The Man with the Golden Stream! James Bond video games every Sunday at 2:30pm!
https://www.twitch.tv/reviewersunite
Cinema Dispatch: Wonder Park
Wonder Park and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures
Directed by no one
So you’re telling me that there’s a movie in theaters right now where a sex pest had to leave the movie halfway through its tumultuous production, and it’s NOT Bohemian Rhapsody!? Yes, it’s not a typo that I didn’t credit a director on this movie because the guy who at some point sat in that chair got booted off of it and got the added justice of having his name stripped from the credits; something that I’m sure Fox would have really liked to do for its movie before things got awkward at the Oscars. Even before I knew any of that though, I was not looking forward to this considering how low rent and unappealing the trailers were which makes it all the more astounding that the darn thing cost upwards of a hundred million, so it seems pretty clear we’re in for a train wreck of epic proportions. Does this movie miraculously stick the landing despite everything going against it, or are we just here to watch it flame out in spectacular fashion? Let’s find out!!
June Bailey (Brianna Denski) is your typical millennial smarty pants who was basically raised her whole life on STEM related games; the main one being an imaginary park known as WONDER PARK with fantastical rides and a staff of talking animals that she and her mother (Jennifer Garner) would work on each night before bed. Over time, June’s interest started to bleed out into the real world which started off rather dangerously with unsafe roller coasters made out of plywood and city property, but eventually she started to focus on smaller scale project with actual engineering behind them instead of trial and error until someone cracks their skull open. However… something happens. I’m not going to say WHAT because the trailers do a very good job of hiding what this movie is actually about, but there’s a tragedy that causes her to give up on her Wonder Park dreams, and since this is a Kid’s Movie the universe will not take such flagrant cynicism lying down! Thorough the power of unexplained magic, June ends up in Wonder Park itself which is run by the loyal animal staff which includes Boomer the bear, Gus the beaver, Cooper the OTHER beaver, Greta the boar, and Steve the porcupine (Ken Hudson Campbell, Kenan Thompson, Ken Jeong, Mila Kunis, and John Oliver), but has been left in disarray for some time now. See, something happened to the park as well which brought THE DARKNESS upon them (I WONDER IF HER TRAGEDY AND THEIRS ARE SOMEHOW CONNECTED!?) that caused the guests to disappear and the stuffed animals to turn homicidal; taking the group’s leader Peanut (Norbet Leo Butz), a chimpanzee with a magic marker who made the rides June and her mother thought of. So now June is stuck in the last place she wants to be with animal friends who are not very helpful and is now trying to fix an amusement park in order to save a chimp with magic powers from adorable abominations. Sounds legit if you ask me! Can June and her friends figure out how to get the park up and running again to banish the darkness once and for all? Will this exercise in engineering splendor and stuffed animal homicide be just what June needs to confront her traumas once and for all? Is it just me, or does this all sound pretty convoluted for a movie so clearly aimed at five year olds?
Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) – #15
Sonic the Hedgehog (the comic book series) and all the images you see in this recap are owned by IDW and SEGA of America
Things are starting to get serious around here now that Eggman has a robo-virus thingy as well as two ignorant test subjects to use it on! The villains have certainly been the highlight of this arc to be sure and giving Rough & Tumble a cybernetic upgrade could certainly bring them up to Eggman and Starline’s level, but the more and more the writers put into that side of the story, are they letting the good guys fall to the wayside? Let’s find out!!
The issue begins with Sonic and Amy who are trying to suss out Eggman’s latest plan and end up finding his lair which is adorned in typical Eggman fashion. No one can expect him to inhabit some place with anything less than Baz Lehrman levels of flair, and frankly that’s why I love the guy! I mean how can you NOT respect someone who will exert that much effort on something so vain!?
Continue reading “Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) – #15”
The Man with the Golden Stream: Goldeneye 007 (Part 3)
The Man with the Golden Stream! James Bond video games every Sunday at 2:30pm!
https://www.twitch.tv/reviewersunite
Cinema Dispatch: Captive State
Captive State and all the images you see in this review are owned by Focus Features
Directed by Rupert Wyatt
I still haven’t seen those Planet of the Apes movies, but I hear they’re pretty good; especially that first one which I recall being a rather big surprise for people. The guy’s only done a few other things since then, none of which I’ve seen, but hey! If you’re gonna go in without context, try to go all the way! I mean seriously, I hadn’t seen a trailer or even heard about this movie until I was trying to figure out what I was going to see after Captain Marvel, so this is one big question mark for me which is USUALLY a good thing in trying to get the most out of that initial experience, but it also means that I can easily get smacked up the head by something bafflingly awful which is its own special kind of torment. Will this movie I know nothing about live up to the expectations I don’t have for it, or will I be utterly disappointed by how bad this completely out of the blue failed to be as good as I envisioned it to be? Let’s find out!!
The movie takes place after aliens have already come down, kicked our butts, and have taken over everything; not so much to destroy the planet, but more like colonization where they keep us in line and plunder our natural resources. In Chicago, Gabriel (Ashton Sanders) is eking out an okay existence along with everyone else, but his late brother Rafe (Jonathan Majors) was part of a resistance movement that tried to attack the aliens and now he’s trying to do the same thing. However, there are a few roadblocks that are in his way. For one, there’s already a resistance movement making headway towards destroying the alien’s base in Chicago (some underground facility) which makes his paltry efforts seem inconsequential, and on top of that his late dad’s best friend William (John Goodman) is a cop that’s keeping an eye on him and also keeping an eye on anyone who maybe planning further terrorist attacks against their alien overlords. This has been made somewhat easy because for some reason everyone now has a bug (it’s unclear if its literally or figuratively) implanted in their necks to keep track of their movements at all time, and of course the authorities have gone all police state to keep people in line. Can this resistance group actually make a serious blow against their oppressors, and will Gabriel somehow be a key part to their plan without him even knowing it? What will William do when push comes to shove and he has to take decisive action against those who he’s sworn to stop from inciting more violence and angering the aliens? Is the twist gonna be that the aliens are actually Krypotnians, because this looks A LOT like Man of Steel.
The Man with the Golden Stream: Goldeneye 007 (Part 2)
The Man with the Golden Stream! James Bond video games every Sunday at 2:30pm!
https://www.twitch.tv/reviewersunite
The Man with the Golden Stream: Goldeneye 007 (Part 1)
The Man with the Golden Stream! James Bond video games every Sunday at 2:30pm!
https://www.twitch.tv/reviewersunite
Cinema Dispatch: Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
You know, it’d be nice if a Marvel movie can come out and NOT bring out the worst of the man babies which has sadly become an almost yearly ritual that the rest of us have to deal with. Now admittedly I was something of a crybaby when I was pretty scathing about Infinity War, but at least I WAITED until I saw the movie and… you know… FORMED MY OWN OPINION ABOUT IT! I didn’t go into it assuming it was going to be bad or pass of blatant lies as a “review” to tank an arbitrary number like an alarming number of people took time out of their day to do! The amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth that this movie generated is phenomenal, and frankly it’s a BIT worrying at this point for the most popular thing in the world to somehow also be the largest lightening rod of faux controversy in cinema. It’d be nice if something other than the latest Disney Money Maker can be talked about without the SAD BOY PATROL rearing their ugly heads and derailing ACTUAL conversations that people care about, but I guess we don’t get to choose our villains who in this day and age are less James Moriarty and more The Collector from that one Treehouse of Horror episode. Anyway, we’re all here to talk about the movie, so let’s cut through the nonsense and look at what all the hubbub’s about! Is this a cinematic masterpiece that will crush the patriarchy once and for all, or did all these crying losers utterly lose their cool over a not especially good superhero movie? Let’s find out!!
Vers (Brie Larson) is a refugee on a Kree planet who was found by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) and trained to be a warrior to fight the enemy that left her for dead and with no memory; an enemy of shape shifting green dudes known as THE SKRULL! Vers is not only tough but she has some sort of energy blast power thingy that makes her an effective hammer to smash things with, but she’s still struggling to be a team player which becomes an issue on her first mission with Yon-Rogg and his crew to extract a double agent before the Skrull find him. The mission inevitably goes wrong, Vers is captured but manages to escape, and so she and a bunch of Skrull soldiers including their commanding officer Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) crash land on Earth which so far has been left unaware of the Kree/Skrull conflict. Not long after landing, she meets up with a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative named Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) who decides that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (at least for now) and is helping her find the Skrulls and whatever it is that led them to Earth in the first place. Eventually Vers learns that she’s actually FROM Earth and that her real name is Carol Danvers which is quite a shock to her considering that she was supposedly a refugee from another planet, so on top of stopping the Skrull from destroying this planet like they have to so many others, she has to find out exactly who she is, why she ended up on a Kree planet, and what this would mean for her life going forward. Can Carol find the secrets of her past, and will they be the key finding her true place in the universe? What exactly are the Skrull planning, and can Carol’s new perspective lead her to finding a way to end this conflict once and for all? Seriously, why were there SO many creepy dudes combing through every single detail before this movie came out!? Do they really think it makes them look smart and credible!?
Cinema Dispatch: A Madea Family Funeral
A Madea Family Funeral and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate
Directed by Tyler Perry
It’s Perry time once again and I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER!! Oh who am I kidding!? I cannot keep up the charade any longer! I am definitely not looking forward to this guy trying to make a movie with nothing more than a living room, a couple costumes, and an absolute disdain for the art of editing. I’ve had to sit through Boo 1 AND Boo 2 already! You think I’m proud of that!? Now we’ve got this movie that he’s claiming will be the last time we see Madea (as bad as these are I STILL want to see a Madea movie where she takes on the alt right and punches Richard Spencer in the face) which would hopefully means it’s a culmination of everything he’s learned as a filmmakers after all these years, but I think we all know better than to assume he’s thought that far ahead. Can Tyler Perry send off his signature character with an emotionally satisfying swan song, or is this just like ALL the others which… actually would still be pretty fitting all things considered? Let’s find out!!
Madea, Joe, Hattie, and Aunt Bam (Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry, Patrice Lovely, and Cassi Davis) are doing their own thing at Brian’s house (Tyler Perry again) but what’s ACTUALLY going on is that one of Madea’s numerous relatives is having an anniversary party that all the grown kids on that side of the family are preparing for. We’ve got the couple of the hour Anthony and Vianne (Derek Morgan and Jen Harper), their naïve yet good hearted son Jessie with his girlfriend Renee (Rome Flynn and Quin Walters), their older son AJ who’s a Tyler Perry stock villain along with his rich wife Gia (Courtney Burrell and Aeriél Miranda), and their daughter Sylvia with her husband Will (Ciera Payton and David Otunga) who are… just kinda there. Oh, and also Uncle Heathrow (Tyler Perry AGAIN) who’s the WACKY relative who’s obnoxiously sexist humor everyone just kind of puts up with. Anyway, while the party is getting ready and Madea and co are on their way, someone dies. I’m not gonna spoil who, but what this means is that everyone’s gotta plan for a funeral now which involves Madea taking charge and being SUPER WACKY about it while everyone else who’s actually important to the story start to have their secrets bubble to the surface which could tear this entire family apart. Can Madea pull off a successful funeral with only a minimal amount of mishaps in horror of the recently deceased? What is everyone in this family hiding, and just how much popcorn should we get to watch it unfold? Has any else noticed that there’s ALWAYS drama whenever Madea comes around? It’s like whenever Jessica Fletcher visits a place and someone JUST SO HAPPENS to get murdered, only one of them doesn’t do a darn thing to actually help the situation.
The Sonic Soapbox – Episode 1: Sonic’s Movie Design
Wanted to know what I think about Sonic’s design in the upcoming movie? Well take a listen to The Sonic Soapbox; an idea I’ve been thinking of for a bit now and hope to bring you more of in the future!
The Reviewers Unite 