job. I didn't experience the same wow factor here that I did with the end of the first movie, but at the same time I was very pleased with what they did. If you loved Now You See Me like I did, you need to see this sequel because it does the first justice. My grade for Now You See Me 2 is a 9/10.

The Conjuring 2 Review

If you follow my blog closely enough, you'll know that the horror genre is a genre that I'm actually a big fan of. I absolutely love myself a well-made horror movie. However, in that statement lies a problem. Nowadays it's really hard to find a well-made horror movie. Making a horror movie is a very lucrative business because they are dirt cheap to make and are easy to gain a profit. Most horror movies these days only take $5-$10 million at most to make and thus earning $15-$20 million is considered a win. Because of that, I feel a lot of studios care more about the money and thus will throw together a bunch of really cheap horror movies stuffed full of horror cliches without caring too much about quality. Due to the fact that at least 90 percent of them make a profit, they keep following that formula, which causes true fans like me to be really frustrated at the extreme lack of good horror these days. All that said, I'm always on the constant search for the few good horror movies that come out and when it happens I do my best to wave a huge flag to notify true horror fans that I found one. Today I... kinda found one. I'm going to be more critical of The Conjuring 2 than many reviews I've seen, but I will admit that it's better than most that have come out recently.

I never wrote a review of The Conjuring. This is because I didn't actually see it until recently. Don't know what my holdup was. I just never got around to it for some reason. With all the movies that come out every year, that sometimes happens. Overall I thought The Conjuring was a very well crafted horror movie. I'm really sick of all the horror movies that rely heavily on jump scares, blood, gore, sex, nudity, and language to be effective. Part of the problem with horror movies these days is that those elements are the primary focus when studios make these movies. Elements like plot, screenplay, and acting are practically thrown out the window. The Conjuring is a movie that actually focused on the latter first, which is what all horror movies should do. In fact, the blood and gore was very limited, and there was no sex, nudity, or language used all. There were jump scares, but all of them served a good purpose to the plot, which was the main focus. This is something that I really appreciated about the movie. Director James Wan did a great job of building honest tension that made it so I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and I also loved the story about this haunting that was supposedly going on at that house for the last hundred or so years.

What I didn't like about The Conjuring was that they tried to shove it down my throat that the events in the movie actually happened. Supernatural horror movies can be really good. I have no problem with the genre as a whole. The TV show Supernatural is one of my favorite shows and they deal with this stuff in pretty much every episode. What I do have a problem with are the supernatural horror movies that claim they are based on a true story and try to drive that into your head, but are really a work of fiction when you research the actual events. If a studio wants to take events that happened and make a fictional movie inspired by that, that's fine with me. But if a big part of the reason why the movie is supposed to be scary is because the events spoken of actually happened, but they really didn't, then it's something that I laugh at because it takes away all of the tension. Simply put, I don't believe in the supernatural. Not in the way it's portrayed in these supernatural horror movies, anyways. With The Conjuring, they tell the story of an evil witch from the Salem Witch Trials that is haunting the house and causing everyone that lives there to commit suicide. Despite what the movie tries to tell you, the whole thing is a bunch of bull crap. Well-crafted horror movie. Annoying premise. Thus it's good, but not great.

The Conjuring 2 has the same problems, but amplified. Both movies focus on two real-life paranormal investigators named Ed and Lorraine Warren that investigated tons of cases. To the credit of both movies, they do an excellent job of following the Warrens' account to a t. But that account is the issue. With the first movie, the current owner of the house went through detail by detail of every character brought up and proved how horribly fake the whole story is. Granted, it's a game of he said, she said, but when you listen to the account of the current owner and then listen to Lorraine Warren and/or Andrea Perron, it's really obvious as to whose account is more legit. I'll give a you clue. It's not the Warrens' account. Before I saw The Conjuring 2, I researched the heck out of the case this is based off of, which is one of the more publicized paranormal stories in history, and the huge consensus is that the two young girls in the family set the whole thing up and did a dang good job of tricking everyone. The only people that believe them are the people like the Warrens who will believe any and every paranormal case they investigate. Perhaps I shouldn't have done this research and just tried to go enjoy the movie, but I have this weird thing where if a movie tries to shove down my throat that it's a true story, then I like holding them to that. If the whole thing ends up being bogus, I take issue because I feel I was lied to.

The funny thing with The Conjuring 2 is that a huge portion of the movie actually focused on the skepticism towards this case. The first movie didn't do that at all. Everyone in the movie just bought into the ghost story and the focus was on learning about the ghost and figuring out how to stop it. I think I actually preferred the first movie's methods because the skepticism story arc actually bothered me. First off, all the skeptics in the movie were portrayed as idiots. Second, every time a skeptic argument was brought up, the movie debunked it. Now if they wanted to go with the ambiguous route and present two objective sides to the story and let the audience decide what happened, that would be cool. That wasn't the goal here. Instead the goal was to shove it down your throats for nearly the whole 134 minute run time that they were telling a true story and no aspect of their movie was false and thus their movie is super scary because it could happen to everyone. No. I was throwing the b.s. flag the entire time and because the movie tried so hard to convince me to believe it, I almost felt like I was arguing with the movie the whole time. It was like one of those situations where your crazy old uncle is telling you a story that he claims is true, but you know is false and you impatiently sit there waiting for him to be done. Yeah, that was this movie.

However, despite all this, I told myself going in that if this movie were to have the same effective horror elements that the first one had, I would give it a pass. But that was a mixed bag for me. The movie does follow the formula of the first movie in how it is crafted, and I once again appreciated that. There's no language in the movie. There's no sex or nudity at all. With everything that happened in the home -- all the furniture, plates, knives, etc flying around -- they had every right to make this a bloody gore-fest. But it's not. The movie is rated R, but for "terror and horror violence." This is probably an appropriate rating because young teenagers and kids who usually go to PG-13 movies might have nightmares for the rest of their lives if they see this movie, but I loved how the movie focused on making a movie instead of stuffing it with blood, gore, nudity, and language and calling that good. That said, while I appreciated the approach, the first two-thirds of the movie weren't that scary for me as compared to the first. The first movie is terrifying. This second movie not so much. They tried to build a ton of tension and provide a lot of scares, but it just didn't work this time for me. I was bored. The ghost in this one didn't even have an interesting back story like the first movie's ghost did. I was disappointed.

Two-thirds of the way through, I was thinking that I was actually going to write a negative review for this movie, which made me sad because it is better than most horror movies. But I just wasn't buying it. It wasn't that scary and they were spending too much time trying to shove the "based on a true story" aspect down my throat. But then there came a point where the movie turned around. I'm not going to spoil anything, but I will just say that this turning point came when certain characters were on a train. From that point on, the movie was phenomenal and I was wishing that the first two-thirds of the movie would've followed that because this would've made for a great movie. I will admit that there was no point in this ending that was as jaw-dropping as the exorcism scene in the first movie, but it was still good. And I do have to say that the acting throughout the movie was excellent. My favorite person in the movie was Vera Farmiga. I think she's a phenomenal actress. Sure, I may be biased because she does play Norma Bates in Bates Motel, which is one of my current favorite TV shows. But oh well. She was still good. Also great was the young girl who was possessed for much of the movie. Her name is Madison Wolfe and I'll be looking out for her from now on. I love myself a great child actor. They're hard to come by.

Overall, The Conjuring 2 was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I will give it huge props because most horror sequels are pure garbage, which is why I initially put it on the list of movies I was worried about heading into this year. But it turned out to be better than most horror movies in general and one of the best horror sequels. If you're one who is easily pleased with all these horror movies that come out, you should quickly run out to see The Conjuring 2 because you'll love it. If you loved The Conjuring and you aren't bothered by a movie that spends its entire run time lying to you about it being a true story, then you should also run out to see this because you will love this. But personally that was my hangup. Any movie that spends this much time trying to prove that its a true story, in my opinion better be the truest story ever told. But it's not. The whole thing is pretty bogus and that made me mad. But like I said, if it was a well-crafted horror movie, I would give it a pass. But that aspect of it was a mixed bag and this I am giving it a mixed review. I was more bored than scared for the first two-thirds of the movie and the evil spirit haunting the house was pretty dull. But the ending, while not as good as the first, was pretty fantastic and completely saved the movie. Thus my grade for The Conjuring 2 is a 7/10.

The Lobster Review

It's the summer in Hollywood and our current slate of summer movies is so jammed full of sequels, reboots, and attempted franchises. More so than normal it seems. What's been interesting to watch is how many of these movies are failing this summer when compared to their predecessors or their expectations. Neighbors 2. Crash. Alice Through the Looking Glass. Crash. X-Men: Apocalypse. Crash. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Crash. Captain America: Civil War. Okay, that one didn't crash, but it was expected to make $500-$600 million domestically based on the huge cast and it looks like it's going to barely sneak past $400 million. And we're just getting started this summer. What's going to be in store for Now You See Me 2, The Conjuring 2, Warcraft, Finding Dory, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Legend of Tarzan, The Purge: Election Year, Ghostbusters, Ice Age: Collision Course, Star Trek Beyond, Suicide Squad, Pete's Dragon, and Ben-Hur? How many more are going to fail? Are we getting sequel fatigue or attempted franchise fatigue? Where's all of our original films. Well, I got one for you. It's called The Lobster and it's starting to sneak into more and more theaters this summer. This is honestly about as original as it gets. And it might be the weirdest movie you'll see this year.

How about this for a premise? We're in some sort of dystopian future, I'm guessing. The specific timeline of the movie is unclear. But in this society, single people are essentially hunted down based on the laws of the city and sent to this hotel. Once you arrive at this hotel, you have 45 days to find a companion. If you fail, you are turned into an animal of your choice and sent off into the woods. There's a lot of strict rules in the hotel and the general goal is to drive into the minds of people how much better it is to be married and how awful it is to be single. Colin Ferrell is our star and he plays a man named David. David has been sent to the hotel because he recently got divorced. With him is his brother. Who is a dog. Because he went through the hotel and failed. Thus he is now a dog. David's animal of choice is a lobster and that's where the title of our movie comes from. If David doesn't find a companion in 45 days, he will be turned into a lobster. This premise sold me immediately. It premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival and spent 2015 making the festival rounds before finally hitting normal theaters just a few weeks ago. Because I'm not cool enough to go to film festivals, I of course had to wait like the rest of you, but once it came, I took the first chance I could get to see it.

I will say that this movie shocked me. I was expecting a fun, hilarious film that didn't take itself too seriously, but would be a great satirical commentary on the dating scene in the 21st century. I say it shocked me because this is not at all the movie I was expecting. It's not a light-hearted, fun comedy. It's also not serious and dark. This is completely messed up and weird. There is humor in the movie, but it's deadpan humor. It's the most deadpan movie that I can think of. All of the actors are emotionless and humorless throughout the whole movie. The tone of the movie is uncomfortable. The score itself gets very grinding at times and almost hard to listen to. You think the idea of this hotel and being turned into animals after 45 days is weird? That's just the beginning. This movie goes in so many strange, bizarre directions that you don't see coming at all. All of this had me completely speechless. As in I had no idea what to think of it. What in the fetch am I watching? That's what I was thinking the whole time. When I left the theater, I was super confused. And if you think based on this that I'm going rip this movie to shreds and give it a horrible review, you couldn't be more wrong. Strange and confusing isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes the most epic movies made are the ones that make no sense.

One example of this that comes to mind is 2001: A Space Odyssey. That movie is easily the most trippy and confusing movie that I have ever watched. It's 149 minutes of what in the fetch is going on. But it's the most epic what in the fetch is going on that you'll ever see. Thus I have to say that it's one of the greatest films ever made. Now please don't take this analogy too far. I'm not saying that The Lobster is as great of a movie as 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm just getting across the point that sometimes weird can be good. The Lobster is a weird movie. But it's a good weird. And it's definitely a movie that you have to take time to digest and ponder about before making a final determination on what to think. I personally like to get my reviews out as fast as I can after I see the movie, which is what I'm doing here. I don't want to wait a few weeks or months to write my review for this, but I realize it might take that much time or more to completely digest this movie and that might also include multiple viewings. I also don't know how exactly to recommend this movie because I do understand that a lot of people will walk out of the theaters and hate the movie. Definitely not for everyone. That's for certain. But if you're up for a weird, crazy ride, check this out.

While I do realize that I probably need more time to digest this, here's my initial thoughts as to the meaning and purpose of this movie. First off, this is very metaphorical. In our day, we don't have a setup where you are given 45 days to get married or you get turned into an animal, but metaphorically speaking, isn't that what we sometimes expect? We expect people to get married by a certain time. There's a ton of pressure. If you don't get married by a certain age, you are seen by some as a second-class citizen and almost cast off as if you were an animal. But as the movie explains, becoming an animal isn't the end of things. You can get a second chance as an animal to find another animal similar to you and live happily ever after. Or you can get crushed and destroyed by society. And isn't it true that sometimes married people get put on a pedestal, like married people are higher class citizens? Isn't it true that single people, especially older single people or divorced people, are sometimes seen as second class citizens who just can't figure things out? And isn't true that often we do things to try to help these single people that really just make things a whole heck of a lot worse? I don't think this movie has an agenda or is trying to make a statement of sorts. But it is a pretty accurate reflection on our dating society as a whole.

There's a lot that I could say about this movie. I could dive into each twist and turn or section of this bizarre film and compare it to an aspect of our current dating society. But I'm not going to do that. First reason is because I don't want to spoil this movie for you. I want you to go into this bizarre film and be taken on the same weird, unexpected journey that I went on. As far as the premise I've described to you and the points I dove into in this review, I think I really only described like 10 percent of the film. The movie is weird. But isn't our dating culture weird? The tone and feel is uncomfortable, especially with the score. But isn't dating itself uncomfortable? That's the gist of this. This is the type of movie where every scene could be dissected and analyzed to the extreme. And I think once this is done, the movie will most likely get better and better the more you think about it. The other reason why I'm not going to analyze this movie that deeply is because I need more time. I need a few weeks or months to think about this. Then I want to go see this movie again at least once more after having let it digest. As far as a grade goes, that's tricky. As of right now, I'm thinking that a 9/10 is an appropriate score. But I'm throwing an asterisk on that. By the end of the year, this could ending up being my favorite movie. Or it could miss my top 10 list altogether. We'll see.

Supernatural Season 11 Review (SPOILERS)

I've been with Supernatural for six years now. I was introduced to the show back in 2010 and it didn't take me long at all to get caught up to where they were on TV. I've really enjoyed watching this journey that the Winchester brothers have been on for these past 11 seasons now. As with every show, it's had its ups and downs, but I've enjoyed how every season has been a new adventure for the brothers and I've enjoyed the formula each season has followed. We have an overall story arc that crosses the whole season, but at least half of each season becomes dedicated to individual monster-of-the-week episodes. Speaking of those, we've had all kinds of different monsters and supernatural creatures show up on the show from your typical vampires, werewolves, and evil spirits to other things that are completely out of the box and unique to the show. We've also dove into tons of different mythologies in the show, both religious and non-religious, all of which has had its own unique Supernatural spin to it. It's been quite the wild ride that's apparently not ending anytime soon. I've personally committed to being with them to the end, whenever that is, so you should continue to see these Supernatural reviews for as long as the show runs. With that in mind, let's dive into season 11! Spoilers ahead, of course.

Speaking of ups and downs for this show, the first five seasons all built on each other, which led to an amazing climax in season 5. That was initially supposed to be the final season, but they decided to continue and threw in that one final scene at the end of "Swan Song" which opened the door to a season 6. I don't want to hate on season 6 too much because I still enjoyed it, so let's just call it my 11th favorite season of Supernatural. Season 7 took a step forward as did season 8 and I was thinking that eventually we'd get back to the season 5 high point in terms of quality. But then season 9 crashed a bit which then led to a season 10 that was, well, let's just say that season 10 would probably be my 10th favorite season of Supernatural. Thus I wasn't expecting anything amazing or epic heading into season 11, especially since I thought they were going to end things at season 10 and thus I got the feeling that the show was beginning to wander aimlessly, which can be a bad thing. Perhaps it's time to wrap things up? That's what I was thinking anyways. But holy freaking cow, I was very pleasantly shocked at how fantastic this season was. When all was said and done, I honestly think this ranks as high as my second favorite season of Supernatural, behind only the epic and perhaps insurmountable season 5.

There's a lot that I could say about this season and I could dive chronologically into this review like I have done in some of my other TV show reviews that I have done recently, but we're going to cut right to the chase and talk about the huge elephant in the room right off the bat instead of saving it for the end. Season 11 finally did something that I have been anticipating ever since season 5. They introduced God. We learned back in season 5 that the angels decided to start the apocalypse because God was M.I.A. There's more to the story there, but that's the gist of it. That sparked a lot of questions. Where is God? Why did he go missing? Why isn't he coming off the sidelines to help people? And is the prophet Chuck actually God? It was confirmed by Rob Benedict, the actor who plays Chuck, that the intentions were for his character to become God, but the show itself never confirmed it. All we knew is that Chuck was a prophet who was writing the Winchester gospel, the Supernatural books, helps out a bit in season 5, and then vanishes at the end of "Swan Song." He then shows up for a brief second in season 10 at the end of their 200th episode, "Fan Fiction," which was a huge tease that he would be showing up in the near future. But when?

"Don't Call Me Shurley" was the episode. On IMDb, it's rightfully the highest rated episode of season 11, just barely ahead of "Baby," the episode towards the beginning told from the perspective of the Impala, and the mid-season finale, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" In fact, "Don't Call Me Shurly" is in a three-way tie on IMDb for the highest rated episode ever with "Swan Song" and "Changing Channels," both from season 5. This episode is where all the suspicions and rumors were confirmed. Chuck is God. Rob Benedict has officially joined the ranks of actors who have portrayed God in a movie or TV show. Naturally this has sparked a lot of controversy, especially among Christians. A lot of people have stated that they didn't want Supernatural to bring God onto the show. They said it would be better for them to talk about him, but not actually show him. I understand that viewpoint, but I had an opposite viewpoint. I wanted God to show up and I wanted Chuck to be God. Now that Chuck is God and has shown up, there were a lot of people that were offended by how the show portrayed him. I mean, I created a message board on IMDb defending his portrayal and a week later I showed up and that board had 15 pages of responses, most of which were Christians saying how displeased they were and atheists calling those Christians crazy. So yeah, this has been quite controversial, which is to be expected when it's God we're talking about.

Yes, as you could tell, I'm going to once again defend this portrayal, because I liked it. This time, though, I've had longer to think about it and it's on my own blog instead of an IMDb message board. Call that other post me testing the waters and reading what other people had to say before giving my final statement here. The first thing that I should mention is that what I am about to say, I say as someone who considers himself an active Christian who believes in God. This is not the place to dive into those specific beliefs, but I feel that's worth mentioning so that you know where I'm coming from. I don't think this is a situation where the only people to like this portrayal have to be non-Christians. I don't think Supernatural writers were trying to offensive and I don't think it comes off that way, either. This show is not trying to be religious or spiritual. They didn't have some sort of secret agenda to try to convince people to believe in God or to try to persuade believers that their ideas of God are wrong. This is all about story-telling here. Much of Supernatural's lore has had a biblical base. Angels, demons, Heaven, and Hell have been the meat of Supernatural. And all of those aspects have had their own Supernatural twist to it. They've taken real ideas an mythologies and used them to create their own unique universe. Their version of God fits their universe perfectly.

Is this an accurate portrayal of God? Well, that's a bit of a tricky question. It's safe to say that a lot of people who have lived on this earth have subscribed to the idea of a supreme being or creator. But there have been thousands if not millions or more different ideas throughout history of who this being is and what he does. I have my personal beliefs. No, Supernatural's portrayal of God doesn't match my beliefs of God at all, but one of the things I've really enjoyed in my life is the study of religion and I've found it fascinating to learn all the things that other people believe. Each different religion, sect, or set of ideas believes in something slightly different about God. You have everything from God doesn't exist to God does exist but he doesn't care to God exists, cares, and is involved in every aspect of every person's life. Even in the Christian denomination, there are so many different religions that teach different things about God. When it comes to Christianity, most of them use the Bible. It's interesting how one book can be interpreted a hundred different ways and have so many different translations. So if you say that Supernatural's God is an inaccurate portrayal of God, what are you basing your arguments off of? They did with God what they've always done. They've taken a belief or a mythology and they put their own Supernatural spin on it. If you understand it from that perspective, this can be a very enjoyable season.

With God, Supernatural has decided to take the angle that God is the creator. The earth and the people on it are his creations. I would say that's the basis of this character. That's not necessarily blasphemous. That's just the direction they've decided to go. In a way, it's more in line with what we've seen in Greek or Norse mythologies. In Supernatural, God is not human. God never was human. Humans aren't God's children. Humans are just God's creations. These creations became super rebellious and God got tired of stepping in and trying to fix everything, so he decided to let things play out in a normal, natural way. And that's why he's been on the sidelines this whole show. Honestly that's different than I expected and not how I see things personally, but it's not blasphemous. It's just different. And adding to that, Supernatural has decided to play with the pre-creation story. We have God. God had a sister named Amara. God also has an army of soldiers, which are the angels. The lead angels are the archangels -- Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel, and Raphael. A war broke out between God and Amara, which ended by God and his archangels locking her up. To keep her locked up, someone had to hold a mark, which later comes to be known as the Mark of Cain. God trusted his favorite archangel with the Mark, that being Lucifer.

Man this is some good stuff. The reason I loved season 5 so much is because they dove so deep this mythology. I was fascinated by it. Thus it should be no surprise to you that the season where they finally bring it back and dive even deeper into the mythology is the season that becomes my second favorite season. All of this fits together so well with what they have already set up. As our story goes, Lucifer, who God trusted and loved most, ends up becoming corrupted by the Mark and turns against humanity. This makes God even more sad after he had to lock up his own sister. So Lucifer gets banished to Hell, where he becomes the father of Hell and the demons. The Mark was passed by Lucifer to Cain. Cain eventually gives the Mark to Dean Winchester thousands of years later in season 9. Just like Lucifer and Cain, the Mark starts to corrupt Dean as well and so a lot of time in season 9 and 10 is spent on Dean and Sam trying to figure out how to get rid of the Mark, not knowing the consequences of doing so. At the end of season 10, they finally get rid of the Mark, which then unleashes the darkness onto the earth, which we soon learn in season 11 is in fact Amara, God's sister. Being that she has been locked up for thousands of years, she is legitimately angry and wants to destroy all of God's creations as revenge.

This is why season 11 is fantastic. All this story that I've recapped for you is what we learn in season 11. We had pieces throughout the previous seasons. We knew that God was on the sidelines. We knew that Lucifer had been banished to Hell. We see the story of the apocalypse in season 5 when Lucifer is accidentally unleashed at the end of season 4. We see the archangels also trying to start the apocalypse. We see the death of Gabriel and Raphael. We see Lucifer and Michael getting re-trapped in the cage in Hell thanks to Sam and Dean. We see the stuff about Cain and the Mark in season 9. But season 11 is where this all comes together. The first part of the season was all about Amara. She gets unleashed and they have to figure out how to stop her. On my blog, I've talked a lot about what makes a good villain. There's a lot of elements to this, but the best villains in my opinion are the ones who have a good backstory, are relatable to a degree, and have good motivations for what they are doing. Amara has all of this. The backstory that I've told is phenomenal. Her anger, rage, and desire for revenge is very relatable. You don't agree with what she does, but you can understand why she is doing it. On top of this, she is menacing and powerful, but yet also super attractive and has incredible romantic chemistry with Dean, which makes him conflicted the whole season. He wants to stop her, but he can't.

Amara's plan in this season is to destroy the earth. I've stated a lot recently that this is a very cliche villain plan that didn't work for me in The Flash, Arrow, or X-Men: Apocalypse. In fact, I said I was kinda done with this specific story arc. But I loved it here in Supernatural season 11. Why does this work? Motivations. With each villain that decides to destroy the earth, you have to ask what the earth did to them to deserve being destroyed. Why does Zoom in The Flash decide to destroy the earth? Why does Damien Darhk in Arrow decide to destroy the earth? Why does Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse decide to destroy the earth? I'm not going to spoil any of those in case you haven't seen them, but needless to say, their motivations are all pathetic. The earth didn't do enough to them to deserve being destroyed. Magneto in X-Men: Apocalypse? Yeah that worked. They didn't do enough with that, but I bought the idea. Amara's motivations? Why is she trying to destroy the earth? Because her brother, God, locked her away for thousands of years, claiming she was a horrible, destructive force that would destroy the earth. She of course claims she wasn't as destructive as God made her out to be, but after being locked away for so many years, she's back and the idea of her wanting revenge by destroying God's creations makes perfect sense to me.

I was really intrigued by all the Amara stuff from the beginning of the season. All the young actresses who played her were amazing and when we finally got to adult Amara played by Emily Swallow, she was fantastic. But Amara wasn't the only big baddie from this season. We also have the biggest baddie of them all. Lucifer. When it comes to a formula for how good to make a good villain, Lucifer is the perfect example. Biblically speaking, he was an angel of light who fell from Heaven and is out to deceive humanity. He knows he is on the losing team, but he's out to drag as many people down with him as possible and he'll do whatever he can to accomplish that. That's the real Lucifer I'm talking about in the Bible. Supernatural follows that pretty good. As I've already stated in my recap in my review, Lucifer was an archangel who God loved most and trusted with the Mark. The Mark was his downfall and he refused to obey God and worship humanity. This is the best villain backstory you can get. What I really love about Lucifer this season is that he's cunning and smart. When he's talking to Sam, he makes a dang good case as to why Sam should help him get out of the cage because he claims he is the only one who can stop Amara. After all, Sam came to him in the first place because he thought he was receiving visions from God to recruit Lucifer. Nope, those were from Lucifer.

At the mid-season finale, when I saw "guest starring Mark Pellegrino," I knew I was in for a treat. Mark Pellegrino played Lucifer on Supernatural in season 5, which coincidentally was going on at the same time as his role as Jacob on Lost, who was the ultimate good guy on that show. He nailed both parts perfectly and thus immediately become one of my favorite TV actors. It was great seeing him back in this and he really stepped up his game as Lucifer. When some people think of Lucifer, they think big, evil, ominous, and scary. When I think of Lucifer, I think cunning, smart, and dangerous because it is easy to fall in his traps. Lucifer in this is the latter and I loved it. In addition to a win for Mark Pellegrino, the other actor who deserves so much praise is Misha Collins. After a few episodes of Mark Pellegrino, Lucifer convinces Castiel to take on his mantle and Castiel agrees. Thus Castiel becomes Cassifer or Lustiel. I prefer Cassifer Honestly I've loved Misha Collins throughout this series. He's phenomenal. Him as Cassifer this season is perfect. He captures all of the isms of Mark Pellegrino and even sometimes sounds like him. Cassifer "joins" the team to help stop Amara and ends up getting banished in the finale, bringing Castiel back. We don't know where he is and I don't think we're done with him. But Misha Collins proved this season that he might be the best actor on this show. Round of applause from me.

After the events of Mark Pellegrino's Lucifer and him being accepted into Castiel, we go on a string of monster-of-the-week episodes, which I always enjoy. Following those episodes, we are onto the final act of the season. The last four episodes. These episodes are all fantastic and put a nice, pretty bow on this season. I've talked plenty about God, but the end of the season is God showing up because Amara needs to be stopped and we have God, Metatron, Crowley, Rowena, Cassifer, Sam, and Dean all teaming up to take down Amara. This makes for quite the dynamic with a team of villains, heroes, and anti-heroes (Crowley) uniting for one important cause. Save the earth from God's angry, powerful sister. Can they kill Amara? God says no. Light and darkness have to both exist. You can't have one without the other. That's a profound statement right there that I loved. They have to trap her. Before, it took God and all the archangels to stop her and even then that barely worked. With two archangels dead and another in a horrible state (Michael), that's not an option this time. God reveals that archangels can be rebuilt (more on that in a second), but there's no time. God at first says he's going to sacrifice himself. That made me worried, but thankfully they didn't go through with that. Cassifer was actually trapped by Amara, but they save him. Metatron has a heroic ending to his character's arc, which was cool. Then they recruit Crowley and Rowena along with Cassifer to make one final assault.

It fails. Lucifer is banished somewhere. Castiel is back. God is severely injured and apparently dying. Everyone else is depressed because the sun is dying and they all assume it was Amara's doing. They're depressed. But in the finale, a plan is formed to create a bomb out of souls strong enough to kill Amara, which is a final move of desperation. Honestly I was worried about how this was going to finish, but it turns out it was great. Amara wasn't killing the sun. That was caused by God dying. If God dies, the universe dies with him and everyone will cease to exist. This I liked. Killing God would've crossed a line for me, so this reveal made sense. When Amara realizes this, that's the turning point for her character. Then we have a classic Supernatural ending that teaches the importance of family. At the heart of this show, that's what this is about. Family. Two brothers that will do anything for her. And now Amara realizes that despite her anger towards God, he's still her brother. God feels the same way about her. She's her sister. Following a great speech by Jensen Ackles, Amara teleports God over, heals him, and they depart as a happy family after getting rid of the bomb in Dean. Family. Topping things off, Dean kindly asks God why he feels comfortable leaving earth and God gives a great response. The earth has Dean. Boom!

Lets finish this review off with an outlook towards the future. Season 12 got renewed along with the rest of CW's lineup. Word is Jensen and Jared have also signed contracts for season 13, so I have a feeling that season 12 will not be our final season and I have no idea what will. But the other thing the finale did was setup a duel against the Men of Letters. Or the Ladies of Letters? A woman from that organization approaches Sam and is not happy with everything that's gone on. If this is the direction they're planning, I don't know if I'm totally sold. But I'll still be with them. I do like the out of left field return of Mary Winchester, brought back by Amara as her thanks to Dean. "Mom?" That's our final line of the episode. I really hope she's here to stay. And I also hope that their Dad can come back somehow, too, but I'm at least super happy with Mary Winchester on the show. Please keep her around, writers! Make her a regular that is here to stay. That would be so boss! I also want an eventual return of the archangels, because God said they can come back. Now he has time to rebuild them. The return of Gabriel, aka the trickster? Yes, please! Maybe this show will end with a final archangel battle with God, Lucifer, Crowley, and all the archangels. Doesn't that sound like a great idea for a final season, whenever that final season is? Anyways, that's all have. Till next season!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Review

Two years ago at this exact time, I was dreading the idea of Michael Bay taking my beloved Ninja Turtles franchise and giving it the Transformers treatment. The turtles looked ugly. The movie looked awful. They cast Megan freaking Fox as April O'Neil. Shredder looked like a giant evil transformer. It was just a disaster waiting to happen. Then August 2014 came around and I gave it a chance. No, I didn't like it. It had a lot of issues. But much to my surprise, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. I guess Michael Bay as a producer is not quite as horrible as Michael Bay as a director. Fast forward in time a bit. Stephen Amell from Arrow is cast as Casey Jones and he gives frequent updates via his video chats that he believes that they have made a good Ninja Turtles movie. I became conflicted at that because my mind had been programmed to be worried about this movie and now Stephen Amell says its going to be good? Fast forward even more to the point where the trailers are released and suddenly I find myself warming up to the idea of this movie because it looked fun. Now return to the present. I have seen the movie and in a surprise twist of events, I'm going to give this movie a positive review. I had a good time with it.

Before I dive into my reasoning for this, let's stop for a second. If your story is much different than mine and you hated the first movie with a fiery passion and you think that the trailers for this one have looked awful beyond reason, then do yourself a favor. Skip this movie. There's zero reason for you to see it because you are not going to enjoy it. I also want to make it clear that when I say I am giving this a positive review, I fully admit that this is not a great movie by any means, so it's not like I'm saying this is a candidate for my favorite movies of 2016 list. I'm just saying I had a good time with it. Yes, the turtles are giant and ugly. Yes, they're voices are weird. Yes, they're more annoying than funny. Yes, they have a funky back story where they started as Megan Fox's pets. Yes, the villains have zero depth to them. Yes, there are a lot of useless side characters. But with all the horrible things that the first movie set up, everyone involved here, on and off camera, felt like they did their best job to give us a fun sequel to a below average movie. They can't change what was done in the past, but they can do their best to make a fun movie for their target audience and that's what they've done.

As far as the story goes, the movie relies on a whole lot of fan service to make things work and it kinda does. At the beginning of the movie, the turtles ride around in the classic turtle van. Shredder escapes and is the villain again, but this time he's without his mask for most of the movie, thus making him feel slightly more human. They take a page or two from the 90's sequel, Secret of the Ooze, by using purple ooze as a key element of the movie. Shredder experiments on two thugs with that purple ooze, turning them into a giant warthog and a giant rhinoceros. Bebop and Rocksteady! Casey Jones joins the team. Shredder starts working with another crazy villain named Krang. Fan service! It was a lot of fun seeing all of this. One or two of these elements did show up in the old movies, but for the most part these are popular elements from Ninja Turtles lore that were taken straight from the cartoons and comics that haven't shown up on the big screen yet and were here to please Ninja Turtles fans. It worked. For me at least. Speaking of the Ninja Turtles cartoons, this movie felt like I was watching a Ninja Turtles cartoon. In live action on the big screen, but that's what it felt like to me and I enjoyed that.

Granted, at times it also felt like I was watching a new Ninja Turtles cartoon written for a 7-year-old because the dialogue and script was super cheesy and pretty awful at points. It took them a while to get into the groove of things. I don't have kids of my own, but I do have a lot of nieces and nephews around the age that I said and I got the feel as I was watching this that this would be a movie that they would really enjoy. There is a little more language and violence than I would personally feel comfortable showing to kids because they felt the need to make this PG-13, but if you took your kids to the first movie and they loved it, then I would say this is a must see for them. I would say older kids and not younger kids, but this is a judgment call for you. If your kids like all the Marvel superhero movies and they are fans of the Ninja Turtles, I'm guessing they'll enjoy this movie. Yes, this movie is getting destroyed by the critics, but did you know that every Ninja Turtles movie ever made has been destroyed by the critics. The highest a Ninja Turtles movie is on Rotten Tomatoes is 40 percent. That's the original 1990 movie that I personally love. So these are movies that are obviously not for them. And for the record, the score for this one has gone up. When I submitted my June movie preview yesterday, it was at 18 percent. Right now it's moved up to 34 percent, which is higher than the 2014 movie.

Lets talk about the characters in this movie. There was only one character that was consistently awful throughout and that was Tyler Perry. He played a wannabe villain of sorts that Shredder was manipulating and he was a complete cheeseball throughout and was completely useless to the plot. Outside him, everyone else did a decent job. And yes, that's including Megan Fox. Of course we had to get our Megan Fox boob shot in. If you've seen the first two Transformers movies, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But there was only one of those and it was the one in every trailer. Outside that shot, she actually played a useful human being that had good chemistry with the turtles and did things to help the forward the plot. She wasn't amazing by any means, but these things I mentioned are a few steps forward for the girl as she's normally only cast to look sexy. Making a surprisingly good partner in crime with Megan was Stephen Amell. I love Stephen Amell as an actor. Arrow has gone downhill, but I still love him in it. I use the word "surprisingly" in the last sentence not as an insult to him, but just because I wouldn't think of teaming him up with Megan Fox in a movie, but it worked. As Stephen Amell does great as Casey Jones. Do I buy him as Casey Jones? Not really. It still felt like he was Oliver Queen in this movie. But hey, that's not a bad thing. Nothing wrong with an Arrow/Ninja Turtles crossover, right?

I suppose I should mention Will Arnett. He was in the movie again. I don't know why and I don't know if he even knew why because his character was useless. That said, he had a lot of fun with everything and put some humor and passion into his useless role, which I appreciated. As far as the villains go, we had a lot of them. I already mentioned I didn't like Tyler Perry. The others are fine. We still don't have much of a backstory for Shredder, which is disappointing, but he does feel a little more human in this without his mask. His two henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady, are a ton of fun. I want to see them back if this makes enough money to justify future movies. And finally we have Krang. If you don't know the comics or the cartoons, you might be horrified by this dude as he is one of the ugliest looking villains. He's a talking brain coming out of the middle of a robot stomach. If you do know the comics or the cartoons, you'll be happy to see this guy. It's pure fan service with his character. As a villain, he is strong and crazy, making for a great final battle between him and the turtles, so I can't complain too much. But we have less backstory with him than with Shredder and he's barely in the movie. He collaborates with Shredder for a minute or two in the middle and then he shows up to fight the turtles at the end. That's it. Useless character, but fun fan service. Voiced by Brad Garrett, which I didn't realize until... now.

Last but not least, I have to talk about our turtles, because a turtles movie obviously hinges on them being good or not. I still like the classic look from the 90's for the turtles, but I suppose I've gotten used to this giant, unique look for them. What I was really hoping for was good turtle moments in this movie. One of the great things about the 1990 movie is not only does it have a lot of fun, turtle action, but it has a whole lot of heart and depth to these turtles. They're family. As family, they have natural conflicts with their different personalities and they have to learn to work together, especially once Splinter has been kidnapped. There's emotion and there's depth. I love it. I was hoping for something like that in this movie because that was lacking in our previous movie and thankfully we got it. There's some great turtle moments with this group. I suppose I won't spoil these moments, but lets just say that partway through they all have a difference of opinion and the two strongest personalities, Raph and Leo, butt heads. They also struggle with who they are and what their role is in the city. Because of all this, while they are strong individually, they don't work well as a team and they have to learn to work as a team and accept who they are. This movie doesn't go as deep or emotional as the 1990 movie, but it went deep enough to make me smile.

In the end, I had enough fun with this movie to make it worthwhile. No, I didn't like the 2014 movie, but I also ended up hating it a lot less than I thought. I didn't expect to be excited for the sequel. In fact, I groaned inside when they announced it. But then Stephen Amell was cast and talked up the movie. Then the trailers were released. In an odd turn of events, I became excited for the movie and I ended up enjoying it last night. The turtles had several good, emotional turtle moments. Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, and Will Arnett made for a decent team of human partners for the turtles. Splinter was actually a good mentor to the turtles this time around in his limited role. Our team of villains, outside Tyler Perry, were good enough. Krang was cool, Bebop and Rocksteady were a blast, and Shredder was slightly more human. Yes, the movie was really cheesy with some very poor dialogue in the first half of the movie. But it was jammed full of fan service, which in this case was a positive thing. The movie also manages to be bigger, louder, and funner than the 2014 movie and thus I had fun with it. It's nothing epic or deep, but there is fun to be had. I gave the 2014 movie a 5/10 when I reviewed it. If I were to re-grade it now, I might be slightly nicer and give it a 6/10. For this sequel, I'm going to go a little higher than both of those numbers and give it a 7/10.

Movie Preview: June 2016

We're now heading into our second month of Hollywood's summer and we had a bit of an interesting start. As I talked about in my preview for last month, the schedule for this summer turned out to be a bit lopsided as most studios chose to completely avoid Captain America: Civil War and stuff all of their titles into June and July. That made May a little more empty than normal and I had to dive into the indie realm to fill up my schedule. The other thing that made May a unique month is that all of the movies that did come out mostly under-performed. Neighbors 2 only made $21.8 million opening weekend (Neighbors did $49 million), X-Men: Apocalypse only did $65.8 million (Days of Future Past did $90.8 million) and Alice Through the Looking Glass only did $26.9 million (Alice in Wonderland did $116.1 million). You can even argue that Captain America: Civil War performed slightly under expectations. Most thought it would perform like an Avengers sequel. Turns out it followed the trajectory of Iron Man 3 instead. All that means that this was the first May in six years to not hit $1 billion. Coming up in June we have a slate full of sequels and none of them are guaranteed to have any success. We'll see if this continues to be the summer of disappointing sequels or if something can actually catch on.

June 2nd - 4th-

Right out of the gate, we have a sequel in a highly beloved franchise with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Kids who grew up in the 80's and 90's are very well aware of the Ninja Turtles. There were TV shows, comics, video games, toys, and of course the three feature-length films. Now all of those kids who grew up in the 90's and 90's have kids of their own and the Ninja Turtles have had a bit of resurgence for their kids. Two years ago, the Michael Bay produced reboot of the franchise hit theaters with horrible reviews and negative buzz, but turned out to be completely critic-proof at the box office as it opened up to $65.6 million on its way to a domestic total of $191.2 million. Not bad at all. Looking back on things, critics have apparently hated all the TMNT movies. The 90's trilogy currently has Rotten Tomatoes scores of 40 percent, 33 percent, and 21 percent respectively. The animated movie from 2007 got a 34 percent and the aforementioned 2014 reboot got a 22 percent. It's a good thing these movies aren't for critics, right? Out of the Shadows currently stands at 18 percent, but I don't think that's going to stop our new generation of Ninja Turtle fans to check out this second movie.

I think it's safe to say that big summer blockbusters tend to skew more towards male movie goers than female movie goers. But amidst all of the fighting, action, and explosions that will happen this month, the female crowd will get at least one movie directed right at them and that is the romantic drama Me Before You. This movie is, of course, based off of the best-selling novel of the same name and thus has at least a small built-in audience that has been excited for this movie all year. Essential to these romantic dramas is the two leads and in this case, Me Before You has two very recognizable leads in Emilia Clarke and Sam Claffin. Most will know Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones and Sam Claffin comes fresh off his role as Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games movies. In terms of box office, two years ago at this time The Fault in Our Stars became a huge summer hit, but that's really the last time a movie from this genre really broke out. Not counting Fifty Shades of Grey, of course. If I Stay ($50.5 million), The Best of Me ($26.8 million), The Longest Ride ($37.4 million), The Age of Adaline ($42.6 million), The Choice ($32.0 million), and The Choice ($18.7 million) are our recent examples. Look for Me Before You to fall somewhere in that range with its final total.

The final wide release of the weekend will be the movie that is most likely to fly in completely under the radar and that is Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. This is Universal's second raunch-com in three weeks and although they'll be looking for a recovery after the failure of Neighbors 2, they're not going to get it here. To be fair, though, the expectations for this one are a lot lower. Popstar is done mockumentary style and is a satirical commentary on the lives of current pop stars by following the life of fictional pop star Conner4Real while using actual musicians, celebrities, and music producers as subjects of the mockumentary. Popstar comes to us via the comedic trio of The Lonely Island, which consists of Andy Samberg, Akivia Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. They are most well known for their work on Saturday Night Live, but have done a wide variety of other stuff in the music, TV, and film world. In the film world, they most well known for Hot Rod, which was an initial box office flop, but has since had a huge cult following. Popstar will probably have an initial run similar to that of Hod Rod as Hot Rod opened to $5.3 million back in 2007 while finishing with $13.9 million total.

June 10th - 12th- 

The second weekend of June has three more big titles, and although it's hard to foresee exactly which one will come on top, I'll start with the most anticipated and talked about of the bunch and that is Warcraft. The video game movie genre has had a rough go of it to say the least. While there have been a few exceptions here and there, for the most part these movies have received negative reactions from fans and critics alike and none of really done super well at the box office. This history has suggested that perhaps Hollywood should stop adapting video games into movies and just let video games be video games and movies be movies. However, Hollywood has been persistent with these adaptations regardless of the history with the determination to make something work. 2016 is the year where this genre will be held in the balance as two of the biggest names in video games hit the big screen with Warcraft this month and Assassin's Creed in December. Both gaming franchises have very deep, rich lores that should work well on the big screen. If both fail, is it time to finally put this genre to rest? The early outlook for Warcraft isn't super good as the early reviews are coming in as very sour. But the big questions are how critic proof will this movie be and how will the actual Warcraft fans react to this movie? That's what will tell the story here.

Horror movies are always a dime a dozen because of how cheap they are to make and how easy  it is to make a profit. Usually a final total of $10-$15 million is enough for a profit. That's why we see a lot of them. While we've already had a decent handful of horrors this year, the most anticipated one has definitely been The Conjuring 2. Speaking of bad history, horror sequels have had a very long history of tanking at the box office and/or being seen as inferior to their predecessors. A lot of people are honestly thinking that The Conjuring 2 will be the exception to that. The Conjuring back in 2013 did a phenomenal job of being a genuinely terrifying horror movie that didn't rely on all of the classic cliche horrors of our day. That led it to an opening weekend of $41 million and a final domestic total of $137 million. Add to that is a worldwide total of $318 million. Remember how I said it is easy for horror movies to make a profit? Yeah. The Conjuring's budget was only $20 million and it made $318 million. Not bad, I'd say. It looks like The Conjuring 2 has another legitimately terrifying premise and if that's true, this could easily steal Warcraft's thunder this weekend. In fact, good will from the first movie and the great marketing from the trailers might be enough to do that anyways, even if the movie is poorly received.

Three movies this weekend. Three movies the previous weekend. Two more highly anticipated movies the next weekend that I'm about to get into. Something's gotta give. Not all of them can make money. My personal bet is that the movie left in the dust this weekend will be Now You See Me 2. The first one was a personal favorite of mine, but apparently I was in the minority. It had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 49 percent and an audience score of just 70 percent. However, despite mixed reviews, it was a surprise hit at the box office with a final domestic total of $117.7 million and a worldwide total of $351.7 million. That's why we're getting a sequel. That said, it was the type of movie that worked well as a stand-alone film and a sequel doesn't make a whole lot of sense to the story. But we'll see if they can conjure up some more magic again both with plot and with the box office. They'll need it. It does boast the same huge cast as the first, minus Isla Fisher. Returning to the sequel is Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine. Added to the bunch is Daniel Radcliffe, who obviously has a lot of experience with movies about magic. Different type of magic here, though, than the Harry Potter movies.

June 17th - 19th-

As you can see, there's a whole lot of uncertainty this month and it will be interesting to watch things play out. Out of all the uncertainty, there seems to be one movie that is a guaranteed hit and that is Finding Dory. In general, Pixar has had an excellent track record with audiences and the box office. Their one big exception comes with their most recent movie The Good Dinosaur, which has a very long story to it that I won't tell here. Finding Dory will get them back on track. It may be hard to believe, but it's now been 13 years since Finding Nemo hit theaters. Ellen DeGeneres, voice of Dory, has been begging for a sequel ever since. She finally got her wish. Turns out that she'll be the star as this time around the crew will be searching for Dory instead of Nemo while Dory will also be trying to find her family. Without adjusting for ticket price inflation, Finding Nemo is Pixar's third highest grossing movie, behind only Toy Story 3 and Inside Out. When you do adjust for ticket price inflation, it actually is Pixar's number one movie as its adjusted total is a whopping $483.4 million. While it might not be fair to expect Finding Dory to get quite that high, a final domestic total between Toy Story 3 ($415.0 million) and Inside Out ($356.5 million) seems like a safe bet. With Captain America: Civil War looking like it will close at around $400 million instead of the expected $500-$600 million that some thought, Finding Dory actually has a shot of stealing its title as the biggest movie of the summer.

Don't underestimate the power of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! Last summer he surprised the world by carrying San Andreas to a $155.2 million domestic total when everyone was calling bust on the film. This summer he's teaming up with comedic superstar Kevin Hart in the comedy Central Intelligence. Dwayne Johnson has proven time and time again that he is one of the biggest box office draws of our day. And I do mean biggest in two different ways. He puts franchises on his back and single-handedly, in some instances, carries them to success while looking huge and imposing in those movies. He also has a very likeable charisma to him that makes him a surprisingly versatile actor. There's a reason why every week seems to have a new announcement of an upcoming film that the man has been cast to be in. His co-star Kevin Hart has also been a solid box-office draw. Six of his last seven movies that he's starred in have opened north of $20 million and he's been a big reason why. Teaming these two up in a comedy seems like the perfect formula for success. And it has a PG-13 rating, which makes it accessible to old and young crowds. This should make for a "huge" weekend at the box office.

June 24th - 26th-

The Final weekend of June sees one final highly anticipated released as well as a smaller war film that could fly under the radar and be a moderate hit. The highly anticipated release that I speak of is Independence Day: Resurgence. "We've had 20 years to prepare. So have they." When you think of alien invasion movies, the first one you would most likely pop into your head is Independence Day. Back in 1996, Independence Day earned a huge $306.2 million domestically, which was easily the best of that year. Adjusting for ticket price inflation, that is equivalent to $594.3 million. Last summer, Jurassic World showed what can happen when you successfully revive a popular 90's movie/franchise. Can Independence Day: Resurgence be this year's Jurassic World? I doubt it. But yet I didn't think Jurassic World was going to make much more than $200 million, either. Roland Emmerich is back as director, which could be good or bad. I say good because he's the original director. I say bad because his career as a director has gone downhill since Independence Day. His resume post-Independence Day includes Godzilla (1998), The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 B.C., 2012, Anonymous, White House Down, and Stonewall. That's... not a good resume. I wouldn't be surprised if this was yet another under-performing sequel. Yet I wouldn't be surprised if this was an enormous hit. It's really the biggest wild card of the summer.

The final movie of the month is the aforementioned war film I spoke in Free State of Jones. This movie comes to us via STX Entertainment, a newer distribution company dedicated to making several medium-budget films each year. So far they've given us The Gift, Secret in their Eyes, The Boy, and Hardcore Henry. In addition to Free State of Jones, they have four more films coming later this year, so we'll be talking about them frequently throughout the year. The placement of this movie seems a bit odd as this looks like an Oscar-contending film coming out in the middle of the summer instead of the fall. Free State of Jones stars Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Keri Russell and is a true story about a small farmer in Mississippi during the Civil War that leads a group of rebels against the Confederacy, causing Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy and create a Free State of Jones. STX's highest-grossing movie is The Gift, which opened to $11.9 million on its way to $43.8 million total. Those seem like good numbers for Free State of Jones. If it gets great reviews, I could see it even topping those numbers to become STX's biggest movie yet.

Alice Through the Looking Glass Review

It's the sequel that no one wanted, but the one we got anyways because the first movie made $1 billion at the worldwide box office. It's baffling really. Like seriously, go look at the list of the 25 movies that have made at least $1 billion and try to find one in there that is more universally disliked than Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Outside of maybe Transformers: Age of Extinction, you might actually come up empty. So how in the frack did it earn $1 billion when no one liked it? Simple. Disney had the absolute perfect timing with its release as it was the next big 3D adventure after Avatar revolutionized the cinematic experience back in late 2009. That's it. Disney got lucky. This time around, they didn't get lucky. Disney's first mistake was that they tricked themselves into believing people wanted this sequel. Second mistake was waiting six years to release the sequel. Third mistake was not realizing that no one cares about 3D anymore. Add in some poisonous reviews and poor word of mouth and your result is a movie that only makes $26.9 million on opening weekend, which is really bad considering its predecessor opened to $116.1 million. That's a 77 percent drop-off. Ouch. But is it really as bad as everyone is saying? Yes. Yes, it actually is.

When I first watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, I remember being lost, confused, and bored for most of the movie. The movie may have been visually impressive, but Alice herself was a dull character, none of the side characters were interesting, the plot was dull, and the evil queen was extremely annoying. The best part of the movie was when the dragon showed up at the end. I know they don't actually call it a dragon, but let's not fool ourselves. It's a dragon. Was the classic Alice in Wonderland really this bad or was this just a really pathetic remake/sequel thing? Most would go for the second answer, but I'm going to shock the world and say a little bit of both. You may have known that recently I re-watched all 55 of the movies in the official Walt Disney Animation Studios cannon and ranked them. Where did I put the original Alice in Wonderland? Bottom five. 50 out of 55. I didn't like it. Visually it's great and it has a lot of quotable lines, but the story is on crack. I'm half convinced that it's a movie about a little girl that accidentally came by some pretty hard drugs and thus went to "Wonderland" where there is absolutely no rhyme or reason. I know that wasn't the actual intentions of the story, but it fits. Surprisingly well.

I'm not here to review the old Alice in Wonderland or argue about whether or not it's considered blasphemous to hate on a "classic," but I figured you should probably know my history with the franchise before we discuss this sequel so that you know where I'm coming from. Perhaps that means I'm not the most qualified to review an Alice in Wonderland movie if I've never enjoyed a movie or a story from that universe, but if you're reading this review that means you're here for my opinion and I'm going to give it to you. Honestly I got exactly what I've learned to expect from an Alice in Wonderland movie with Alice Through the Looking Glass. Visually impressive. Quotable lines. Horrible plot. I suppose we call it Alice Through the Looking Glass because Alice jumps through a mirror and returns to Wonderland. Not a very descriptive title if you think about. It tells us nothing about the movie. It just tells us how she gets back. I have a better title for this movie. Alice in Wonderless Land. Because Wonderland is boring this time around. The Mad Hatter is more like a Sad Hatter and the rest of the world is depressed because he is depressed. So our whole story is to try to make the Mad Hatter happy again.

Let's back up, though. When we start the movie we learn that Alice is actually a sea captain. I don't know why, but she is. The only application I see to it is that because she was a sea captain, she is able to flawlessly fly the time machine that she gets later on. Because yes, Alice Through the Looking Glass is a time-travel movie. Why? Because the Mad Hatter is sad about his family dying. When Alice goes and talks to him, he has a slight glimmer of hope that maybe she can help save his family and yet she responds to this by becoming the jerk of the century and crushing all of his hopes and dreams. "That's impossible," she tells him, despite the fact that she gave us an "everything is possible" speech not too long beforehand. Now the Mad Hatter is dying and five seconds after ruining his life, she learns that she can time travel through Wonderlessland by talking to Time himself. Except Time doesn't like her idea, so she steals his time machine anyways and starts on this journey through time to save Mad Hatter's family with Time chasing her. I know this sounds like I am giving away the whole plot, but I swear this is just the first part of the movie. If it sounds completely ridiculous, it's because it is. Yet all this would've been prevented if she had just been nice to her friend. Stupid Alice.

Despite it seeming like the whole crew was on drugs when they came up with this screenplay, the other horrible part of this story for me was that it was insanely predictable. I'm not going to give away anything that happened in the second half of the movie, but there's a few introductory quotes in this movie that essentially give you a road map for what's going to happen. Following introductory quote, said character says something exact opposite of that quote, but yet is off to do said thing anyways. Other said character tells said character that said thing can't be done and if said character tries, said thing will actually happen. Once all of this starts to happen, I was sitting there in my seat thinking to myself that certain things will happen like this, this, this, then this. And boom! It was as if I was in the board room while screenplay discussions were happening because the whole freaking movie turned out exactly as I thought it would once they got the ball running. That made this an insanely boring journey because I swear it took us over an hour to get from point B to point C in the movie when the whole thing could've been done in 10 minutes or less. This whole segment wasn't even trippy and weird like Alice in Wonderland is supposed to be. It was just trudging through boring Wonderlessland following a cookie-cutter storyline.

Continuing what Tim Burton started with his Alice in Wonderland, in addition to a horrible plot, this movie had horrible characters. One good thing about the old, animated Alice in Wonderland is that the characters were actually interesting. This one they're not. Mia Wasikowska as Alice looked bored throughout the whole movie. That made our title character of the story dull, bland, and uninteresting. Not a good sign for your movie as a whole. The Mad Hatter is not mad. He's sad and depressed for 90 percent of the movie, which is boring. Our classic side characters are useless. Ann Hatheway as our pale queen stands around doing nothing for most of the movie. Helena Bonham Carter's crazy psychopath queen of hearts character is back and even more annoying as ever. I hated her in the first movie and her scenes in this one were almost cringe-worthy. It was great hearing Alan Rickman's voice again (the world needs that man back -- RIP), but I swear he only had two lines. Moriarty from Sherlock got a cameo in the movie. That's it. All the males in the normal world are sexist to the extreme. I know they had a purpose to that, but I felt like they were beating me over the head with it. I get it. Girl power! Now do it in a believable, more emotional way next time instead of being cheesy and exaggerated.

The one good character? Time. He's played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Normally I'm not a huge fan of Sacha, but in this case he's the only actor in the whole movie that looks like he's trying to pull off a good performance and thus is the only one that I bought. They tried to do some character arcs with plenty of other characters, but in every other case it was either written poorly or the actor/actress looked like they were only there for a paycheck. But Sacha pulled it off and his character arc was good. Speaking of Time, there were so many time puns scattered throughout the movie and they actually cracked me up. It wasn't enough to save the movie, but it provided some much needed humor that made it so I didn't feel like I was in prison. Speaking about other good things, visually the movie was phenomenal. And the soundtrack was excellent. I actually saw this movie in 3D IMAX and that was a real treat. Not necessarily the 3D part of it. That was totally useless, which was disappointing because that's the only reason why the first movie made money. But the IMAX part was great. I wouldn't go out of my way and spend big bucks for an IMAX ticket, but if there's a sweet IMAX deal at your local theater on a certain day like there is for me, then take advantage of that.

That's really all the good I can take from this, though. It's a visual treat with a good soundtrack, but the characters were mostly all dull, except for Time, and the story was a big, huge, predictable mess. It was about as cliche as you can get with a surprisingly boring Wonderland. If you are like me and you didn't like the animated classic or Tim Burton's 2010 live-action remake, then there's no reason for you to see this. If you loved the animated classic, but hated Tim Burton's remake, then there's also no reason for you to see this. If you loved the animated classic and loved Tim Burton's remake, then I can't speak for you. But it is worth noting that I did have a friend or two with me from that latter category who also found the movie disappointing, so there's no guarantee for you either. Financially speaking, I knew this movie would fall off from its predecessor, but I still thought that it would get an opening weekend around $50-$60 million and end up around $175 million domestically. But $26.9 million? Yikes. That's with a production budget of $170 million. Don't mourn for Disney, though. They've already passed $4 billion with their other movies this year. Just be glad that this failure means there will be no third movie. We're done with Wonderland. My grade for Alice Through the Looking Glass is a 5/10.