The Cinematic Review-verse

  DC's  Blue Beetle.  Photo courtesy of DC Comics.   In DC Comics’ latest cinematic venture, they’ve hit their own Beetlemania in the case of the lead superhero being Jaime Reyes in Blue Beetle . Xolo Maridueña was able to shed and share some of his Cobra Kai  skin playing Reyes in an adrenaline-filled, high-flying superhero escapade, with a doting, embarrassing family behind him. Blue Beetle tells their version of In the Heights with Reyes returning to Palmera City after college graduation. Family problems arise that Reyes is determined to take care of, even if he ends up in a collision course with an alien scarab and the ruthless Victoria Kord, played by Susan Sarandon, on his tail. But when all hope seems lost, Reyes takes up the mantle of Blue Beetle, armed with wings, gauntlets, and swords. As I said, Maridueña’s character of Jaime Reyes was similar to his role as Miguel Diaz in Cobra Kai . They are both undaunted at wanting to make a better life in thi...

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Poster. Think of it like The Breakfast Club.  Photo taken by William Edward Beavers, V    Despite having some tough-to-watch in-depth moments for most of the titular heroes and soundtrack, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was wholesome superhero fun.  In the third GOTG  film, we discover the origins behind Rocket, voiced by Bradley Cooper and motion-captured by Sean Gunn, along with the aftermath of the Peter/Gamora (Chris Pratt/Zoë Saldaña) dynamic after Endgame and future of the MCU space-based protagonists, namely Drax, Nebula, and Mantis (played by Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, and Pom Klementieff). From seeing Rocket and Quill so bitter in the beginning over their respective tragic pasts, I thought the film would be just as sad as most of the MCU post- Endgame in general. But humor came back in the form of issues such as Kraglin (played by Sean Gunn) struggling to use Yondu’s arrow, Quill trying to go from Han Solo to Swayze, a...

  Shazam/Captain Marvel and family are in a deity duel. Photo courtesy of IGN and Warner Bros. Pictures. Shazam!: Fury of the Gods did a good job in showing family empowerment, female empowerment, and growth in some of the characters. I enjoyed Rachel Zegler's performance as Anthea and chemistry with Freddy Freeman (played by Jack Dylan Grazer) and occasional goofy humor from the titular superhero (played by Zachary Levi), but it was more mature than the last film, in a good and bad way. For example, while still learning his powers, Billy Batson had to think about his future once he aged out of the foster care system, and he's still dealing with abandonment issues while struggling to find wisdom and lead his team. Good for character development, but it has to show more light than blue moments. And the film had more dark tone with the dark magic compared to the first film, angry goddess parts, and fantasy monsters. Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu were truly fired up in their roles, He...

Michael Bakari Jordan's directorial debut of Creed III. Photo courtesy of MGM Studios. Creed III  was able to stand strong on its own as Adonis Creed forges his own legacy. Michael B. Jordan did a great job directing and acting, and it felt great to see him confront his past away from being Apollo Creed's son and figuring out what it truly means to have a family. Jonathan Major's character of Damian was much better than him as Kang the Conqueror a month prior. Tessa Thompson as Bianca had some fiery beats in the soundtrack and was a good black homage to Adrian from the past Rocky films and proved to be a proud black mom on her own.  It didn't feel good to see more struggles of being a black person in rough parts of South Central Los Angeles, but I guess the idea was to show that outside the boxing ring, the struggle to make it big in the world is still real, black or not. Either way, it showed a more in-depth look at Adonis Creed away from the usual boxing franchise, an...

  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...