Spider-Man: Homecoming

It's not every day that I let a super hero movie go all the way to DVD before seeing it. Especially when that hero is Spider-Man. I finally saw Spider-Man: Homecoming, after hunting it down at the Redbox because every one else wanted to watch it as well!

Spider-Man: Homecoming was definitely a worthy entry into the "Hall of Spider-Man," as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As with any movie, there were things I liked and things I did not like. One of the things that I did not like so much is that there was a lot of "cameos" we'll say. Of course, Tony Stark was going to be a big character, we all knew that from the trailers, plus we could probably have guessed that he would at least make one appearance because of his involvement with Peter in Captain America: Civil War. There was just a lot of references to the other Marvel films, which weren't really that big of a deal, but I felt like it was taking away from the fact that we are watching a Spider-Man movie. On the other hand, it was cool to see Peter Parker younger than we have ever seen him, and see him beginning to use his powers and starting to feel the sense of responsibility of a super hero. 

I've always been a bigger fan of the first Spider-Man films by Sam Raimi, and that is still the case. Homecoming was a great film, and had a lot of great moments that a reboot should have. It seems to me that Spidey was cooler and better with his abilities in Civil War, and funnier too, and that took place before Homecoming, but that's me. Tom Holland was an excellent choice to play Peter Parker, and definitely brought a bunch of humor, like his "That was awesome!" after every new thing that he came across. 

So bottom line, Spider-Man: Homecoming is definitely worth a watch. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is doing very well, and bringing Spider-Man in was a good choice for sure. How can we have a bunch of Marvel characters getting big movies made, and not include the greatest Marvel character in the same universe? 

Cowboys and Aliens

Yes that title says aliens. Cowboys and Aliens is one of the most fun movies I feel like I have ever seen. It seems like it was kind of random, and maybe came out of nowhere. But it is just a really fun movie to watch.

Daniel Craig is the star of this film, along with Harrison Ford. We have these two older actors who are just a couple of bad-A cowboys. The story is basically the same alien story you normally hear- Aliens coming to earth, people not understanding what is happening, humans being abducted and experimented on, that kind of thing. 

One thing that I love about this movie is Daniel Craig's character. He doesn't think twice about anything. He just drops people everywhere he goes, and doesn't stop when something is on his mind. After seeing him as James Bond, it's hard to see him as anything else, but this still has him being very cool.  

Like I said before, this movie is just fun to watch. Just pure entertainment. It's fun to see Harrison Ford still making it on the screen. The cast also includes Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell. 

The film is directed by Jon Favreau, who directed Iron Man and Iron Man 2. It just seems like it was a fun idea and a fun film to make. Definitely check it out if you have not. 

Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare

We've all heard of Grand Theft Auto, one of the most popular and also one of the most M rated games out there. From the same developers- Rockstar Games, comes Red Dead Redemption.

Set in the old west, your character is John Marsden. Basically, the point of the game is the same as Grand Theft Auto- open world, lots of weapons, and free will to do whatever you want. Of course there are missions and side objectives to the game, but players are free to do whatever they choose. Anyway, like mentioned before, the game is set in old western times- cowboys, indians, outlaws, all that fun stuff. The form of transportation is a horse and that's pretty much it. Players make friends, enemies and do whatever it takes to survive in these times and make it through the main quest.




Then, Rockstar Games took it up a notch, and released Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare. This game takes place after the original, but in a way it is also during the original as well. All the characters know you and you know all the locations still. The only thing that is different- Zombies. Yes, out in the old west, the zombie apocalypse is in motion and the only thing to worry about is survival. In the original game, players had to worry about money, ammunition, reputation. In Undead Nightmare, having enough ammunition and knowing how to use your weapons is the only thing that matters. Surviving all the chaos and finding out how to stop it.

I love this game. There isn't a whole lot to it, except for killing zombies with a lot of different guns which is really cool. It is pretty realistic with killing them- multiple shots to the body only causes a little stagger to someone who is already dead, but one head shot drops them instantly. I enjoy all the games developed by Rockstar Games. Not always the most wholesome games, but can be very entertaining  when handled maturely.

Smallville

For years, I have had the box sets of Smallville just sitting on a shelf. I had watched them all in the past, but I was younger and a lot of it I didn't remember. My wife Lena decided that she wanted to try it out, and she was hooked. We have been watching it ever since.

I have really been enjoying this show. Like every other show, it has good episodes and bad, cheesy and dorky moments, but I forgot how many things do actually tie in with the Superman story.

Smallville is a television show that started in 2001 and ran for a very long 10 years, ending in 2011. It is the story of Clark Kent, or Superman, during his life in Smallville, Kansas with Jonathan and Martha Kent. The show begins with Clark being found in a corn field by the Kents, and we soon see him in High School. High School age is where the show focuses for the first few seasons, and we follow Clark as he grows up. 

We get to witness Clark obtain all the powers that we have seen in the Superman films. Throughout the show, heat vision, x-ray vision, super hearing, super breath, and eventually flight come into play. Key characters are in the show, such as Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Lois Lang, and others. As well as some familiar villains along with Lex Luthor, as well as Zod. The show develops it's own Justice League eventually, without mentioning the name Justice League. 

This show does a lot of hinting and mentioning things that Superman fans will notice and get excited about. Seeing the Superman "S" around, hearing lines such as "General Zod doesn't take orders, he gives them," and more. Christopher Reeve played a small role, before his passing, Margot Kidder comes in for a bit as well. Also, Terrance Stamp, who played the role of General Zod in the original Superman films, does the voice of Jor-El. Things like that make the show very fun to watch.

The show aired for a very long time, but I guess when there is a show based on the greatest super hero of all time, there needs to be a good long story. 

Now You See Me

I'm always up for a good movie that makes you think and has cool effects and out of the ordinary things. I went into this movie expecting all those things, and it only partly delivered. My girlfriend and I were pretty excited about this one, but we didn't really know what to expect. All we knew was that it was about magicians, and they were doing some pretty cool stuff. It tends to happen a lot, when you see a movie trailer and it looks fantastic, but it turns out that all the cool and fun parts were all in the trailer, and not much else happens in the movie.

Don't get me wrong, it was definitely an enjoyable film. The group of magicians called themselves The Four Horseman. Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Dave Franco are these four magicians. One thing that caught my eye was that Jesse Eisenberg was a very smart and intelligent talker, like we saw in "The Social Network." He is able to talk very quickly and just silence everyone around him. That is one of the only things that I can really remember enjoying in the movie. Woody Harrelson's character was pretty comedic, but he seems to always be like that.

This movie just seemed to go downhill for me. It started out on a high level, getting us to know the characters and their different unique abilities, and then seeing what they are capable as they all join together and form The Four Horseman. As seen in the previews, they rob a bank which is across the world. Something like that is pretty crazy sounding, and would make anybody interested in seeing how that is done. The movie was full of twists and was meant to make you guess what would happen next, but for me, I wasn't really shocked or surprised by anything. I feel like I could have written this movie myself. The ending seemed too obvious, and as we got further into the movie, not much seemed to be happening. There wasn't any cool magic tricks or anything. It just seemed to wrap itself up pretty quick and call it good.

Not really one I need to see again, but I think if someone is more into magic and maybe even supernatural kind of things, it would be enjoyed a little more.

Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino has done it again. The crazy filmmaker has managed to get all of the categories for a movie, (Action, Violence, Language, Crude Humor and Remarks, Comedy, Drama) everything into this movie. But, that seems to be how all of his movies are.
This is a western type movie, that has a lot to do with slavery. Blacks are sold and purchased to whites for whatever the whites may want. Leonardo Dicaprio is a wealthy slave trader type person. He is first introduced in the film with 2 black men fighting each other very brutally. The movie uses the word Nigger a million times. The movie can be very uncomfortable to watch.
Jamie Foxx is our main character. I wouldn't really call him a hero, seeing as how the movie is very brutal and doesn't really have good things to say about white people or black people. But, he is a slave and ends up being purchased  by Christoph Waltz's character, who is a bounty hunter. He buys Foxx to help track down 3 men. It is later discovered that Dicaprio has Foxx's wife and she is being mistreated. So Foxx uses his new bounty hunter and fighting skills to go and save her.
So, it is good to see some of the slavery being handled and stopped in the film, but the whole movie is rough, and they really overdid it on, well, everything, but mainly the violence. People would be shot in the leg and it would explode. People would get shot in the head, and there would be a fountain of blood.
All in all, maybe worth a watch once, but I personally don't need to see it again.

World War Z

I have seen many zombie movies in my time, yes I am talking like I am old and have had a long life of zombie watching. But now-a-days, zombies are very big in the entertainment industry, along with vampires and other monsters. It seems like there is always something going on with zombies somewhere. All these movies that are about the undead always have different ways of portraying them, whether it is a scary, gruesome thriller like "Dawn of the Dead," or a comedic love story with still the regular attributes of a zombie, like "Warm Bodies." World War Z is one of the best movies about the undead I have ever seen. I loved everything about it, from the cast to every piece of the storyline. They cause stress and fright while watching them, but movies that make you involved and make you wonder what life would be like if something like what the movie is showing was going on in real life are very entertaining to watch, for me anyway.
So, I didn't know anything about this story when I saw the first trailer for it, or even when I actually went to the movie. It is originally a novel by Max Brooks. I don't know how well the movie matched the book or anything, but I guess that's okay because I am not reviewing a book am I?
So back to the movie, in my opinion, this film has portrayed zombies in the best way possible. Yes, all movies about zombies do a pretty good job, and do a lot of the same things- walking slowly kind of hunched over, limping, moaning, and when they catch a scent or a glimpse of someone who is not dead, they snap and do whatever they can to catch that person and....eat them. It is always the same, but World War Z puts a little more into it. When we first see a zombie attack, Brad Pitt, who is the main character, watches as the poor man changes into one himself. Pitt counts 12 seconds from the time being bitten to becoming one of the undead. I have never seen it happen that fast, and I think that is good, the disease is something that seems to be taking over the world and it is very serious and seems to be happening very fast, so I think the change from human to zombie should be farely quick. Another thing is- in other movies, we don't get to see a lot of when zombie attacks first start happening. When the movie starts, we are put right into the middle of the zombie apocalypse. World War Z, like all the rest, doesn't show a place of origin or when things started happening, but it does show zombies attacking what looks like a brand new area for them, and we see huge swarms of them running through the cities and attacking as they go, and it looks they just do that and movie across the globe, which I thought was creepy and cool to see.

I don't want to talk to much about it, but one last thing, which you can get from just watching the trailer. These zombies are being shown climbing each other, making towers with their bodies, and reaching humans no matter where they are. There is a giant wall that you would think nobody could ever reach over, but these zombies get so determined that they are running up each other and scaling hundreds of feet in the air. And when there are thousands of them, it just keeps going and there really isn't any stopping them.
The zombies make creepy noises that we haven't really ever heard, and the movie shows different kinds of dangers of being in a world where there are millions of dead people walking around trying to eat you.
Definitely worth a watch, or maybe see it twice. I'm ready to see it twice, I enjoyed every minute of it. The story was absolutely perfect, very well written. Everything clicked and nothing was left out. Brad Pitt did fantastic and deserves to be recognized for this film, and he is.