Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the best movie I've seen in quite a while. This comes from someone who is definitely experiencing a degree of superhero movie fatigue. And yet, I was not taken out of the movie once for the entire runtime. The movie may be couched in "hero fights villain(s)" trappings, but it leans more into the "and discovers things about himself along the way."  There are several story threads examined that I figured would be handled in a typical and simple way, but were instead treated more with the nuance they deserve - primarily how Peter handles connecting with people who magically forgot about him. I don't think it's too spoilery since that's hinted by previews and fairly obvious from where previous movies left things. The simple cop out would just be to have the magical amnesia overcome by the power of friendship. This movie, for the most part, does not treat it as such a simple matter, and that's good because it should be me...

  I had intended to get these thoughts out earlier, but time did not permit, so we’ll see if I end up forgetting things on my mind. The Mandalorian and Grogu was fine. It’s nearly two and a half hours of Star Wars that makes a serviceable movie with nothing truly egregious. I think it would be better against the lower bar of TV episodes, but it didn’t leave me feeling disillusioned with Star Wars movies, as has happened before. So… fine. Three out of five. Five or six out of ten. There are people who could unabashedly enjoy it and call it good and… I kind of envy that, but just can’t. From there, anything I say can get spoilery , but I do have a lot of little thoughts. Let’s start with some positives: I like Mando. The stoicism and curtness is I fine line to walk, but I think the character is still pulling it off and maintains a certain presence. I like Zeb. He’s a little bit CGI-y for my preference, but I have a fondness for the character from Rebels that does not feel unjustly m...

When I watched the pilot for Hazbin Hotel , I adored it. It had a good balance of serious vs. silly. The musical nature worked. The characters were appealing. And I suppose I could say it has an irreverent edge that drew me in too. The series was one of the few bits of entertainment I would say I truly anticipated and even was the final nudge to get me to subscribe to Amazon Prime. The first season was pretty great. Some of the voice actor changes were a little off-putting, but grew on me. The season was filled with banger songs. Really, I loved it all around, I think. The second season didn't quite hit with me in the same way, though.  Releasing two episodes (of eight) a week was a detriment in my book. The first two episodes were largely showing fallout from perspectives of Hell and Heaven, without moving things forward much at all. The next four then set up the stakes, explaining a few things and revealing others, but they felt moving a little fast and left me thinking "tha...

 Kind of what it says on the tin. I quite like the ideas behind it, blending song and fame in as elements of fending off invasion from a demon world. There's a good energy to the movie and characters. The music is solid - I say this as someone who appreciates K-Pop beat, but is a long way from a connoisseur. The overall story works pretty well, touching on (if only lightly) themes of friendship, acceptance, fandom, and redemption. The demonic tiger and magpie duo are cute and fun as hell for all their fairly brief appearances.  My only criticisms are generally about missed potential - things that weren't bad, but left me feeling like they could have been much better. Overall, the movie felt rushed, with an intro that has visuals but is still telling more than showing and an ending that wraps everything up neatly only if you don't think much about implications. The animation and cartoony vibe sort of go with that, making the movie feel like "just a kids' show" ...

I haven't watched an MCU movie in a while. I missed... let's see... Quantumania, Eternals, Marvels, and Falcon & Winter Soldier at least. I suppose I've just been a bit burned out on them or something. But, I decided to catch Thunderbolts*.  I worked pretty well. I wasn't taken out of it. I don't find anything that bothers me about it. I liked some of the characters and the interplay. But there wasn't anything that quite pushed it over to great either. The group had a sort of Guardians of the Galaxy vibe with anti-heroes coming together to support one another in a quasi-family. But they also kind of copied the "losers" speech from the original GotG movie, which feels a little cheap. The team being made up of a bunch of people who "shoot and punch things" is a little lackluster for a superhero movie. They're not terribly super or heroic. We have three peak-human supersoldiers, a hyper-trained assassin (and Yelena carries the movie and ...

 Overall, it's a good movie. There's action, drama, comedy, and heart. The tone works for Deadpool. Perhaps my highest little bit of praise to offer is that there really wasn't anything that took me out of the journey along the way. Now, it's not perfect. It suffers from being a multiversal movie in the same way others do. It's pretty tightly focused on Deadpool, so we can buy into his stakes to a decent degree and he's not out to change his past. The tons of other characters from other timelines (and there are tons of cameos), however, all become low-stakes characters. Even this is handled probably as well as it can be, but it's what I might call a weakness. Still, it's fun. There are many characters who may be unexpected if one hasn't been spoiled - several caught me by surprise. It's a fitting capstone for Deadpool movies, if it is such, and doesn't necessarily weave into the main MCU (but does acknowledge it).

Top Gun: Maverick is a solid, feel-good-ish movie. I feel there are few too many parallels to the original. The scenario is pretty vague ("the enemy" has advanced aircraft, but is never identified) and contrived (precise trench run requirements). The romantic story thread is ultimately unnecessary, if not overly drawn out and it does contribute some to the Maverick-Rooster relationship. It could also probably stand a little bit of condensing in general and it is extremely predictable as things move along. Those are my gripes, but it's still quite enjoyable. Maverick's older and a newer generation of pilots is at hand. Instead of dealing with issues regarding his father, he's dealing with issues in relating to Goose's son, Rooster. You've got similar ego-driven pilots, so Maverick has to show them up, then make them work together. Things have to occur to make Rooster push past his problems. The confrontational asshole has to be one until he helps out. Once ...

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was an entertaining watch. I don't think it'll be one of the more memorable MCU movies for me in the long run, but it wasn't bad by any means. I have a handful of thoughts that are neither serious positives or negatives: - It is more reliant than most MCU movies on what-has-come-before. In this case, not just the first Doctor Strange movie or the Avengers movies, but also WandaVision . If you haven't seen that series, I imagine a lot less understanding and interest in a main motivator of the story. - Strange has a pretty good foil in the story who is rather blatant about being such, but lacks the self-awareness to see the differences (naturally). - I liked the "go on red" bit even if it was a little direct. And the Illuminati appearances were pretty good as well. - I can understand what is meant by articles saying the movie sets up a possible Secret Wars arc, but such things are talking about the 2015 Secret Wars...

 Been a while, but it seems less "necessary" to put thoughts here in general. Still, I have a few I want to collect today on recent movie watching... Cloud Atlas I caught Cloud Atlas on Netflix, knowing it was a big release at the time. Having seen it... well... it hit me about as I would have expected, I think. I see a certain artistry in it. I appreciate many elements of the movie and performances. At the same time, though, it strikes me as pretentious. It's long, but could have delivered the same point about interconnectivity of people even if it dropped a couple of the story arcs. It doesn't feel like there is a lot of payoff for the build up in most cases. Overall, it's something I'm kind of glad to have seen, but have no intention to spent time rewatching at any point. Spider-Man: No Way Home Relatively spoiler free remarks: I enjoyed it. The movie has several things going against it in my book: Heavy reliance/use of previous story elements Inclusion of ...

Let's see... what entertainments to talk about of late? I started back up Battletech (rather than looking at the recent, Epic-exclusive Mechwarrior 5 ) and loaded in a 3062-based mod which introduces a lot more complexity to the game by making more mech components available for damage/replacement as well as putting in many later technologies and a crapload of new mechs and variants. I did not foresee quite the impact that I got. The strategic game radically slowed down for me. Getting enough components to get a new mech is much more difficult - part of that I think I had control over at the start of the career-mode play by selecting 5 rather than 3 to complete a mech, but also partly because the huge variety means getting enough of a specific mech (and not all mech variants are compatible in that way) requires luck. It's actually been kind of new to upgrade my starter mechs, so they have lasted longer, but I've run a lot of missions and only have one complete mech I didn...

Okay, I should start by saying I've avoided spoilers, barely seen trailers, and set my expectations pretty low. I always say that endings are hard, and building the end of a 9-episode Star Wars sequence is a burden I wouldn't envy. It doesn't help that Episode 8 upended a lot of established content in ways that were... questionable. Where does one go from there? With all that in mind, I think The Rise of Skywalker did okay. I don't feel betrayed or seriously let down. I also don't feel radically uplifted and into Star Wars more than before. It felt more respectful of the canon than The Last Jedi, but it couldn't totally ignore that movie either. There are a lot of references and call-backs as major series characters and threads are gathered up as best as possible to try to tie things together. And with all that going on, things are cranked up to 11. I felt that was unnecessary, but also almost inevitable. Sequels are supposed to be "more and bigger...

I mean, Spider-Man! (Far From Home) Homecoming is one of the (maybe even the only) MCU movies I haven't watched. I felt a bit over-saturated by previous Spider-Man stuff. Buuuut, coming off Endgame, it seemed like a good thing to get back into. And I'm not disappointed. Granted, I was hoping to see a little bit more of the fallout from the disappearance and reappearance of half the population, but there's some of that here. Along with action and the weight of dealing with expectations conflicting with simpler, youthful wants. I think I like how Mysterio was handled in general. There are some things that bother me about his setup, but not seriously enough to take me out of things. Overall, I enjoyed the movie and find it easy to recommend. There's a mid-scenes credit that drops a bomb of sorts that'll radically upend the status quo for Spider-Man's next appearance, whenever that is. The post-credits scene is slightly more cute than serious, but does cast an i...

I may add to this as I think of things, but it's nice to have someplace to dump thoughts, anyway. . . . . . . . . . . . For as much as Endgame messes with time travel , I think it does it pretty well and sensibly. That's not to say perfectly. Bruce's explanation, as well as the Ancient One's visual, sort of make clear they're going with the alternate/split timelines approach to avoid the butterfly effect. THEN they add the moral complexity of acknowledging these alternate timelines are valid as well, and shouldn't be screwed just for the benefit of their "prime timeline" (ie. the one we're following). That's why the make a deliberate effort to get the stones back to when they came from. That means there's a Loki that's alive, but he's in an alternate timeline. It also means that present-Thor screwed a parallel Thor by yoinking Mjolnir from that timeline (well, Cap could have returned that, though still kind of a dick ...

The "no spoilers" part is challenging. I find it hard to wrap my mind around how the movie would be to someone who hasn't followed the MCU. Confusing, but action-filled? For me, however, as someone who has followed almost all the movies (I think I've missed... one or two), it is some three hours of incredibly awesome payoff. I don't know how I expected it to go. There'd been mention of the Quantum Realm and importance of Captain Marvel. After Infinity War, you know there has to be more use of the Infinity Stones and a battle to "fix" things. Other than that... I wasn't really sure. What I really did not expect so much emphasis on so many characters and their personal stories. The movie juggles it all incredibly well considering how much there is. Even without the qualifier, it's damn good. There were several moments where I saw some small-scale "surprise" coming, but that didn't detract for me. It's just a crazy fun ride.

I have heard such a ridiculous amount of gender-related politics associated with the movie that I really tried to start tuning it out, but it still kept popping up in my regular news "feeds." Still, I knew it was a question of when I'd see it rather than if. And, y'know, it's good. It's held back from greatness by a few things like the baggage of being another origin movie and fitting into an existing timeline. I have no particular problem with Brie Larson's acting here. She doesn't reach the level of "OMG, no one else could play this character!" but I think that's actually more due to Carole Danvers not being quite so iconic as, for example, Tony Stark. So that's more on the character and writing than the actress in my opinion. The supporting cast, including a younger Nick Fury, all work for me. The "twist" in the story works fine for me. It meshes well with at least one question I had early on, though it raises at leas...

I've, thankfully, had a good amount of entertainment to delve into of late. I've been playing Bloodborne for a while. I have not yet finished it, though I doubt my opinion will change me. Like the Souls games, it has a familiar feel of polish and neat environments with foggy lore and story. These games are generally great with their level design. From the gothic look of the places to the way they curl around on themselves, opening shortcuts back, the levels are one of the high points of the games. There's a real feel of exploration in pushing into a new area and a feeling of accomplishment opening a new path. Bloodborne perhaps loses a point because there are several areas accessible by losing to enemies and getting taken away, but it's still pretty great. The other big point I have to call out is the combat. I'm not sure any other series of feels so tightly tuned that a little player experience and a point or two of character advancement can make an encounter g...

So... yeah... I've been eyeing some games recently, but the ones available at the moment give me pause. As mentioned, I like the idea of Star Control Origins , but I'm not sure it lives up to it. I think it's something I might pick up discounted down the line. I've also been looking at Insomnia: The Ark , which seems like one of those second-tier enjoyable-but-technically-hindered-by-small-dev-studio games that may be worth playing, but will definitely be more worth playing after it has seen some patches. So that's at least two new releases that I feel I should hold off on. With the reviews (and my general enjoyment of the previous installment), I think I'm down to dive into Assassin's Creed Odyssey on release, though that doesn't come out 'til the end of the week. It seems like a pretty safe bet in terms of overall quality as well as a lot of play time. I dipped a toe into the second LFR wing of Uldir in WoW over the weekend, and that was a...

Solid movie with good action. We've got a few enemies for the protagonists, including one that's safe to consider scum and one that's fairly sympathetic. There's a sense of fun throughout. The first end credits scene answers possible questions of where the movie fits in with the larger MCU. The second is... redundant in that sense and I guess potentially cute, but no big wow factor there. I suppose my only issue with the movie is how it plays so fast and loose with physics. Mass and momentum seem to be retained through size changes only when convenient. Shrunken objects seem beholden to toon/toy physics more than anything, able to be tossed around without consequence. But y'know, none of that bothered me -during- the movie enough to break suspension of disbelief, and that makes it all excusable.

*yawn* Dog sitting is okay. Having a cuddly pup (not that she's really a puppy anymore) around has a certain appeal, though I fret perhaps overly much about not understanding what is wanted at any given time. I could do without the seemingly-random barking at something at near 3 am and I'll be glad to sleep in my own bed, but it made for an interesting change of pace. And I got in some entertainments over the weekend. It's hard to avoid spoilers in some cases, but I try... Solo: A Star Wars Story was not a movie that I wanted or felt any need for. I kind of wrote it off early, though trailers got me thinking "this might be an okay action/heist movie in the Star Wars setting." That turns out to be a good summary in my book. It's fine. There's some good action and decent characters. Nothing truly transcends to greatness, but it's an enjoyable-enough ride of a movie. From my perspective, a lot of the worst bits of Star Wars stem from trying to "f...

So dense. I'm repeating myself, but that's what I keep coming back to. There are a lot of character, there is a lot going on, and there is very little wasted time. It's less stunning to me than the first Avengers movie was, but I'm still impressed that it works. I feel like the characters were well-represented. Certainly, some are bigger factors in the movie than others, but I didn't find myself feeling favorites of mine were being short-changed. In a movie of such magnitude, that's no mean feat. So, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I keep asking myself, however, if I consider it "good." I acknowledge a difference in those two metrics. One of my usual criteria for quality of a book/movie is how it stands on its own, even if it's part of a series. Here, I find myself utterly incapable of making a judgment in that regard. I can't wrap my head around picturing what this movie would look like to someone who knows nothing of the MCU. I think a lot of im...