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mark-mcphee
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The Flash (2023)
DC Does it again, and that's not a good thing
So, what to say about the Flash. The first thing to mention is Ezra Miller's performance. They were excellent, playing both present day and younger Barry Allen. I was surprised as I found them very annoying in the JL film, so that made the film look very promising.
Ironically, the film starts off relatively slow, and it's not until Michael Keaton comes into it, that it starts to pick up pace.
The film is in keeping, to a certain extent, with the animated film and related comics. It is funny in parts, jokes are about right and the visual comedy is good. The nods to previous films, most obvious and notable being Batman 89, are very nostalgic for those of us who grew up watching that era of DC films.
The new 'old' Batwing was nicely done to incorporate passengers and played to the Animated Series Batwing to a certain extent.
I think, if DC hadn't ended the Synderverse and decided to 'reboot' again the DC Universe, then the inclusion of Gal Gaddot would have been more appropriate, and could have brought the other JL members in for cameos to setup JL 2.
Now the bad. Firstly, the CGI was sub par in most of the film, especially when it comes to the cowl on Ezra. The time travel scenes looked promising to begin with, but the CGI let them down in a big way. Anyone who has watched or read about the Flash's time travel exploits will figure out what is about to happen and who is behind it very quickly.
Ben Affleck's look and performance were not the best portrayal of his Batman, and was a let down for his final outing as the Dark Knight.
The opening 'save' by the Flash felt more of a rip off from a scene in X-Men Days Of Future Past. Again, the CGI was poor in comparison to other franchise and superhero movies/shows.
There was a extremely well thought out 'for the fans' scene in the final battle, which was again let down by the CGI and could have used a few more 'nods' for the fans. There were a few things that they could have added for the fans, and this is a spoiler,
1. Seeing the 89 Batmobile in action. The script called for the Batwing for the battle scenes, but a little trip out in the Batmobile for a few minutes would have been a nice touch.
2. A nod to the Arrowverse would have been a great addition. Those series (bar one or two) really kept the DC franchise alive and should have been included. Especially as The Flash has just ended it's run (pun intended).
3. Love it or hate it, a nod Batman Forever given Val Kilmers current condition, would have been nice.
When you look at all the Arrowverse did in Crisis, and all the little nods to the other movies & shows, they really should have expanded on it a bit more in the scenes they did.
This is a typical DC movie. A lot of potential and hype, only to be let down by the story and lack of vision.
As for the altered ending (and due to Batgirl being cancelled, I can see why the ending was changed) , whatever idiot thought that was a good idea really needs to be removed from the film industry. Of all the choices available and potential endings, they decided on that actor and appearance.
There is an after credits scene as well, but it is not worth sitting through the credits to see. It is poor and offers very little value to the film or as a teaser for a future DC film. It seems more about allowing a cameo rather than anything else.
I would suggest if you want to see the film, and for Ezra's performance and the nods to Batman 89, you should, then wait till it is available on a streaming service.
As with every persons review, this is my opinion on the film. Others have given it very positive reviews and others have given it worse reviews.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Not the best but
So, as many reviewers have already pointed out, this isn't a great film. The storyline is poor and the acting struggles with the poorly devised script.
Warner Bros just can't do superhero movies consistently. They constantly reboot or try to reinvent the characters. They need to take a lesson from Sony/Marvel.
They had a opportunity to bring the whole DC franchise together like Marvel did with the avengers and the individual hero films but failed dramatically.
The writers and director needs to look at the first film and try to recapture the essence of the characters for the next film.
The best thing Warner Bros can do is get a group of writers to pen the whole universe and put all the previous DC films in different parts of the multiverse. Reset and bring the whole Justice League to the big screen as it should be.
Gal Gadot is beautiful and fits the role well as Wonder Woman but she needs a good script and good direction to do the role justice.
The premise for being Chris Pine back was a nice idea and played on her struggle to be what the world needed and what she longed for herself.
MacGyver (2016)
Another Ford TV disaster
I looked forward to this show when it was announced. Unfortunately, it is a major let down. The original, whilst a bit cheesy for the 80's, was enjoyable with Richard Dean Anderson bringing both a serious and a humorous side to the character. This show however has neither. The effects in the show are terrible, the scripts are terrible and the actinging is barely passable. I liked the lead actor in the X Men films but feel he is let down by the poor writing of the scripts. I liked George Eads in CSI but again, the scripts let him down also, This reminds of the failed attempt to bring back Knight Rider in 2008. Again Ford were the primary car manufacturer in that show as they are in this one, not sure if that is the reason both that show and this one are so poor but it is a common theme. So, the show is now more Mission Impossible than one man A-Team. MacGyver now has a onsite team in each episode, rather than going solo as he did in most of the original show. Jack is now an action hero rather than the comic relief he was in the original show.
I don't see this show going past the first season unless the producers learn quickly, get a whole new writing staff, watch the original series and start to produce a decent show without all the poor CGI, token coloured characters who serve no real purpose to the show but who's characters could be a lot better and contribute to the episodes.
In KR, they tried to get back to the basics of the original show eventually but it was far too late. The producers need to slim down the cast on this show and stop with the pop ups naming every item that is being used. Let either the lead character voice over as RDA did or get him back to do the monologue on the episodes.
The show needs better writing if it is going to survive.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Nice effects, but this isn't really Star Trek
I was dubious about this show from the initial teaser showing the ship and my opinion hasn't changed after watching the first season. There are so many things that they just did wrong.
The rest of the TV shows at least kept some resemblance of continuity regarding events, races etc. This show, set after Enterprise and before the original series, is so far off base.
The Klingons for example, wtf? Bares no resemble to any other series or movie (even the reboots got it close enough). This put me off the show in a big way.
Characters - I can't even remember most of the characters names, there was nothing to connect with them.
Storylines - They went for big and flashy but most lack substance. It's almost like everyone has their own take on the show, gets to write an episode but doesn't bother to try and make it relate to any other episode. The other shows had their stand alone episodes and story arcs but there was something about them that made the shows enjoyable to watch. This show, so far, doesn't seem to have that.
The uniforms - Again, not keeping with the continuity of the franchise. Vaguely based on Enterprise jumpsuits. Would have been much better using the original series outfits.
The good things about the show:
The gay relationship is shown as it should be, a normal thing. The producers haven't made a song and dance about it as other shows do.
The effects are great, shame about the set design and story let them down a bit.
The mirror universe story line was nicely done.
I have hopes that the producers will have read the feedback about the show and make some major changes in Season 2. I would like to see more character development so that the characters are actually memorable. Hopefully see this fit in the cannon of the other shows more closely.
Ghostbusters (2016)
What a load of rubbish
So after avoiding this film when it was first released due to the trailers making it look rubbish, I decided to watch it on Netflix because I was that bored.
Opening scene was good, the special effects are obviously a marked improvement from the Ghostbusters 30 years ago and that is about as good as the film gets.
First scenes with the main cast were very painful to watch. Everyone got up in arms that all the negative reviews were because the cast is female. At the end of the day if the actors are good I don't care what sex, colour, sexual preference etc. they are. If they can act well that is all that matters. Unfortunately the casting for this film was entirely wrong.
Story, or what is referred to as the story, is so disjointed and poorly written that you just wait for the scenes were the cast aren't in it and it is just the special effects. To distract you from the dancing, obvious jokes that you see coming a mile away, and poor quality acting, there is a host of big names in small parts and cameos from the Ghostbusters. This fails and, if I'm honest, made me view the actors as being sell outs.
Was ready to turn this off after the first 10 mins but sadly sat through the full length of the film and really wished that I had stopped after 10 mins and watched the kettle boil for the time that I wasted. I can honestly say I didn't laugh once during this film.
The Ghosbusters films had decent storylines and were well acted. The setup for the jokes were subtle and well timed. The 'science' used in the films played well into the kit used. This film has none of that.
This film should have been advertised as a spoof and done by the SyFy channel.
Had the movie execs and writers actually thought this through then they could have had a nice money making stream of films rather than killing it off.
They should have made this film a continuation and had the Ghosbusters reunite and hand the torch to a new cast.
MacGyver (2016)
Another Ford TV disaster
I looked forward to this show when it was announced. Unfortunately, it is a major let down. The original, whilst a bit cheesy for the 80's, was enjoyable with Richard Dean Anderson bringing both a serious and a humorous side to the character. This show however has neither. The effects in the show are terrible, the scripts are terrible and the actinging is barely passable. I liked the lead actor in the X Men films but feel he is let down by the poor writing of the scripts. I liked George Eads in CSI but again, the scripts let him down also, This reminds of the failed attempt to bring back Knight Rider in 2008. Again Ford were the primary car manufacturer in that show as they are in this one, not sure if that is the reason both that show and this one are so poor but it is a common theme. So, the show is now more Mission Impossible than one man A-Team. MacGyver now has a onsite team in each episode, rather than going solo as he did in most of the original show. Jack is now an action hero rather than the comic relief he was in the original show.
I don't see this show going past the first season unless the producers learn quickly, get a whole new writing staff, watch the original series and start to produce a decent show without all the poor CGI, token coloured characters who serve no real purpose to the show but who's characters could be a lot better and contribute to the episodes.
In KR, they tried to get back to the basics of the original show eventually but it was far too late. The producers need to slim down the cast on this show and stop with the pop ups naming every item that is being used. Let either the lead character voice over as RDA did or get him back to do the monologue on the episodes.
The show needs better writing if it is going to survive.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope
Good points about the movie:
Cast was great Very funny one liners
Now the other bits:
Droid escapes the empire with secret plans. This droid is a little funnier than R2 but is basically doing the same role as R2 did in IV. First order destroys village looking for the droid, again very similar to IV MF very conveniently near by to take our new heroes off planet A nice cantina to build the plot line a bit, with the lightsabre of Skywalker nicely stored for our new heroine to start her journey to the way of the Jedi. Very similar to IV, even in a similar chest.
You can see a theme emerging here. Even down to the hero getting killed by the evil dark side Lord. Funny enough it was son killing father again. Young Jedi wipes out the Jedi till only 1 remains, sounds very familiar again.
All throughout the film, I was guessing correctly what was coming next, there was no massive twist in the film, nothing like episode V. Even down to being told the Kylo is Solo's son and very easy to guess that Rey is most likely Skywalkers daughter.
All in all, this was simply a remake of episode IV. The writers were very aware of this as they wrote in references to the rest of the saga as they characters did pretty much what they had done in previous films.
I would say that from a story standpoint this is a very disappointing movie. The action and cast were great, but, and I will probably be shot for this, but the graphics in the prequels were a lot more to my liking,
The new republic is mentioned and then suddenly wiped out, along with there whole fleet. Just as well they had created a rebel alliance, sorry, resistance to fight off the empire, sorry first order.
I can only hope that the next 2 are more original. Everyone criticises Lucas for the changes he made to the original films, yet everyone seems very happy to the changes made to Episode IV in this one???????
Knight Rider (2008)
A let down and then some
So, when this first came out, there was a hope for a good show. Unfortunately several things let it down. 1. A very poor cast and terrible acting. 2. The show tried to incorporate too many characters and had poor scripts trying to fit them all in on each episode. In addition, the show went from One Man helping people to grand stories involving governments and end-of-the-world stories. 3. Terrible CGI and instead of using the nano skin concept from the pilot they went down the Transformers route. Any way for Ford to get as many of their models into the show, same thing happened in Team Knight Rider.
The show did get better towards the end of it's run once they killed off a lot of the cast and got back to the premise of one man and one car with a small group of supporting cast. Had the show ran it's full episode amount for the first season, it may have got more viewers and made it to a second season. A lot of interesting story lines were started, but some where left unfinished, others rushed to conclusion. They did miss out on, what could have been a great 2 part episode, when the introduced K.A.R.R. Unfortunately making it a robot, aka a Transformer, and having probably the worst CGI I have seen outside of a B-Movie Sci-Fi special, created a major let down. Had this episode been up to the expectations of the fans, it may have saved the show as it was the jump off point where the show got back to the story lines of the original.
Only 2 things were good in this show. Val Kilmer as K.I.T.T and the Mustang.
Next time, leave Ford and the writers of this incarnation, out of the equation and we could have a good show.
Skyfall (2012)
Great Movie
Certainly one of the best Bond movies made. Great acting and directing.
The film plays tribute to the past 50 years of Bond and has re-introduced some old familiar characters that have been omitted from the past 2 Daniel Craig Bond films.
Although this is a great film, the only change I would make would be to have the gun sight moved to the beginning of the film as it was in the first 20 Bond films. I know Sony like to add their own stamp to films, but as a life long fan of the films, Sony, please don't mess too much with the chemistry.
The humour in the film is catered to both audiences, from action fan films to die hard Bond fans with subtitle jokes relating to previous films.
Again, the Aston Martin is not in the film much unfortunately, but when the DB5 is, it pays tribute to Goldfinger very well.
The ending is a bit predictable I found as nearing the last 30-45 mins of the film I twigged what would happen to M and how she was going to be replaced and how Miss Moneypenny would be introduced and who it would be.
The addition of Q back into the films was a great thing to see, although the lack of gadgets in comparison to previous Bond films was a bit disappointing but the humour in the scenes with Q reminded me to the Desmond Llewyn/Sean Connery films.
The small gripes about the film were mainly from a Bond fan point of view and should not take anything away from an absolutely brilliant film.