Tag: Elsa Pataky

Cinema Dispatch: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by George Miller

Mad Max: Fury Road was an important film for a lot of people, but for me, it was my first attempt at reviewing a contemporary movie I saw in the theaters. Sure, I had been reviewing movies on streaming services for a while before then, but there was something about the movie that made me feel I could say something interesting about it. It’s been nine years since then and George Miller has finally made the Furiosa movie he’s been dreaming of, and I’ve written an absurd amount of movie reviews since then, so it’ll be good to reconnect after all this time! Is this a proper follow up to one of the most intense and brilliantly crafted action films of the last decade, or is a Mad Max movie without Mad Max just another post-apocalyptic slog? Let’s find out!!

The post-apocalypse isn’t fun for anyone, but a small group of people have at least managed to pull together a modest and healthy living in an area known as The Green Place of Many Mothers. One of its residents is the young Furiosa (Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy) who gets kidnapped by minions of the dreaded Lord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) who may not be able to extract the Green Place’s location from her, but definitely sees something special in the young girl. Through political wheeling and dealing that keeps a modest peace between Dementus and the terrifying Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), Furiosa ends up in Joe’s kingdom and manages to maneuver herself into a mechanic role building War Rigs to transport supplies between the major outposts in the wasteland. Still, Furiosa has not forgotten everything that Dementus took away from her and the horrors she narrowly avoided while under Joe’s thumb, and with the help of a driver (Tom Burke) she just might have a way to return to her old life and leave nothing but a scorched wasteland in her wake. Well… at least a slightly more scorched wasteland. What trials and tribulations will Furiosa face that led her to the events of Fury Road? Does she have any hope of getting revenge against Lord Dementus without losing everything that matters to her in the process? Things like, oh I don’t know… say your left arm?

“You’re lucky I’m a righty, or else I’d be REALLY pissed!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Thor: Love and Thunder

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Thor: Love and Thunder and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Taika Waititi

Much like Thor himself, I find myself in something of a slump recently with a few different roads to get out of it. I won’t go into details, but I’m definitely taking a few steps in some sort of direction and we’ll see how things shake out in the next few weeks. For now though, I’m working on these reviews on my schedule and no one else’s which means that unfortunately, this is coming out long after everyone else has said their piece on it. Still, no harm in throwing my opinion out into the void and seeing if the void spews anything back up! Does this latest entry in the Marvel Forever-verse shock a few more minutes of life into the franchise, or will this be just fine and watchable to the consternation of those who are waiting for a big enough disaster to finally topple Disney’s firm grip on the genre? Let’s find out!!

With everything that happened in that whole Thanos kerfuffle, which included the death of his brother and the near extinction of the Asgardians, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) really needed a break to try and figure things out. To that end, he’s been bumming around with the Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as his friend Korg (Taika Waititi), until they run out of Big Lebowski jokes and convince him to go on some wild goose chase for some sort of God Butcher in a bid to get away from his mopey Asgardian butt. Turns out the threat is real, however, as a humble alien named Gorr (Christian Bale) loses his faith in the Gods and is rewarded with the Necrosword; a weapon so dark and powerful that it can kill these selfish Gods while slowly draining him of his life and seemingly his sanity. Well, we’ve got a new Marvel villain to dispatch of which can only mean it’s time for another team-up, and since the Guardians of the Galaxy aren’t returning his calls he returns to the last Asgardian colony on Earth to see if a few warriors are still bumming around. Turns out that Thor’s hammer has been restored and there’s a new Thor in the form of Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who is called Mighty Thor to distinguish from the guy whose name is Thor but lost the title of Thor some time ago… or something like that. Needless to say, there are some mixed feelings there as their relationship didn’t end on the best of terms, but they need to work together, along with Korg and King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) to stop Gorr who, in classic villain fashion, has stolen a bunch of Asgardian children for seemingly no reason other than spite. Can Thor and Mighty Thor set aside their past difference and come together to stop this threat to the universe? What are the rest of the Gods doing while Gorr is carving his way through their ranks, and what is Gorr truly hoping to accomplish by stringing the two Thors along on this rescue mission? Seriously, are Jane and Thor gonna talk or will they just keep things awkward for the whole trip?

“Maybe you should tell her you miss her?” “Quiet! I’m busy! Doing… superhero stuff.”
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Cinema Dispatch: The Fate of the Furious

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Fate of the Furious and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by F Gary Gray

I hope all of you out there appreciate what I do for you!  A week ago, I had never even SEEN a Fast and the Furious movie, and yet I managed to binge watch ALL SEVEN OF THEM so that I can properly review this new one as the series now has a continuity more dense than the freaking Terminator, and that’s SUPPOSED to be convoluted!  I HAD TO WATCH TOKYO DRIFT FOR YOU PEOPLE!!  Sigh… alright, well it’s not like I even HATED any of the movies (other than Tokyo Drift) as most of them are at least DECENT if not all that engaging.  For me though, they didn’t pick up until part six when the BUDGET finally started to match the VISION that was always there, because let’s face it; Fast and the Furious was NEVER a serious series.  It was ALWAYS balls to the wall insanity, just at different degrees depending on what they could afford (except for Tokyo Drift which was just garbage).  So with the last two films finally managing to reach the potential this series was always capable of, does that trend continue with this film?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins in Cuba where Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) have settled down since the last movie where their house got blown up, and they’re doing their typical first act shtick of racing cars, talking about family, and forging new friendships!  That is until a super hacker hilariously named CIPHER (Charlize Theron) corners Dom at one point and shows him something that will CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER!!  Cut to a few days later where good ol’ Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) calls him and the rest of the crew up (Tyrese Gibson, Chirs Bridges, and Nathalie Emmanuel) to do another mission.  Everything goes according to plan except… DOM BETRAYS THEM!!  Their mission was to take an EMP from someplace in German (for reasons that I’m sure make sense) but he crashes Hobbs’s car right at the end and takes it for himself; leaving Hobbs to get thrown in jail back in America which JUST SO HAPPENS to be the same jail that Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is locked in as well… and they get cells right across from each other because reasons.  So now it’s up to our favorite crew of street racers along with Frank Petty (Kurt Russel) from the last movie who’s the leader of some sort of spy organization as well as his new protégé of sorts Eric Reisner (Scott Eastwood) to find out what Dom is doing, what CIPHER wants from him, and hopefully how to solve all this without taking him out as well.  Just what is the reason that Dom betrayed the one thing he cares about more than anything which is FAMILY?  Just what is CIPHER planning, and is it bad enough that the crew may have no other choice than to take Dom out?  Will Vin Diesel FINALLY give that Oscar performance he’s been hoping for!?

F8OTF1
“I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!  SLLLLLUUURRRP!”

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