The Cinematic Review-verse

  Ant-Man's back to his own franchise for the third time. Photo courtesy of Disney. Between some stunning (and some not) visual effects and CGI, more dark tone than humor, and lack of depth for the overall story and character of Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was not a great third edition of the franchise that showed a more heroic side for Passaic-native Paul Rudd. Kang was like a black Thanos, Darth Vader, and Loki all rolled into one, but the film didn't explain what made him a villain in the first place. There also wasn't much explanation as to how Bill Murray fit into the narrative. Compared to previous films, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym played a smaller role albeit with a little comic relief, but still came out like Han Solo in the end. Speaking of which, a lot of the landscape in the film looked like Star Wars' original trilogy from the 70s-80s.  Michelle Pfeiffer did a good job with her stunt and grunt work when h...

  Scott Pilgrim vs the World  poster. Courtesy of Catchplay After two months of catching up on the original (and colored) books, I finally watched Scott Pilgrim vs the World on Netflix tonight. It adds zest to the typical rom-com film by incorporating video game-style action, slapstick and visual effects and showed that even though the titular character is a slacker going nowhere, he can be better when it comes to fighting for his own self-respect and loved ones. Based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley, the titular character, a Canadian slacker bass player played by Michael Cera from Superbad , Juno and The Lego Batman Movie , must fight off 7 evil ex-lovers of his current love interest, American delivery girl Ramona Flowers, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead from 10 Cloverfield Lane and Live Free or Die Hard . While trying to figure out how to defeat said evil exes, Scott must also help his lackluster rock band, which plays better music here than in the books, win...

Photo of the protagonists from the original Avatar (2009) film. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña) are a fortress. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios.   Having finished streaming the original Avatar on Disney+ and watching the sequel today, I am a lot mixed on the two films, and it’s not just because they’re both practically three hours. The bad side is that the first film shows hostility to indigenous people with military gold digging for their powerful resources. On a side note, another form of hostility for the 2009 film came towards protagonist Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, for his paraplegia and human nature. As for the sequel, it was like Aquaman and Black Panther in showing phobias against people of different races, colored or not. However, the film and its sequel made up for it with beautiful portrayals of Pandora and other worlds, from scintillating lights at night on Pandora to the breathtaking sea world in The Way of Water . And differ...

  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever poster. Photo courtesy of Disney. When I saw Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Friday night, I was reluctant at first because of the reminders of grieving a loss. From the first scene, it seemed pretty heavy, and god rest Chadwick Boseman's soul. And the plot and musical score seemed similar to other films, namely The Lion King  and Aquaman , and it was heavy again with more reminders of the violent racism other people of color had to face . But the good parts of the film came from Dominique Thorne's character of Riri Williams/Ironheart with her scientific genius and geeking out with Shuri, Angela Bassett's empowering mother spirit (she should get an Oscar for this), Letitia Wright as Shuri for snapping out of the grief in time, the fighting choreography, and the costumes and makeup. I'd recommend you try not to read too much into the dark parts of the film, but try to do what Rihanna did and lift yourselves up, lift Chadwick Boseman up, a...

Photo courtesy of Amazon and Disney. Michael J. Fox played a former child actor turned struggling child actor agent named Mikey Chapman. But the better side of him is brought out when he becomes the agent of a snarky yet witty kid named Angie Vega, played by Christina Vidal. While it wasn't the best I've seen of Fox-- then again, I haven't seen a lot of roles that can beat his adventurous McFly days, it was good to see that like Dwayne Johnson in The Game Plan, he learned how to take care of family and himself at the same time when a little girl waltzed into his life. I'd say people would enjoy Angie and Mikey's chemistry, and I enjoyed Angie's quick witz and fiery spirit. And there were some times I enjoyed Fox's charming humor. If you ask me, maybe Fox did this to relfect on his own times as a kid with his son. Either way, the story seems familiar, like Annie and The Game Plan, and it's not the best light of Nathan Lane, Cyndi Lauper or young David Kr...

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures From the opening scene of Kahndaq, it didn't seem like Black Adam was original, given that its location seemed similar to Amazon from Wonder Woman or Ancient Rome, places like that. However, Dwayne Johnson's character did stretch the perception of what it means to be a hero and, while it was a step back from his usual tough yet fun-loving characters, showed that he was not a complete villain depending on who he fights for. Black Adam is about Teth-Adam, who gets powers from those who created Captain Marvel/Shazam, and uses those powers to liberate his enslaved people in Ancient and modern Kahndaq. But the Justice Society, led by Hawkman, tries to intervene in his perceived villainous acts. Adam and the Society will have to learn to work together when a bigger entity comes to destroy Earth as we know it. Almost everything I saw in this film was similar to Black Panther : the debate over who is the villain, the politics, the freedom from sl...

Walt Disney Animation Studios made another excellent combination of fantasy. action, and fun with ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’. I thought the titular dragon was voiced by Fran Drescher and the music was by Hans Zimmer or someone else, but nevertheless, I liked the voice casting, story, humor, and music.  Set during ancient times, the land of Kumandra is divided when Sisu, the last of siblings of dragons, voiced by Awkwafina, puts her magic into a gem and uses it to banish the Druun, evil spirits that turns people to stone, and the people fight to gain its power. When the struggle ends up turning her father, Chief Benja of the Heart Tribe, voiced by Daniel Dae Kim, to stone, the gem’s guardian, Raya, voiced by Kelly Marie Tran, seeks to revive him with the help of Sisu and a small army of survivors who lost their families to the Druun, but first they need to find the missing pieces of Sisu’s gem.    The plot seems similar to other Disney works, specifically the power struggl...