Tag: Isabela Merced

Cinema Dispatch: Superman

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Superman and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by James Gunn

James Gunn may be a fantastic filmmaker, but no one has managed to recapture the magic of the Richard Donner films; not even Christopher Reeve who tried to make the fourth film into a passionate a poignant message for the world, though I’d still take Superman IV over Man of Steel any day. Sure, the franchise has been reliably bankable which is why Warner Bros isn’t about to give up on it yet, but for Gunn to go after this white whale is a show of supreme confidence, and possibly the kind of show-off move you’d want to make if you were also entrusted to shepherd an entire movie studio towards relevance again. I trust James Gunn to pull it off, but I’m still crossing my fingers all the same. Can James Gunn make us believe that a man can fly while also putting him in a good movie? Let’s find out!!

Whether you know him as Superman, Clark Kent, or Kal-El (Davud Cirebswet), the Big Blue Boy Scout is three years into his career and is doing what he can to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people invested in the world not being better, so he’s come under fire for stopping a war between the US ally of Boravia and the neighboring country of Jarhanpur. Until now, he was the golden boy who could do no wrong and looked good in Tik-Tok videos captured by the citizens of Metropolis, but with this foray into a politically charged conflict, he’s drawn a few side eyes from ostensible allies such as the Justice Gang composed of Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and, most distressing of all, his own girlfriend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) whose worried he hasn’t thought through the implications of such action and how it could come back to haunt him. She’s not wrong either as Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) has been gunning for him for years now and sees an opportunity to turn the public to his side, so with the help of his corporate drones and a few powered-up henchmen, he starts a smear campaign against Superman and even infiltrates his Fortress of Solitude to uncover more secrets. Are there problematic and terrifying skeletons in Kal-El’s closet that could keep him from being the hero he wants to be? What else does Lex Luthor have up his sleeve beyond the mud raking, and will it bring further chaos to international conflict that Superman tried to stop? Most importantly, who’s gonna feed Krypto if something happens to him!?

“My flesh is impervious to heat, so you’re gonna have to eat me raw. Is that gonna be a problem for you?”     “WOOF!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Alien: Romulus

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Alien: Romulus and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Studios

Directed by Fede Álvarez

The Alien franchise is unique because it’s a series that descended into utter shlock, but never truly lost its prestige. Heck, the first sequel to it was blatantly an attempt to turn an atmospheric horror movie into a wild shoot-em-up, and yet it’s considered nearly as good, if not the equal of, the original film. No matter how many times it gets screwed up by the studio or has terrible crossovers with The Predator, a new Alien film always comes with a certain amount of clout because we all remember just how good that original film is. This latest attempt is the most direct attempt yet at recapturing that magic, but is it simply too big a task for any filmmaker to recapture the magic of that first film? Let’s find out!!

Taking place a number of years after the Nostromo event, we follow a group of rag tag street toughs with dreams of escaping their Weyland-Yutani owned mining planet for the blue skies and green pastures of another planet. To get there, they need to salvage cryostasis chambers from a wrecked space station just outside their home planet’s atmosphere, and with the help of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her adopted android brother Andy (David Jonsson), they might just have a shot of pulling it off. Unfortunately for them, the space station was conducting experiments on the Xenomorphs which naturally begin to escape as soon as these kids start mucking up the place and mess with the thermostat. In order to escape the vessel with the cryo-pods and their fleshy innards intact, Andy installs a data chip that fills him with knowledge of the alien threat as well as the darkest secrets that Weyland-Yutani are hiding. Will our crew of at risk youths make it out alive with the help of Andy 2.0? What else is Weyland-Yutani up to, and is there more to all this than Andy us letting in on? Do you think the Xenomorphs ever get tired of screeching all the time, or is that part of the fun for them?

“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Álvarez.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Madame Web

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Madame Web and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by SJ Clarkson

Sony’s attempts at building their own Marvel mini-verse out of the Spider-Man license have yielded mixed results, to say the least. I, for one, appreciated the two Venom films for their shameless swagger and playful take on the material, but Morbius was an absolute bore and I never thought Kraven was a good idea unless they got Sharlto Copley to play the part. Now we have this slice of the expanded Spider-Man canon that Spider-Verse hasn’t laid a claim to, but hey; at least this one has actual Spider-People in it which you’d think would be a bare minimum requirement to making a Spider-Man connected movie. Is this the film to finally get the Sony-Verse on track and competing with Marvel, or are those dreams as lofty as Warner Bros bringing back the Snyder-Verse? Let’s find out!!

Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson) is living a normal, unassuming thirty-year-old life in the early 2000s as she drives an ambulance with her best friend Ben Parker (Adam Scott) and… well, that’s about it. She does have a mysterious past as her mother died in Peru while researching spiders, but hey, what Gen Xer doesn’t have some weird stuff going on with their parents? Cassie just wants to get through life one day at a time without making any strong connections or getting wrapped up in other people’s problems, but fate has other things in store for her as a near-death experience starts to awaken future-seeing powers that are a real drag when you’re just trying to get through your shift. With great power comes great responsibility, however, as she sees three young women (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) getting attacked on a train by what appears to be an Evil-Spider-Man (Tahar Rahim), though since this takes place before Spider-Man, I guess that would make Spider-Man the good version of whoever this is, and manages to save them while putting a target on her own back for the Spider-Jerk. Why are these three girls so special that they incur the wrath of the Wicked Web-Head, and what role does Cassie have to play in this clash of destiny? Does the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man hold the secrets to Cassie’s past that she’s been desperately searching for?  If Spider-Man doesn’t exist yet, does a guy walking on walls and wearing a spandex bodysuit even read as a spider?

“Why are we being chased by a sticky man!?”     “What even is his gimmick? Mr. Adhesive?”     “How about The Human Lint Roller?”     “How about we run, instead!?”
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