Cherry

Considering this is the Russo Brothers post Endgame movie which stars Tom Holland, one of the youngest A list actors in Hollywood today, this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year.

Kicking off with the positives, Tom Holland just steals the show with his performance. He's able to bring up so many different emotions during this film whilst keeping his natural charisma and it's just impressive with how he does this. He's really proving He is a very versatile actor and I'm excited to see his future projects.

I also really like the concept of the story. It's a story that feels like an obvious Oscar pick but is also a very character driven story and those are usually my favourite types of stories in films.

Finally I really appreciate that whilst this is a more smaller scale film, it's also feels as ambitious as their previous projects. 

But unfortunately I was massively disappointed in this film so it's time to move onto the negatives and the biggest problem with this film is the execution of its story. As I said before, this feels like an obvious Oscar pick but I doubt it will even be considered now and it breaks my heart to say this but I have to put it down to the Russo Brothers direction.

This is basically a simple tragic character story that should be easy to follow but it feels like the Russo Brothers want it to be more than that. It feels like they want to separate themselves from their previous MCU ventures whilst keeping the ambitious feelings in their movies and I can appreciate and respect that but this film is simply too ambitious. It should be a more grounded, independent feeling film and the films story execution suffers as a result as it gets too drawn out and at times the storytelling feels very messy due to its stylistic tone.

That's another issue with the film. It's stylistic tone is again too much. The Russo Brothers don't seem to know what kind of aesthetic to use for the film so they just use a whole bunch of them. There's different visual cues, cinematography changes, there's a couple of times Tom Hollands character breaks the 4th wall and unfortunately these aesthetics never seem to suit this film at any point.

Finally and this really bugged me but this film is overbundled with narration to the point where it just gets annoying. I don't mind narration in films but not to the point where it treating the audience like idiots and explaining every little detail to them.

Overall this is easily the most disappointing film of the year for me so far. I really wanted to enjoy it but I just didn't. It's simply too much for how little the story is and I do blame the Russos for this films faults.

⭐⭐

Zack Snyders Justice League

This film I have been curious about but was never fully excited until it's final couple of months before release. I always felt it would be better than the monstrous justice league we got before but I wasn't sure how much better it would be.

But to my surprise and to kick off the positives, this is so much better than I expected it to be. It exceeded all my expectations. Every scene we get, even the ones I wasn't a fan of which I will elaborate on later, is so much better than the 2017 version. I truly love that we got Zack Snyders true vision for what he wanted his fans to see.

My next positives have to go to the characterisations for the entire justice league. Watching this film just showed how much was cut from the 2017 version and that costed characterisation and development but this film makes up for it with big spoonfuls and the cast make up for it for their fantastic performances. Bruce Waynes character arc is just fantastic going from the cynical old man Batman, who was against alien life to the man who forms the Justice League to make up for his mistakes.

Victor Stone/Cyborg gets the best development however as we learn how he became Cyborg, what his life was like before, how much he is struggling with his new life and anger toward his father and eventually accepts his new life. Ray Fisher plays him brilliantly and after everything that happened to him with Warner bros, I hope this helps kick start his career again.

Ezra Miller as Barry Allen also improves amongst this film. I have always liked him in this role but his utilisation was really off. He is used much better and seems to have a place within the team. He gets some good action scenes and again some good character development. Wonder woman and Aquaman are also fantastic in this film. They help fill in the teams dynamic. I also just loved how this film seemed to give homage to Man of Steel with Superman flying for the first time in his black costume with that powerful Han Zimmer Man of Steel score.

The team undergoes so major and much improved development as a whole since in the 2017 version, I never felt any chemistry amongst the members in that film. This film feels like a three act structure where the team form their alliance, the cracks eventually start to show during the middle of the film and eventually form a plan and work as a team to defeat the main antagonist. The team earns their chemistry and have some great moments during the final battle.

And what an improved score this film has. The Justice League 2017 was just dull and forgettable even when the film was playing. This one is so much better and feels more powerful especially during the final battle and when a major character appears who I'll talk about in the next section.

Now let's talk about the man himself. Darkseid. Yes he appears in this film and his presence is severely felt despite his limited screentime. You just feel how intimidating this character is and why the characters should fear him. Where the MCU had Thanos, the DCEU has Darkseid. Now I don't know if Darkseid will be as brilliant as Thanos but this is one hell of an impressive start.

And finally I just loved how much effort Zack Snyder put into this to make this the film of his career. You feel his stylistic direction, the tone fits his creative style and his precious two films, there are some fantastic and incentive action sequences, the conclusion to the final fight is so much more satisfying and after the ending we get, I want the films that are set up after this. I want a Ben Affleck Batman film or series, I want Justice League sequels especially after what I heard about what Zack Snyders plans are. It makes me excited just thinking about it.

Oh and just some minor praises but the green screen is so much better in this film. All the environments looks so much more real than the previous film. Also I loved the Joker and Batman confrontation scene. Such powerful dialogue between these two and that one scene just shows what a complex relationship they have. And speaking of the dialogue, we get some fantastic and badass lines from our characters.

Moving onto the mixed aspect now and there's a few things. First let's talk about the obvious one. The 4 hour runtime. This is a widely debated runtime that has had praise and criticism all over the reviews I've seen. Now I had no issue with the runtime. Despite it being a 4 hour film it seemed to go really fast and move at a really nice pace. It never felt like it was dragging on. I think the best way to go into this film is to know what genre fan you are. For example the Irishman a couple of years ago is a three hour and a half long film and I couldn't watch that because I'm not a gangster/mob film fan. But because I love superhero films, I could watch a three hour long avengers film or a 4 hour long Justice League film so just know who you are before watching.

My next mixed thought is the main villain for this film Stepponwolf. Now I didn't think I'd ever say this but he is a much better villain than he was before. He gets some decent development and motivation and I love his cooler design. Unfortunately he still felt like a generic and forgettable villain. I saw tweets from people saying he's one of the best villains now and I just don't agree with that. He's much better but not fantastic.

My final mixed thought is the 4.3 aspect ratio. Now I understand Zack Snyder used Imax cameras which means the aspects ratio shows at the side of the screens instead of top and bottom. Now at first it really bugged me but as the film went on, I got used to it and it didn't affect my thoughts on the film but at times I noticed some characters faces were cut off because of it and it just looked odd to me.

Onto the negatives and there are a few things. First I never liked Supermans resurrection storyline in the previous film and whilst he obviously gets resurrected in this film, for those who haven't seen it yet I won't spoil it but I didn't like how he resurrected in this version either. Its just very uninteresting to me. I would have preferred a fan theory that I read online which feels interesting and also fits in with that final scene in Batman v Superman. And we get that awful 'You smell nice! Did I not before?' line and I really hated that line in the previous film.

Also I really wish they changed The Flashs suit design because again I never like it before and I still don't like it now. It looks too overdesigned in my opinion. We also get Barry and Iris's romance setup during this film and it felt so awkward and forced for me. I'm not going into spoilers but you'll know what I mean when you see it.

My final negative is for the marketing because some characters are heavily marketed for the film and have very little screentime. I also avoided almost all the trailers and it shocked me how many trailers were released for this film. Because I didn't watch them all, I can't comment on what was in them but it's like Snyder didn't think anyone would watch this film so he decided to show as much as possible to the audience.

Despite these negatives, this is a film that was wanted by so many fans and could have failed but luckily was a massive success for me personally. I loved watching this film and is officially my favourite film of the year. Everything in this film felt earned in a lot of ways and this could be my favourite film in the DCEU.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Raya and the last Dragon

Now I'll be honest. If this film had come out in the cinema, I probably wouldn't have watched it but since cinemas are still closed, I just figured why not and I've paid for premier access with Mulan so it made no difference to me.

Starting with the positives, I'll just say right now I really really enjoyed this film. This was a fresh, exciting and fun film to watch that I think a lot of people will enjoy as well.

What I loved most though is how creative and imaginative this film is. While there are aspects to it that aren't entirely original, there's plenty of moments that feels new and has fresh ideas to explore. This also feels like an ambitious which you don't really get from animated features.

At the beginning, we learn about what this film is about, there's plenty of interesting worldbuilding and it just feels like the writers knew what they were making, like they really thought this film through and had a clear vision. There's clear motivations, a straightforward story and it all feels like one whole cohesive and a well crafted story.

The characters are fantastic and fun to watch. Raya herself gets some strong character development which I'll elaborate on more later but you understand why she is the way she is and she is voiced greatly by Kelly Marie Tran who I hope gets more roles in the future. She was unfairly treated during her star wars days and the trolls who horribly abused her the way they did should be ashamed of themselves.

Awkwafina is just flawless as Sisu and really steals the screen. She's just so likable and charming to watch and I loved her characters design. I don't know why but there's just something about the way her character looked that always made me laugh but not only that, her characters naivety just helps make her cute and even more likeable. That's probably the best thing about the characters. They're all just so likable and get their moment to shine. Even the minor characters and also the villain of the film get a some great development so they don't feel one dimensional or forgettable.

But the one thing that I noticed and what made me grow enjoy this film even more was that this is a thematically rich film as it focuses on the theme of Trust and that is references at so many points throughout the film and helps with the development of characters. It's how you understand Raya, it's how it makes Sisu a more fun character to watch, it even drives the story forward at times and makes the films conclusions more ballsy and ambitious. That is how you have a great usage of a films main theme.

This film is also beautiful to look at. The animation is gorgeous to watch and has a nice aesthetic to it. This is probably one of the best looking animated films and there's different types of animation used throughout which makes sense storyline wise.

Finally I was very impressed with the marketing as it hides a major plot point of the story that I didn't see in the trailer I watched. I even watched one of the other trailers to it and it hid that main segment to the story really well. I love that we can still get trailers that don't spoil the film.

As we get to the negatives, honestly I only have one and that is the story can feel predictable at times. The first 25% of the film is where you feel it's predictability the most but it also happens frequently throughout the film.

Overall this was a nice surprise and fun film to watch. It has great characters, a great story, beautiful animation and a theme that helps tie it all together.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Coming 2 America

I was mildly anticipated for this film just for the sake it would be a Eddie Murphy comedy and we could all do with a laugh at a time like this. I hadn't seen the first one though so I did a double bill of both films. The first film I liked very much but I didn't love it. I found the story a little unfocused and it has some moments that don't age well.

Starting with the positives, I think it's great to see Eddie Murphy back doing a comedy as it's become rare to see him doing any sort of film, let alone a comedy. He still has his onscreen charisma and charm.

I also think this will bring a lot of nostalgia for the fans of the first film as there's some nice callbacks.

Unfortunately I had a lot of problems with this film so it's time to talk about the negatives and the big problem with this film is it doesn't feel like a sequel to a over 30 year old film. This feels like a generic throwaway comedy and that is really disappointing to me. Take a film like Bad boys for life that so many people has no faith in and turned out to be the best of the franchise and one of the best films of last year, this film should have been on the same track as the original but doesn't come close.

It also feels like there was two films planned but a third wasn't likely so they squeezed two movies of plot into it. You have the story of Akeem looking for his son which feels really rushed and badly written and you have the story of his son following in his father's footsteps which also feels rushed and has moments that doesn't feel earned.

And whilst I did like some callbacks, I'm not going to spoil them but there's too many moments where it feels like it's retreading the first film and it has some odd flashback sequences that are overly long and feels like the director didn't think people would watch the first film so inserted scenes to help them understand this films storyline.

And I could forgive all of this issues if this film made me laugh at least a little bit. Nope! I didn't think it was funny at all. All the jokes fell really flat for me or had me rolling my eyes. The new cast aren't funny, slightly annoying and feel like they're doing an SNL parody for a sequel.

Overall whilst I wasn't a massive fan of the first film, it's far more superior than this attempt for a comedy sequel and it's really disappointing for Eddie Murphy.

⭐⭐

Tom and Jerry

Now I grew up watching Tom and Jerry but I will be honest, I had no faith this film would work at all. First off, I could not imagine Tom and Jerry working as a live action film or as CGI live action characters.

Second, I'm not a fan of Tim story. He's never really had a big film hit and after hearing how he treated Jessica Alba in the Fantastic Four films, it made me dislike him even more.

Third, live action adaptation of previously cartoon shows don't have the best track record of doing well or being solid hits and also after all the controversy that I've heard about Warner bros, that was another reason to be sceptical.

Then I saw the first trailer of the film and it seemed a little odd to have Tom and Jerry as fully animated characters alongside real life human characters so as I said, I could not see any hope for this film. But admittedly, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, I can say this is officially the best live action Tom and Jerry movie I've ever seen.

Starting off the positives, easily the best thing about this film is Tom and Jerry themselves. I will give Tim Story credit for how he managed to envision the title characters. They feel like the same characters we all watched on the old cartoons years ago. Whenever they're onscreen, it's just a lot of fun watching them chase each other all over the place and find creative ways to trap each other. The slapstick humour really works as well. It doesn't feel outdated or feels too dark for a kids film. It always feels suitable enough for the appropriate age group. This films number job had to be getting the title characters right and that is this films biggest achievement.

Surprisingly though the positives don't stop there. Now although there are human characters, it never feels like Tom and Jerry are an afterthought. They get an equal share of screen time just as well as Tom and Jerry and I think that will be appreciated especially from a filmmaking point of view.

I also really liked the hotel setting. It's fun to see Tom and Jerry causing mayhem in the hotel and there are a lot of fun ideas to explore in this hotel with these two characters. It's also fun to see several other character's from the Tom and Jerry shows especially Spike the Bulldog voiced fantastically by Bobby Cannavale.

Finally, I think this film does a good job with targeting their main demographic of audience. The films main is naturally children but I feel film can also be very nostalgic for grownups who grew up watching Tom and Jerry as children and for me, I had plenty of nostalgia.

Moving onto the mixed aspects of the film, the first thing that comes to mind is the choice to make this an animation/live action hybrid film. Now I think this is ultimately the right thing to do since I struggled to imagine the title characters as CGI real life characters but at the same time, at times it did seem odd to see animated characters alongside real life human characters.

Also it makes the worldbuilding feel unexplored. Yes we're watching a Tom and Jerry film but when you watch a film where every animal character is animated and human characters just act like it's normal, that makes intrigued by what kind of world do these people live in and you to see this world explored and developed and despite it being fun to watch, it doesn't feel fully developed.

Onto the negatives now and as you'd imagine, the human characters are the weakest part of the film. Now I'm wondering if it was the right idea to make Tom and Jerry into a film in the first place because when you watch a Tom and Jerry movie, you're only watching it for the title characters and the amount of plot you'd expect to see, anything over an hour would already feel too much and potentially repetitive and when it has human characters in it, it becomes less fun to watch and you just don't care for them at all. 

Someone is trying to get a job, you don't care especially when her character is a weakly written characters, two people are trying to get married, you don't care about that. Someone is trying to capture Tom and Jerry, you just don't care because you know Tom and Jerry will succeed.

And because you don't care about the human characters, it makes the pacing of the film feel very slow at times and certain scenes seem to drag on for so long and you start wondering when Tom and Jerry are going to come back on.

The runtime is also an issue. Now I am usually defender of runtimes but for this film, an hour and 40 minutes just feels too long. I don't know how too long it seems to be but by the time it gets to the hour mark, you feel like it should be ending soon.

Finally, the animation for the characters felt very outdated. It didn't feel like 2020/21 era animation which is just incredible. It felt like I was watching animated characters from the early or mid 2000s.

So overall when this film is a Tom and Jerry movie, it's pretty decent and servicable. But when it moves to the human plotlines, it becomes a slog to get through. It's not a bad film but I can't say it's a good film.

⭐⭐

Wandavision

After finally watching the final episode today, I knew I really wanted to talk about Wandavision to say what I thought of it. This is my first tv show review and this will be a spoiler review but I won't be spoiling everything. Just certain aspects that I really want to talk about so I just warn any readers so let's get started.

So to start off, I was really nervous for this show. There were certain castings I was confused by, judging by the trailers it looked set to be a very different version of the MCU and it just seemed odd to start doing MCU shows and I say this as a massive fan of the MCU.

Starting with the positives, without question, the best thing about this show for me was the look and feel of it. When you think of a t.v. show based on the MCU, you start wondering how it'll capture the same magic as the films did especially on a tv budget but was I wrong. This was a much higher budget show than I expected and with that, it looks like a cinematic show. It feels cinematic. It looks like an expensive production and if this was show in a cinema, it would feel just as impactful as any of the films would be. That is this shows biggest success.

I also really loved the story that was told. Now certain aspects I will talk about when I get to my negatives but the overall story I think was executed fantastically and was so deeply crafted and really well written. It's a story where you know how it will eventually end but when you do reach the end of it, it's so much more impactful and emotional than you anticipate and is beautifully acted. It's also a story where you have different feelings over Wanda. At times you can sympathise with her and how she's feeling but other times, she is the villain for trapping these people in a world with no control for their actions and that makes it a lot more powerful in my opinion.

I also really like and appreciate how it tied up certain loose ends from the major MCU films especially Visions fate after Infinity war and showed us where Wanda was after endgame and before the events of Wandavision.

Next to talk about is the performances of Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. These two are brilliant together. Wanda and vision are an odd pairing but Olsen and Bettany make them so believable as a couple with their chemistry. They also have to channel deeper acting chops than they've ever had to before. Bettany has some very good comedic timing throughout the show and is also great when he's discovering the truth about what has been created.

Olsen however steals the show as she helps make Wanda finally feel like a fully fleshed out character. She's funny, charming, emotional, caring, intimidating, scary and lost all in 9 episodes and that must be so difficult acting all of this out. Channelling so many emotions in a small space of time. Throughout the show, Wanda becomes such an interesting character as a hero and in some ways as a villain and no one else but Olsen could have portrayed her.

I also really loved the return of Darcy Lewis, Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau. On paper, this just sounded really odd to bring these characters back but as the story is told, it makes so much sense. Darcy becomes a much better character, Woo is a tonne of fun to watch and Monica is a brilliant character. Her attachment to S.W.O.R.D. is massively important to the story and it's great to see her following in her mothers footsteps. These three characters also have a great dynamic and really good chemistry amongst each other and I'd love to see them onscreen together again in the future.

Now let's talk about Tyler Hayward for a bit. Now this could have been a one dimensional villain and indeed he starts off that way with how he treats Visions body but if you interpret all of these events in to his own perspective, he becomes a more intriguing character. He is witnessing Wanda take an entire town captive and held against their will. I'm sure anybody else would see her as a threat.

The special effects in this show are still as ground-breaking and affective as they were in the films. I just thought I'd give them a mention.

And overall I'm just excited for the future of the MCU. I'm excited for the future tv shows and I'm excited for the films it sets up especially captain Marvel 2. I've heard rumours that it will set up the fantastic fours arrival to the MCU so I'll be intrigued to see that.

However as much as I enjoyed the show, it wasn't perfect so moving onto the mixed aspects and first I just want to take this moment to say many of the plot twists were spoiled for me via social media and while you can say to me "don't look at social media" it's hard when you talk to people and talk about other shows on there so please restrain yourself from revealing spoilers so you don't ruin anyone else's experience unless you have a spoiler warning.

Next it's to talk about the the sitcom style and tone. I always struggled with the sitcom style of the show. I saw so many tweets from people who loved it but I always struggled to connect with it and I also felt it interfered with the momentum of the story in future episodes. I never hated it but I just struggled to connect with it.

Onto the negatives now and this show has some really big problems. First I'll start with a nitpick. The first 3 episodes were really difficult to get into with just how different the show felt and there never seemed to be any forward momentum.

Now my biggesg issues, this show tricks us into thinking this is how the X men will be introduced especially when you get Evan Peters to reprise his role as Quicksilver from the x men films and then it's later revealed it's not what it seems. It always bugged me a bit why Aaron Taylor Johnson didn't get to reprise his role and after the final episode, it now really bugs me.

Also I wasn't really a big fan of Agatha harkness being introduced. Now if she was brought in a different show or film as the main villain against Wanda, I think I would feel different towards her but her introduction really interfered with how complex and beautiful Wanda and Visions story was. It also felt like she was only introduced as a plot device to explore Wandas origin and how she became the Scarlet Witch and even when we get to the big action scenes, as fantastic as they are, it's clear she was only ever brought in so Wanda would become more powerful and that makes the character not so interesting for me.

Finally now I get this is a big budget show with a huge production crew but the credits were just too long. The credits were around 7 minutes where I feel you could squish them down to around 3/4 minutes so we could get a bit more plot.

Despite my really big issues, this show is yet another fantastic achievement for the MCU and I'm excited for the future shows to come out. I would highly recommend this to all MCU fans and I'm excited to see Wanda appear in Doctor Strange 2.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Wrong Turn 2021

Now I'll be honest, I only heard about this film a couple of weeks ago and I'm not the biggest fan of the wrong turn films. I like the first 3 but the rest I haven't really seen and considering what the ones I've seen are like, I just figured this would be a typical generic B movie slasher film. How wrong was I.

Kicking off with the positives, the absolute best thing about this film is just how different it is. This does not feel like a a studio made horror film. This feels like a director wanting to put his own stamp on the wrong turn franchise, having his own vision and freedom to do what he wants and that completely works. I always say if you're going to remake a film, take it in a different direction.

Now I'm not going to spoil anything but what I will say is the villains are really well done in this film. There's some interesting backstory, mythology and world building inside of this film and I never thought I would ever use that to describe a wrong turn film. There's also some really nice production design at certain point of the film.

I think it's also really nice that we still get films that shoot upon location and don't rely on green screen effects. This makes the film really nice to look at. Also there are some very creative traps in this film so combining that with the real location makes this film feel more real.

And finally the cast is really really good. I only know one of the actors in this film and it's nice to see new up and coming actors get to shine and show what they can do and they do a great job.

Onto the mixed aspects and first this is just to say like I said before, this is very different to the previous wrong turn films but in a good way so I would say subvert your expectations but not too much. Prepare yourself to be surprised.

Second are the characters and this is frustrating because there are times where the main group of friends are really good. They're independent, loyal towards each other and have great chemistry amongst each other but theres times throughout the film where they can be hostile towards each other and when that happens, they can become quite unlikable and at times unbearable especially when it comes to their stupid decision making. One character also takes the goes from nice guy to unbearable jerk development and I'm kind of tired of that trope now.

Finally oddly enough, the kills aren't that great. Now at times they are brutal and gory but other times and certain injuries are off screen or overly edited which is very odd in a wrong turn film and I'm someone who likes my carnage candy.

Onto the negatives and I only have two. First is the overall script. This feels like a film that had two films in one where a sequel planned but the director didn't think he's be able to do a sequel so he trimmed both films down and squeezed them both in so the first half feels rushed and the second half feels rushed and underdeveloped.

Finally it's the ending. Now the film almost ruined my experience with how it ended but it luckily redeemed itself but it feels like a final piece of filler to fill in the runtime and there's too much requirement to suspend your disbelief to buy the events that happen. There's too many plot holes once you think about it and one section of the ending is so easily predictable.

But overall I really really enjoyed this film. It's fresh, it doesn't feel generic and it's given me hope new directors can give out fresh ideas in the future. I highly recommend this film.

⭐⭐⭐⭐