The Angry Birds Movie
I've been playing Angry Birds (and Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Epic and Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds Friends) for almost as long as the five years I've had my iPhone. So when the movie came out, well I knew I was going to see it. I didn't expect much as 1) it was based on a game you play on your phone and 2) it was marketed at kids. And I'm glad to say I was not disappointed....in the respect that it wasn't much.
I went to see it with Mrs. A Local Celebrity, Mr. David ParisPeking, and the three lil ParisPeking-lettes. And it was fun to see them. Perhaps, more fun to see them than to see the movie.
Nah. I mean, the movie was okay, for what it was. But as they say, it was what it was. A few adult jokes that went over kids heads, and the animation was pretty darn good, certainly up to par for a current animated movie. But really.......it was completely, just...meh.
X-Men: Apocalypse
This....now THIS, my friends, can be summed up in one word: disappointment. It could have been SO much more. There were hints of the great stuff that this movie could possibly have been. But instead, it was just simply mediocre.
WAY too much time spent early on just talking. And introducing characters. And having those new characters talk to established characters. And have the new characters talk to other new characters. In other words....boring. Eventually, we get some action, but even all that isn't all that great.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't TOTALLY dismal. Quicksilver has two great scenes! There's some pretty nice shirtless eye candy a few times. The kid doing Nightcrawler does him just like Nightcrawler should be done. Alex Summers (Havoc) has a sweet hairthing. And......um, yeah, that's about it.
Some spoilers follow.
I do not like that they kill off Havoc. I do not like Apocalypse, the big villain, is responsible for Storm's hair color and Pyslocke's improved powers (no problem with Angel becoming Arch-Angel, as Apocalypse actually did that in the comics). I don't like the way Caliban was misused. I don't like how they traverse the world in unreasonably, unbelievably short amount of times (Mystique and Nightcrawler get from East Berlin to Upstate New York, overnight, seemingly by his teleporting. A helicopter flies from just north of NYC to the far western Canadian Rockies in little to no time. They get from the Canadian Rockies to Cairo in little to no time.) I dont like how Jean Grey is apparently becoming Phoenix just because she's born with the ability to do so. And Wolverine's appearance is totally gratuitous and unnecessary...and pointless as well.
Oh and at the end, Magneto says the exact same quote than Magneto said to Xavier in the very first X-Men movie. *SIGH* The biggest problem I had, though, was the lost potential. It simply COULD have been so MUCH more....but it wasn't.
Captain America: Civil War
I can't BELIEVE it's taken me this long to do a review of this! After seeing it three times and having plenty of time to think about it, I can easily, honestly, and clearly say: this is THE best comic book movie EVAH! EVAH! It's better than either of the Avengers. It's better than any Batman movie. It's better than the Watchmen. It's better than any Marvel individual superhero movie. It's the best EVAH,
Why, you ask? Well let me tell you. Obviously, there will be spoilers below.
Firstly, I do NOT like movies where heroes fight each other. I think it's short sighted, non-imaginative and non-creative. I think it's a boring, over-used comic book cliche. I think there are PLENTY of other bad guys out there they SHOULD be fighting. So yeah, don't like whole scenario, either in the comics, the movies, or tv shows.
Secondly, in this specific instance, I knew the heroes would be choosing sides. And it made NOT sense whatsoever to me that bad boy, rebellious Tony Stark would be on the side of the government, and that Boy Scout, soldier Captain America would be working AGAINST the government. Made no sense at all.
However, in the past, Marvel movies have not let me down. In the previews they had for Avengers 2, they showed Hulk and Iron Man fighting, but it totally worked when you saw it all in context. So, I gave them the benefit of the doubt for the film as well.
And they did NOT disappoint! The reason why Tony Stark went with the government totally made sense for the character. Cap's reasoning was a bit hard headed, but not out of character at all.
Marvel films got the rights to Spider-Man back and they did a better job in a small part othis movie than ALL the other 5 films put together! They got an actor who looked and acted like a geeky, anxious, teenager. They didn't bother with his origin, cause everyone already knows it (unlike, say some really idiotic shitstorm of a movie from DC released earlier in the year which began, I'm told, with Bruce Wayne's parents getting shot AGAIN! I mean, chrimeny, is there ANYONE alive who DOESN'T know that's Batman's origin? Sheesh!), they just went right into it.
They introduced the Black Panther (and DAMN is Chadwick Boseman a sweet piece of eye candy! Especially with that accent he uses) and set him up as another hero in the Marvel Universe. (I'm totally ready for his own movie to come out!) And he was one of the character who had the greatest character development. But there was also some development in the personality of Tony Stark. Very unexpected, that.
They showed some early, small signs of a relationship between the Vision and the Scarlet Witch. Ant-Man was GREAT, as was Spider-Man.
And let's not forget the airport scene! Oh. My. GOD! Has there EVER, in any comic book movie, been a better, more fantastic, fight scene???? Despite being between the heroes? Just unbelievably well done. Every character got a share of the spotlight.
And one of the best parts of the movie: It was funny AND fun. (again, unlike a dark, gritty, serious, 'realistic' shitstorm of a film released earlier in the year) It was serious when it had to be (like at the end) but there were funny quips, humorous scenes, and great interchanges between the characters.
There were some minor issues I noticed, but frankly, the movie was SO good, I just didn't care.
This movie is everything a comic book movie SHOULD be. Fox (with the X-movies and Fantastic Four movies) and Warner Brothers/DC (with ALL their movies) could learn MUCH from watching just this movie alone.
I anxiously await ALL the forthcoming Marvel films.
POLT
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