Box Office Top Ten 6-29-2017

Well hey Internet, and welcome back to Thoughts We Might Have Had and the magical moments when we as a website sit down, place our index fingers delicately upon the wrist of the box office and take a reading of:

The Box Office Top Ten 6-29-2017

Number 10: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

Still not for this movie… still an awesome poster.

 

This movie’s still hanging around for some reason so… yeah. I mean if you haven’t seen this yet you clearly don’t want to and aren’t planning to but… I mean you should. It’s real real good. It’s a delightful 2 hours of cinema that very nicely builds on some established characters that we like but… ya know, you do you.

Number 9: Captain Underpants: Something Something Underpants Is a Funny Word

It’s a kids movie and it’s more or less fine. If your kid doesn’t want to watch Cars 3 because they have some self-respect and a refined cinematic pallet then… I mean you’ve got a pretty sweet kid, but Captain Underpants isn’t exactly the kid version of Citizen Kane or anything. Consequently: I officially copyright the idea for Kid Citizen Kane. Cause that’s a great idea.

Number 8: Rough Night

A very well cast comedy that’s more or less fine as far as R rated comedies go. The jokes don’t live up to the cast’s talent but… it’s more or less fine. That’s the most resounding recommendation I can muster for this.

Number 7: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Franchises Keep Telling Tales

Dead Men also apparently use no facial cream huh Javier?

 

It’s a Pirates movie… did I review this? Did I see this??? How many Pirates movies have I reviewed/scene on this website?? No one remembers, and there’s no way to find out. Pirates of the Caribbean exists in a separate pocket dimension where people still care about Johnny Depp and don’t mind if you re-hash the same 4 jokes for two and a half hours. Don’t go near that dimension guys. Just don’t do it.

Number 6: All Eyez On Me

A dissapointingly bland story about rap Icon Tupac Shakur. Demetrius Shipp Jr. does a great job with Tupac but the rest of the movie is basically just a paint by numbers biopic which is a shame.

Number 5: The Mummy

I just did a full review of this and suffice to say: it wasn’t as bad as you’ve heard, but it’s not as good as you hoped. Man… I could have saved myself about 900 words if I’d have just written that on Tuesday huh?

Number 4: 47 Meters Down

Oh yeah… this seems like a good idea.

 

Two girls get stuck in a shark cage 47 Meters under the ocean and well… there are sharks. Honestly this is a pretty decent movie. It’s not great or anything, but it’s pretty good. Suspense. Sharks… I mean that’s really all I need.

Number 3: Cars 3

Cars 3… cause umm… I don’t know… we had to do something with these computers.

 

Cars 3 is fine. It’s a 2010 Dodge Ram with 100,000 miles. It just sort of exists. It’s not terrible, it’s not good, it just sort of gets you from point A to point B. And yes that was definitely the most relevant car reference I have ever made.

Number 2: Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is still here guys, and it’s still pretty dang great. Take your kids, take your wives, take anyone who wants to be taken to a movie theater and watch what we can now safely say is the best DC comics movie since The Dark Knight. So thanks DC. You did it. Finally. Like seriously: Finally.

Number 1: Transformers: The Last Knight

I’m out of words for Transformers movies guys. I’ve got nothing left. I’ve spent years hurling verbal insults at these movies and I’m just tired. The Last Knight still has bad writing, literally the exact same plot as every other transformers movies, sloppy action, poor pacing, and zero new ideas rattling around in its robot head. And yet, here it is at number 1. To be fair: This is the lowest opening ever for a Transformers movie so… that’s nice. But just once I want to see a Transformers movie open at number 6 or something like that… it would warm my tiny tiny heart.

Look it’s a Dragon guys!! Look, at the Dragon? You like Dragons right?? Dragons? Robot Dragons? You like that right???

 

And there you have it guys: the whole kit, the whole caboodle! If you want even more of the things my brain does why not check out my podcast at thepsv.podbean.com Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week!

Micah Review’s: The Mummy

Hail and hello Internet and welcome to another classic and semi-sweet edition of Thoughts We Might Have Had. An edition in which we must ask ourselves: is Tom Cruise better than Brendan Fraser???

Yes. I mean, objectively, he just is. So… bye??

Micah Reviews: The Mummy

The  Mummy at no point features any snakes… though it does feature some  VERY big ants.

 

The Plot:

So a long time ago in an Egypt Far Away a young girl fought with sticks on a sand pile. A lot. Like an unusual amount of stick fighting on sand. She was also the Princess of Egypt right up until a Prince of Egypt was born and made into an animated movie. The Princess wasn’t a fan of the movie though, so she killed it. By which I mean she actually murdered a person. Several persons in fact. She murders these persons so that she can be the Queen of Egypt but also because her brand new boyfriend the Egyptian god of death is a huge fan of said death and also (somewhat ironically) wants to be brought to life. But before she can do that she is stopped by some other Egyptians and then (in hopes of launching a film franchise) they turn her into a mummy! Because ladies can be mummy’s too!

Many thousands of years later Tom Cruise comes along and (for reasons far too coincidental to get into here) unearths the Mummy little Mummy house. For science reasons the Mummy is then transported to London where the Mummy crashes a plane, eats some souls, uses some mascara, and then sets her evil plan in motion to un-dead her undead boyfriend and then… conquer??? Something??

Tom Cruise and the “Mummy House” as I have dubbed it.

 

The Positives:

Look, the Mummy isn’t a bad movie. It’s not a good movie, but it’s not bad. At the core of the Mummy is a good idea, and an interesting thought. The execution of that idea isn’t always great but the idea is still fairly solid.

The most interesting character in the movie by a long shot is the Mummy herself. Generally speaking with Monster movies the monster isn’t really a strong character but when the Mummy is onscreen she’s the one you’re paying attention to. It would have been great if the writers could have come up with a better backstory for her but… see my above sentence on: “Good ideas, bad execution.”

Tom Cruise looks EXACTLY this bored throughout the movie.

 

The Negatrons:

Just like I don’t have a huge list of positives, I’m not gonna sit here and make a massive list of negatives. That said: the script lets what was a good idea down in a big bad way. None of the “character progression” is very progressive, character decisions are handled with casual disregard, and various stabs at humor almost always fall flat. Like the writers of the script sort of copied and pasted together the scripts like a kidnapper using a magazine and none of the lines really have any particular flair or purpose behind them.

As interesting as The Mummy is, the rest of the characters in the movie fail to distinguish themselves in any way. Except for the main love interest ‘Jenny’ her only distinguishes herself by falling in love with Tom Cruises’ character for absolutely no reason and then having her name yelled roughly 7000 times by Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise doesn’t do anything really great in this movie but he also doesn’t really have much to work with other than shouting Jenny’s name over and over and over again.

In Conclusion:

The Mummy is a perfectly fine movie. It’s not overly good. It’s not terrible. It’s a shame because there was a good idea for a movie somewhere underneath the bland scripting and middle of the road action. I can’t say you should run out and see it instantly but there are some good things happening in here.

I give it 2 screaming Jenny’s out of 5

The Weekly Headlines 6-15-17

Well hey audience! Welcome to Thursday, you did the thing… mostly. I mean sure it’s not REALLY the weekend yet, but Friday is basically just Weekend Lite. Nothing truly profitable has ever happened on a Friday. Friday’s are just days for half way doing things that you will inevitably have to re-do on Monday anyway.

The Weekly Headlines 6/15/2017

Jessica Chastain is in talks for the villain role in the upcoming ‘X-men: Dark Phoenix (what do you mean we already made Dark Phoenix.)’ Do we HAVE to make this movie guys? I mean… I mean really can we just leave the X-men alone for a little bit? Also, you guys are aware that there are other X-men stories than Dark Phoenix right?? We’ve done this one twice now and neither time has it worked. So now we’ve got an unremarkable cast, telling a tired story, that the audience is tired of. Nothing about this movie interests me. Literally nothing. I just don’t care anymore X-men, go home take a nap, check in with me in a few years.

Remember these boring people??? Well… they’re back. Apparently. Yay…

 

Oh hey, speaking of things I don’t care at all about, Cars 3. That’s happening this week. Cars 3 is really going for the Nascar sort of “sit through 10 hours of nothing for like a ten minute stretch of interesting things, during which somebody probably got hurt real bad. In this case the injury occurring to me: the person watching it.

The “Dark Universe” as we’re apparently calling it now took a hit this week when ‘The Mummy’ failed to make even a tiny bit of ‘The Money.’ For those of you who don’t know ‘The Dark Universe’ is what Universal studios is calling it’s new Monster Franchise and when I say ‘new’ I mean new! They tried this with Dracula Untold and it failed, so they semi-tried it again with Frankenstein which also tanked but if Universal studios has learned anything over it’s years as a viable movie making company it’s that constant colossal failure doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do the exact same thing again. Included in the Dark Universe Monster Mash are The Mummy (sort of), Frankenstein(‘s Bride), the Invisible Man (as played by Johnny Depp for some reason,) Dracula (a new one… again) Dr. Jekyll, the creature from the Black Lagoon (cause apparently that is still a thing that exists) and then just to make the creature from the Black Lagoon look less fantastically out of place they’ve also included The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Wait, what????? The Hunchback of Notre Dame isn’t a supernatural character even a little bit. He’s a deformed creature with a heart of gold who may or may not marry a gypsy woman depending on what version you’re watching. And the Phantom of the Opera??? He’s just a guy with some acne, who happens to know a lot about one specific theater, and stalks a girl!!! That’s not a supernatural force of darkness. That’s like… most Best Buy employee. We all thought this was a really bad idea when you were just going to team up the good monsters in a shameless attempt to mimic the Avengers. Now you’re including irrelevant characters who are almost hilariously outgunned?? Wait that’s Hawkeye isn’t it?? Anyway: this is a terrible idea.

The members of the Dark Universe everyone… or at least… three to four of the good to okay ones.

 

The first trailer for Goodby Christopher Robin came out this week and punched me right in the childhood. Maybe that’s why I just wrote a 200 word rant insulting most of the employees of a national electronic story. Maybe I’m also hungry I don’t know. This movie looks good though!

I just… the tears…. I can’t.

 

Oh also a trailer came out for ‘Daddy’s Home 2’ because why settle for just one cinematic garbage fire when you can make a second, bigger one!!

Seriously, I am salty today… hang on let me try and find something positive to end on umm… Oh yeah: Wonder Woman is at the top spot in the box office again guys and that’s great! DC finally made a good movie, women everywhere finally got a decent solo film, yay for positives!

There you have it guys, thanks for reading and hey, if you were ever curious about the tiny island called Guam that I grew up on give the latest episode of my podcast a listen! We talk about some real weird legends and just a little bit about my fear of water. Thepsv.podbean.com

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Well hey Internet, I’m back from vacation. I was gone for a little while but probably not quite as long as you were hoping I would be.

And speaking of Pirates of the Caribbean 5…

Micah Reviews: Pirates of the Caribbean 5

PoTC 5: Because that dumb Disney ride won’t pay for itself you know.

 

Yeah, you guys didn’t even know I could get into the actual material of a blog that fast did you? You thought I was somehow morally obligated to get through 100 words before I started talking about movies didn’t you? Well no more sir! This is the newer, sleeker, less filling Thoughts We Might Have Had, where I can get into the blog as of about 8 words ago!

The Plot:

Jack is back guys! He’s a Pirate. He enjoys being a Pirate, but he is (after four movies) distinctly not very good at actual Pirating. I mean, in the first Pirates movie he was sort of accidentally good, but these days he’s actually legitimately just not very good at pirating. Anyway, it seems that long ago in a scenario in which he got his entire outfit for some reason, Jack sunk the ship of a man named Salazar and that man got resurrected by… the Aurora Borealis’s evil brother, Niles Borealis. He’s also given some fantastic hair, it’s worth mentioning but this gift of immortality and well groomed hair isn’t enough to sate Salazar’s burning desire to be a villain and he goes on a long quest to VERY roundaboutly kill Jack Sparrow without trying all that hard.

You could swap out the cast of this movie and the cast of the 4th movie and I promise no one would notice.

 

Jack meanwhile must partner up with characters who are basically the same two pallet swapped characters he’s been partnering with throughout this franchise to chase down some super natural thing that will inevitably tempt him, but also solve all his problems. Also: Orlando Bloom is back. So that happens.

The Pros:

Look, the acting here is solid. Johnny Depp can still be a weird Pirate in a gradually increasing amount of face makeup. Geoffrey Rush at this point is an actual pirate and should play nothing but Pirates forever. Series newcomer Javier Bardem does an admirable job of really trying to make this movie be something other than another tired sequel to a franchise that got pretty dang tired a couple movies ago.

Umm… I mean it looked pretty good. Javier Bardem’s pirate hair looked pretty good. If Purt Plus ever gets tired of having women pretending to wash their hair with their products they can definitely talk to Javier about his Pirate hair… which rhymes.

Look at the flow in that hair?? Those beautiful wavy locks!! That could be you, with just a little Pert Plus and a lot of being cursed by Satan.

 

The Cons:

This whole thing just felt so… tired. The writers didn’t really seem to care if the jokes were funny or if the plot was original, or if the characters were interesting. Someone just said: write a lot of Johnny Depp running around. And that’s what they did. They wrote just enough stuff to say “It’s a Pirates of the Caribbean movie” and then immediately stopped. If there was a line on a wall that said “You must be this tall to be a Pirates of the Carribean movie.” This movie would be exactly that tall. It’s not a bad movie per se, but it’s VERY not a good movie.

In Conclusion:

There honestly isn’t a ton to say about Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Franchises Keep Telling Tales. It just exists. It’s not good enough to merit your attention, but it isn’t really bad enough to merit your disdain. It’s a movie that (like its main hero) just sort of teeters back and forth a lot. The humor doesn’t ever really land, but it’s not terrible. The action is paint by numbers Pirates but it’s not entirely un-entertaining. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 just happens. It’s two plus hours of a movie that is (undeniably) comprised of two plus hours of materials.

I give it two Pert Plusses out of 5.

Box Office Top Ten 6/1/2017

Well hey Internet, happy Thursday, and welcome back to that old and familiar, delicious and nutritious family favorite: The Box Office Top Ten.

BOTT: 6/1/2017

Number 10: Beauty and the Beast

Yep… this movies still around… it’s pretty dang good… that’s all I got.

Just smell that rose, Belle. The rose of all that sweet cash!

 

Number 9: The Boss Baby

Oh hey, this movies still around too! It’s pretty umm… it uh… it exists. Probably. It probably exists. We good?

Number 8: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Look, we all knew this movie probably wouldn’t be all that great. And it isn’t. The real mystery and intrigue now surrounding this movie is: will they actually make a sequel?? Cause initially this was supposed to be the first movie of some big epic sweeping movie franchise but… It’s a bad movie. It made no money. Do you make a sequel to that? Does Hollywood really have this much faith in Guy Ritchie??? Why? What has he done for you lately?? What has he done for you… ever??

Yes he did give you this King Arthur. But I don’t think he can take full credit for Charlie Hunman existing.

 

Number 7: Snatched

It’s a heist movie. Don’t worry about it it’s just… it exists. You can rent this in like… a week. Don’t see it in a theater please.

Number 6: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Holy Berries Why Did We Make This???

Yeah… this is a bad sequel to a bad movie. It’s all bad all the time. It’s a bad party of badness. Full of bad.

Number 5: Everything, Everything

Something something High School Drama, something something YOLO. It’s not a bad movie but… it’s not good. It’s just a movie about some young people finding their hearts and learning about life and things. You’ve seen it, you’ve done it, you’ve owned it.

Look at all the High School they’re having!

 

Number 4: Alien: Covenant

I just did a full review of this but suffice to say: it’s probably fine. Less than good, more than bad. Less sugar than other brands.

Number 3: Baywatch

Hey, remember how we all thought making a movie out of a sketchy 90’s TV show based around the idea of “pectorals” was kind of unfortunate idea?? Yeah, we were very right guys! Go us! Not this movie. This movies the worst.

Number 2: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

I did a full review of this too and it’s still pretty sweet Jackson guys!! I don’t know what sweet Jackson is… but this movie is that. And that is good.

Number 1: Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Pirates 5 because umm… Hats? We had these hats…

 

Look guys… it’s a thing. These movies are just gonna keep being made and… I guess they’re fine. Johnny Depp is good at playing that one character over and over again isn’t he? So… yay? I guess.

And there you have it guys! The cinema landscape pre-Wonder Woman! Enjoy it while you can!

Alien: Covenant

Okay guys… let’s buckle down and talk about some of that sweet Alien shall we? A sequel to the prequel that wasn’t nearly as good as the sequel or the original, but will this sequel capture the old alien magic? Or the new alien significantly less magic? Only time will tell!!… And also this blog. This blog will tell.

Micah Reviews: Alien Covenant

He’s angry and has VERY bad breath.

 

SPACE!! The Final Frontier. As it turns out in this particular version of SPACE!!! The frontier is… kinda dingy. No shiny spaceships or Captain Kirkness round these parts. Nope. This is all grime all the time. So we join our noble and grimy adventurers as they set out to a distant planet with a ship full of humans who they are definitely not supposed to put at risk under any circumstances.

But hey! Look at that shiny light from that mysterious planet!! They should definitely veer of course and check that out right?? And hey, why wear those annoying space suits or pay attention to the fact that the planet is very obviously inhabited!! This is SPACE! And if you can’t haphazardly explore space with no regards for consequences or your inevitable blood filled murder deaths, why did you come here in the first place? And thus with a bang of stupidity we are introduced to the often whimper filled series of events that form Alien Covenant.

These idiots will be your tour guides… tours do not end well.

The Positives:

 

Look, in the end, all summed up, this movie is probably better than Prometheus. That said, Prometheus was bad. This movie is also bad but it’s least sort of watchably bad. The alien effects are solid, and the new alien types are WAY more interesting than anything Prometheus had on offer. The action set pieces are pretty good and it does have a little bit of the original Alien’s tension. These are all good things.

Also of note are the cast who all do very well. Michael Fassbender is great (per usual), Danny McBride delivers a surprisingly strong performance and Katherine Waterston is… fine. She’s not the best part of the movie, but she’s not terrible or uninteresting. She’s sort of a less interesting version of Ripley, and while that’s not an insult per se the movie needed absolutely every advantage it could get and Waterston’s general fineness doesn’t give the movie any sort of bonus kick.

Ripley-lite, now with 40% less calories, and 50% less interesting.

 

The Negatrons:

This is a ship filled with profoundly stupid people, making repeatedly stupid decisions. A scientist looks into an open alien egg by putting his unmasked face as close to it as possible. People walk around on top of a planet they don’t know without helmets just because. Someone thinks to check the identity of a fellow crew member only after it is far too late to do anything about said crew members VERY obvious betrayal, it’s a running list of bad decisions made by people who are supposed to be smart. You expect stupid decisions in a horror movie but that’s not strictly speaking what the Alien franchise has always been about.

Which leads us to another (related) con. Are we sure Ridley Scott still knows what’s going on with his franchise? The last two movies have been a mix of very deep, supposedly intelligent people making very long winded speeches about the universe and the meaning of life and why we’re here and who made us and just ALL the philosophy, directly before those same people touch a huge obviously hostile space snake. Either make your characters dumb grunts who don’t know better, or make them super smart scientists who talk philosophy. It’s incredibly hard to do both and really that’s now what we’re here watching Alien for. We go to philosophy class or weird Christopher Nolan movies to learn about space philosophy. We come to Alien to watch dumb people put their faces over space eggs and get eaten by Xenomorphs.

Conclusion:

In the end Alien: Covenant gets stuck somewhere between its good parts that harken back to the original horror roots, and it’s bad parts that remind you of Prometheus constant Spacelosophy and stupidity. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s not a particularly good one and falls far short of the return to form we were hoping for.

I give it 2 extremely poor decisions, out of 5.

Box Office Top Ten 5-25-2017

Hello Internet, I come before you today a sad and penitent man. A man who has strived, striven, and stroven to post this week and yet… haven’t. I have let you down Internet, and for that I am sorry. From the front of my right index finger to to the middle of my right index finger… I apologize. Next week things should be back to normal but just to give you a quick fix of your weekly Thoughts, here’s a fast run down of…

The Box Office Top Ten 5-25-2017 

Number 10: How to Be a Latin Lover 

How to Be a Latin Lover isn’t a horrible comedy… but it’s not an especially good one. It’s fairly middling script is picked up by a solid cast but frankly if you haven’t seen this movie at this point you probably should just let it slide right off your calendar and catch it when it inevitably ends up on Hulu in 6 months or so.

Number 9: Beauty and the Beast 

It’s great and magical and you and your children will be whisked away on silver swans, to a golden lake filled with your childhood memories and children’s childhood memories and the HUGE stacks of cash Disney made off this movie.

Number 8: The Boss Baby 

Nothing truly horrible here, a fairly paint by numbers kid movie, we’ll get to the truly awful kids movie later but if you’ve seen Beauty and the Beast more times than your brain cares to think about than this is probably your best bet as far as childtainment goes.

Number 7: The Fate of the Furious 

Oh yeah… this movie’s still around. I don’t know whether it’s because the ad campaign for this movie started up like 6 months ago or because the Rock has another movie opening this week (the genuinely terrible Baywatch movie) but I honestly thought this movie was already out of theaters. That said as action movies go it’s perfectly serviceable. As a title goes it blew the whole F8 of the Furious thing. I’m dissapointed.

Number 6: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wait Seriously We Made Two of These??? 

As promised: a truly terrible children’s movie.

Number 5: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword 

Well… at least I called it. KA:LotS is just another Guy Ritchie movie. Plenty of flash, no substance. It’s not the worst action movie you’ll see this year but there’s just not a lot here beyond some cool camera work and the buffest King Arthur since… ever.

Number 4: Snatched 

Amy Schumer stars in a movie that’s not as funny as it should be. It’s not the least funny movie you’ll see this summer (Yes, that’s gonna be Baywatch) but there’s nothing here that really justifies you seeing it.

Number 3: Everything Everything 

A teenage girl with a rare disease that keeps her isolated falls in love with a teenage boy who cares enough to get to know her for her. Ya know, like every teen movie ever made.

Number 2: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 

It’s great. Seriously. Super good. I did a full review of this back when I still wrote on this blog but just to save you some valuable finger scrolling energy allow me to summarize: it’s very good. You should watch it.

Number 1: Alien Covenant 

Look… I’m gonna do a full review of this at some point but let me just say this: it’s better than Prometheus.

Also let me say: It’s not that good. It has its moments of good, but it is not (when collected together and put upon a large projection screen) a very good movie. Sorry Alien fans… we’ll just have to wait.

And there you go guys! Sorry once again for my absence this week, should be back to my regular schedule next week! I’ll probably be doing a mailbag so be sure to leave your questions in the comments or send them to thoughtswemighthavehad@gmail.com.

Also: check out my comedy podcast over here!! thepsv.podbean.com

Thanks, and I’ll see you next week!

Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Well Internet, we made it! The big summer movie-wave has finally arrived, and what better way for us to strap on our boogie boards and boogie our way to that sweet summer freedom, than with a sequel to one of the most fun movies in recent memory: Guardians of the Galaxy. But can Guardians of the Galaxy 2 live up to the sweet tunes and styles of its predecessor? Will baby Groot still be as adorable over the course of a full two hours (yes)? Is it possible to recapture all of the various magics and tinctures that went into making the first Guardians movie the delicious cinematic dessert platter that it was? Well let’s find out together by journeying further down this page and reading some bold font!

Micah Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Interstingly that guys in the middle is not in this movie at all…

 

The Plot: Shortly after the events of the first guarding, the second Guardians movie picks up with our heroes fighting off a big bad in a very cool sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Of course the job ends up going sideways, and the Guardians end up back on the run, and stuck in the middle with you. Or something.

Anyway, Star-Lords dad turns up, Rocket makes some new friends, and Baby Groot just keeps on Grooting away. Unfortunately, I can’t really give too many more details without spoiling some things I’d rather not spoil but suffice to say: there’s a plot, and it’s a pretty dang good plot!

This is technically for the first movie but… it’s very cool.

 

The Positrons:

First and foremost: Great cast. The core guardians (Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, and Rocket) are all fantastic and the script does an excellent job in showing how they’re growing as characters. The actors are more than up to the same task and do a fantastic job of re-visiting the fun characteristics that made the first Guardians movie so fun, while at the same time showing actual growth in what their characters are doing.

As mentioned, the script here is also very good. The jokes and the off the wall humor is still as sharp as it was before but tied into it now is a deeper story that really does do some great things with the characters. It’s very hard to seamlessly weave those two things together and while at times it gets a little clunky on the whole the script does a fantastic job at striding the line between the first movies trademark hilarity and the character growth that a sequel like this demands.

Obligatory cute thing with a bomb picture.

 

The visuals here are also fantastic. The aliens show the same creative mind that the first movie did and the worlds and ships and space peoples are all incredibly well done.

The Negatrons:

The movie does take a while to really get going. The plot doesn’t even really take shape till the second hour or so and while there’s more than enough going on to keep you interested it might have been nice to have some sort of larger tease as to what was really going on.

There are a very few times where the script sort of awkwardly trips over the humor vs. story line. They’re few and far between and I’m being VERY nitpicky about it, but it is worth mentioning.

In Conclusion:

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a fantastic sequel. It really does a great job of capturing the sense of fun and adventure that the first movie had while at the same time trying to do something more with the characters. It doesn’t fall into the sequel trap of just trying to do what the first movie did but bigger, and instead really tries to grow the world and its characters into something more interesting. It might not be straight up dollars for dollars as good as the first movie but it does an incredible job of growing its world and it is still a VERY good movie.

I give it 4 Bitty Baby Groots out of 5.

Thanks for reading as ever my Internet friends, check out my podcast at thepsv.podbean.com

Judging Covers 5-11-2017

Well hey audience! Welcome back to another thrilling entry in our beloved yet long forgotten series: Judging Covers, wherein I (your beloved and benevolent host) watch a bunch of trailers and then jump to ridiculous conclusions based on them.

IT

This is a VERY scary trailer. Be advised.

Sweet baby chains that looks terrifying doesn’t it? I mean why did you watch that? How will you ever be a rambunctious 80’s child without being terrified of awful clown men?? I’m still not entirely sure how much like the book this movie is going to be, because the book didn’t really go all scary clown all the time. There was more than enough scary clown mind you, but just not ALL scary clown. I’ve typed scary clown to many times guys. It’s starting to wig me out. Why am I talking about them again? Oh yeah. It. Looks terrifying but I will probably watch it on account of… why AM I gonna watch that? What has Stephen King done for me lately?? Has he scared that one clown that keeps showing up in my backyard away?? Has HE been responsible for Idris Elba having awesome cowboy guns and reloading them in the dopest way imaginable?? Oh wait… he did do that one didn’t he?

Blade Runner 2049

I was genuinely just set to not be excited about this movie and just let the warm and vague memories I have of the original Blade Runner keep me warm in the night time… but that trailer actually looked VERY good. Like… almost unnaturally good. Ford looks great, Gosling’s character seems to have some interesting things to do, and Jared Leto playing that one weird guy he always plays seems like it’s gonna actually work this time! I don’t WANT to be excited for this… but I very much am.

Kingsman The Golden Circle

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6mHD3VP_iQs

Look, the first movie in this series was… more or less fine. It existed. It tried to strike a weird balance between making constant fun of James Bond movies and how dumb they were, while at the same time definitely being one of those movies. It was fun in its own weird way and I’m excited about the addition of Pedro Pascal and Channing Tatum’s one facial expression. My guess is this will be exactly as entertaining as the first one which is to say: marginally entertaining if you like this sort of hyper-action style of movie. So that was… helpful??? I guess.

Star Wars The Last Jedi

All right guys, it’s time for the big show! The Last Jedi… or maybe The Last Jedi(s)?? Hard to say. It’s a classic sort of deer/deer(s) scenario except with lightsabers and the constantly miserable face of Adam Driver and that tiny scar he got from when Rey cut most of his face off. Or something. Anyway, I’m all in on the Rey/Luke training montage that I’m pretty sure will make up most of this movie. It’ll be set up against the VERY different training of Kylo Ren and his master Gollum. I mean Snoke. While this is going on our noble but not as powerful friends Po and Dipsy will set about saving the galaxy from whatever it is that guy from Harry Potter is doing this time. And that’s what’s going to happen in the Last Jedi… except for the parts I made up for humor… And cause I don’t actually have any idea what’s gonna happen in The Last Jedi.

Well thanks for coming along with me on this magical journey to the made up future audience! Check back in next week when I review Guardians of the Galaxy and then… do something else. That I will make up at the time.

Summer Questions 2017: Part 3

Well Internet, we’ve reached that final day of the long and lengthy list of summer questions. How’s your summer prep going? Stocked up on them sweet popsicles? Get that AC nice and C’d? Cause summer’s just around the corner friend, and Summer’s got a knife! Summer’s had some rough times and it’s been bullied by Spring a lot lately and… well… it’s going through a rough phase. Anyway, here’s some questions about some summer movies, coming this summer. In summertime.

Summer Questions 2017: Part 3

Number 1: Is Dunkirk a ‘normal’ Chris Nolan movie?

Look, I’m a huge Chris Nolan fan but all of his movies have at least one weird super natural thing. Even ones that pretended to be a normal movie (The Prestige) ended up having weird super natural twists. So, is Dunkirk really just about the historical events of the World War 2 evacuation? Or is there something MORE going on here??? Either way, I’m a billion percent in on this. Great director, great cast, awesome story, typical Christopher Nolan way of not actually telling people anything in the trailers. I’m very excited about this!

If it isn’t vaguely hinted that Dunkirk was just a dream we all had starring Leonardo DeCaprio I will be very disappointed.

 

Number 2: What exactly is Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? And why is it called Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets?

It’s a space movie and… I don’t know. It’s based on a thing. Besson is the famed director of The Fifth Element a movie that came out twenty years ago and he’s since spent his time making largely unimpressive action movies. The cast looks fine (though Cara Delevingne is making a strong campaign for being the next Amanda Seyfried (inexplicably cast non-actress.) It’s a big space opera thing that’s gonna do its best Guardians of the Galaxy impression so we’ll just have to see what happens with it. That said, if there’s anyone who can out mopily stare Cara Delevingne it’s Dane DeHaan who is her co-star so just be prepared to see a lot of people REALLY looking at things very hard.

If you like long mopey glances than you need look no further than these two, who have roughly the same facial reaction to space travel as I have to used cat litter.

 

Number 3: Can Atomic Blonde be the next John Wick?

They might as well change the name of this to Jane Wick and put all their cards on the table. That said, it looks like it’s gonna do a very good John Wick impersonation and that movie was great! The cast here looks strong, maybe it will have a better story than Wick and the action looks just as sort of ‘up close brutal’ style of Wick so I’m certainly intrigued.

Number 4: How many weird titles can we make that involve Apes? Like War for the Planet of the Apes?

I love the whole “Planet of the Apes” thing, but if you called this movie “War of the Snow Monkeys” that would be WAY better.

 

So we had Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and now War for the Planet of the Apes?? What’s next? Songs about the Planet of the Apes?? Actually that’s very good. Biking Through the Planet of the Apes?? Man, that’s good too. Okay I take it back. I’ll watch more of these movies. I mean, they’ve all been good, and as long as we can keep coming up with Planet of the Apes related titles I guess why not!

Number 5: How awesome will the The Dark Tower movie be??

I hope at some point during the film of this movie that child realized how lucky he was!

 

Awesomely awesome. Or at least… it had better be. It had better I haven’t waded through years of rumors and speculations and fake castings for this movie to be bad I’ll tell you that much!! I mean the trailer looked fantastic and I’m certainly team “Idris Elba reloading guns!” Can I shirt or something for that? Cause I’ll buy that shirt! I’ll buy two of those shirts! Can this movie come out yet? Please!!

Well there you go guys. Questions. Answered. Summer on in safety fellow friends!

Oh and check out my podcast at thepsvpod.podbean.com