Tag: David Harbour

Cinema Dispatch: Black Widow

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Black Widow and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Cate Shortland

Wow, 2020 feels like a million years ago doesn’t it?  Not only that, it seems that spy movies were in vogue as not only this movie but The King’s Man and the new James Bond movie were set to come out before finding out the one thing you can’t stealthy murder your way around is a global pandemic.  Thankfully things are starting to clear up (though the pandemic is by no means over, GET VACCINATED!) and some of those 2020 holdovers are making their way to theaters.  We already got Fast 9 and Spiral, s s turn to save movie theaters with their latest billion dollar blockbuster!  Is this spin-off film for one of o now it’s Marvel’ the MCU’s most iconic characters the true start to the next wave of Marvel movies, or is did it miss its chance when the world turned upside down last year?  Let’s find out!!

Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is on the run after the events of Captain America: Civil War and is laying low in a trailer somewhere when she gets a message from her long lost spy-sister containing vials of some mysterious substance.  She is immediately attacked by a mysterious person in a mechanical suit with a skull painted on the faceplate, and so she goes to see her sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) who first tries to punch her a bunch of times before revealing that the vials are some sort of antidote for a mind control drug that the current crop of Black Widows are injected with; including herself who is only free now after a botched operation that her a face full of the anti-puppet juice.  With Yelena now free and Natasha having nothing better to do, the two of them start working together to bring down General Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the scumbag leader of the Black Widows who is now coming after them.  To find Dreykov though, they will need the help of their spy-dad Alexei (David Harbour) who was once the Red Guardian (the Captain America equivalent for the Soviet Union) and is now wasting away in prison, as well as the help of their spy-mom Melina (Rachel Weisz) who was a Black Widow herself and still has contacts with the organization.  Can this awkward family reunion get Natasha and Yelena the information they need to save the women under Dreykov’s control and end the program once and for all?  Will their spy-parents help them on their journey or will they be a bunch of Boomers about it and question why they feel so entitled to not being mind-slaved by the state?  How much is Marvel regretting their decision to end Black Widow’s story in Endgame, and how big of a sales pitch did they give to Florence Pugh?

“I’m telling ya, sis.  Four movies MINIMUM that will all make over five hundred million at the box office!”     “I’ll think about it, but no promises.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Hellboy

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Hellboy and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Neil Marshall

So… we’re NOT gonna get a Hellboy 3?  Okay, just wanted to make sure!  Well there’s certainly no reason to just STOP making Hellboy movies just because he’s not gonna make one, so let’s get ready to reboot!  I mean when you’ve got a setup as good as DUDE WHO LOOKS LIKE THE DEVIL PUNCHES MONSTERS, there’s no WAY you can go wrong even if you don’t have Del Toro helming it, right!?  Is this the next best thing to getting a conclusion to the previous Hellboy movies, or is this a sad remind of what could have been?  Let’s find out!!

Hellboy (David Harbour) is your average guy with a decent job and perhaps the beginings of a drinking problem.  Okay, he’s also a red demon with a giant arm and horns growing out of his head, but looks are only skin deep, and this guy is just like you and me on the inside; suffering silently in this living nightmare we call life while putting on a tough face to try and cope!  Hellboy’s latest reason to cope is that one his pals at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense was turned into a vampire and Hellboy (most likely accidently) had to finish him off before he started ripping out other people’s throats.  Not a great way to start the work week if you ask me, but he must solider on as a crisis in London sends him to Europe where coincidentally a legendary monster known as Nimue the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) is being brought back to life so as to wreak unholy havoc on the world.  Well I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a job for Hellboy and his cast of wacky sidekicks including Alice (Sasha Lane) who can talk to ghosts and Ben (Daniel Dae Kim) who’s basically a living GI Joe action figure who seems to be harboring a secret of his own.  Can the BPRD and its leader Ian McShane) who also considers himself Hellboy’s father manage to stop The Blood Queen before it’s too late?  Can Hellboy focus on the task at hand when things continually get in his way and remind him of just how unwanted he is in the world of humans?  Can someone teach this boy how to comb his hair?  It just looks sloppy when you’re supposed to be at work!

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“You know we have a dress code.”     “Does it look like I care?”

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