Author: Shmee

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Shmee Swims With Aquaman!

Thanks to Amazon and Atom Tickets I was able to see Aquaman a week early, so I am able to get a review out before the movie opens for once.  Aquaman is the sixth movie from the DC Extended Universe, and its second best.  Which to be fair isn’t hard, but it is still a good movie.  It is strange to think in this era of superhero films that an ‘A’ list hero created in 1941 is just now getting his own movie, but thanks to the 70’s animated cartoon Super Friends we think of Aquaman like this:

And not like this:

Anyway, the new movie from James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring, Insidious) and Warner Brothers seeks to change all that, and for the most part they do.

Aquaman takes place right after Justice League, but in no way do you need to know what happened in that film, just that it happened, and Arthur Curry AKA Aquaman (Jason Momoa) reflects on how he came to be.  He has also started being a hero full time.  That is until Princess Exposition  Mera (Amber Heard) shows up and tells Arthur that he needs to come to Atlantis and claim the throne from his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) before Orm can declare war on the surface world.

Aquaman has the pretty standard origin story flow.  He is a misfit kid dealing with some trauma (though not as bad as most superheroes), and he is a reluctant hero until he gains the confidence to fight.  Now that may not have sold you on this film, but what should, is that this thing is non-stop action and spectacle.  It is always showing you something cool or crazy.  I mean there are sharks with lasers fighting giant crabs, Black Manta has his big dumb helmet, and if that is not enough Julie Andrews plays a kraken.  None of this will win an Oscar, but it is all peek ocular cotton candy.

Sadly, it has a few things that bring it down.  This movie is over two hours long and at that it still has barely enough time to tell its story, so a lot of things feel rushed or at least very convenient.  I didn’t like Amber Heard at first.  She was stilted and wooden, but that is because she was given nothing but exposition to say for the first hour.  Once she was done with that she got much better and was clearly having as much fun as Jason.  Willem Dafoe also spouts exposition, but he is much better at it.  It is a gift it seems.

Aquaman revels in being a popcorn movie.  One covered in cheese with some candy on the side, and you can tell the actors were all having a lot of fun with it.  I mean there are dinosaurs in this movie and nobody says anything about it.  They just exist.  Why?  Because they are cool, and that is this movie’s MO.  If you are going in expecting more than that, you may be disappointed, but I had a great time.  It is strange to think that Aquaman is this year’s fourth best superhero movie, but it is still pretty good, and worth your time and money.

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Shmee Swings Into The Spider-Verse!

I am not a huge Spider-Man fan.  I think it is because when I was a kid I was supposed to like him, so I disliked him out of spite, but he has grown on me over the years.  To the point now that I was eagerly awaiting this new animated Spider-Man film, and it seems fitting that only a month after Stan Lee’s death that his most famous creation would get its best movie.  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse isn’t just a little better than the rest of the Spider-Man movies, it is Miles better.

At the beginning of Into the Spider-Verse, New York has gotten used to being saved by the blond-haired blue-eyed Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man (Chris Pine).  Things seem to be going his way.  He recently got married, and he has never failed the city on the big stuff.  Meanwhile Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is just an everyday kid.  Smarter than average, and has a good heart, but not extraordinary.  This changes when he is bit by very familiar spider.  When Peter and Miles meet during a mishap with King Pin (Liev Schreiber)’s particle accelerator their universe will change forever.

Everything is on point with this movie.  The writing is fantastic, the action is insane, it has a great cast, and it looks like a comic book come to life.  I am not sure why everyone thinks live action is the way to go with comic book adaptations because you can do so much more with animation.  I know some people will not like the sort of stop motion look they gave this film to kind of mimic the changing panels of a comic book, but it grows on you, and it gives the movie a unique feel.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse gets to the heart of what it means to be Spider-Man.  Living through the everyday failures but choosing to get back up and continuing to do what is right anyway.  Obviously, those failures include loss.  Almost all superheroes have tragic beginnings, and Miles’ is no different, but the movie never feels cheap and it drives Miles forward in believable ways.  Also we get to hear how tragedy as motivated the other Spider-People as well, and those stories help to inform Miles’ path forward.

The vocal cast for Into the Spider-Vese was great.  I already mentioned Pine, Moore and Schreiber who are all great, particularly Moore who really captures Miles’ complex feelings and wide-eyed awe of what is happening, but add to those guys, Hailee Steinfeld, Nicolas Cage, Jake Johnson, and Lily Tomlin and you can’t ask for much more.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse might be the best superhero movie released this year, and yes, I am aware Black Panther, Infinity War and Aquaman (review tomorrow) all came out this year, but it is that good.  I am on board for these high quality animated Spider-Verse movies, and hope Stan got to see it before he died because he would have loved it.  It was an ode to everything he and Ditko created in 1962.

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Shmee Pulls A Job With The Widows!

Widows is Steve McQueen’s first movie since his Oscar winning film 12 Years a Slave.  It is based on the 80’s British TV show of the same name, but I am guessing the movie is quite a bit different than the show.  Yes, they are both about widows of thieves pulling a job to pay off their late husbands’ debts, but the 2018 move also pulls in commentary about the current state of Chicago, and what it is like to be African American in America, so in other words it is not just a gritty Oceans 8.

In the opening minutes of Widows, Veronica (Viola Davis) Rawlings’ husband, Harry (Liam Neeson), and his crew are gunned down by Chicago Police officers, and it turns out the man they stole the money from is a crime boss running for alderman, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), and he needs his money to run his campaign.  He gives Veronica a month to pay back the money.  With nowhere to turn for help she enlists the other widows of Harry’s crew to pull off a job to pay Jamal and secure their future.

What every good heist movie must to do is make the main crew sympathetic, and Widows does that very well.  The husbands were bad men, the crime boss is terrible, and the man Jamal is running against Jack Mulligan played by Colin Farrell might represent the worst of Chicago.  He comes from a long line of political wheelers and dealers that have allowed and helped bring Chicago to where it is today.  Some armed robbery considering all that seems minor.

If you are going to try adding politics and racial tensions to a heist movie, you need a good script, and Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl fame did a great job, and cast they got deliver the lines is phenomenal.  Even people that were on the screen for like five minutes is ‘A’ list talent.  Apparently once you win an Oscar everyone wants to work with you.

Not everything is perfect though.  Because of all the added commentary Widows is a bit slower than a standard heist flick, so if you were expecting action and tense scouting, you may be disappointed.  An Oceans or an Italian Job this is not.

I really liked Widows, and I thought McQueen and the bucket loads of talent that brought this movie to life did a great job.  It just might not be the movie that the trailers lead you to believe that it was.  Go in looking for something a little slower and more thoughtful, and I am sure you will be happy with what you see.

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Shmee Heads West For Red Dead Redemption 2!

I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed when Red Dead Redemption 2 was announced to be a prequel to Rockstar’s classic western game, but that disappointment was misplaced, Red Dead Redemption 2 is fantastic.  Just about everything about it works.  It turns out there is a reason it took them eight years to make a followup, near perfection takes time.

In the first game you as play John Marston hunting down your former crew, the Van der Linde gang, to free you wife and child, and now in RDR2 you play as Arthur Morgan one of the leaders of that gang during its final years.  I didn’t know if I wanted to be an outlaw, but they give the supporting cast so much heart and story, and Arthur’s yearning to be good even though he was raised bad is a little heartbreaking.  In other words, I am fine with it now.

Like all Rockstar games, Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in an open world, but unlike most modern games, that open world is not just a series of icons to track down.  There are markers for different characters to interact with, but what you will be doing when you get there varies, and then there are just random things that happen as you ride by that you can interact with, or not, and most of it is amazing.  It is no wonder they force you to play the game awhile be for they let you buy your fast travel map, and even then, it is only to an unlocked location from your main camp, and it doesn’t let you fast travel back.  They want you to explore their world that they lovingly crafted.

That is not to say the normal open world stuff is not there, you can hunt, fish, ride up on camps, and get in all the shoot outs you want, but this feels more like a real place and not a carnival.  As a matter of fact, it makes Rockstar’s other premier franchise, GTA, feel like a cartoon.  If you do bad things exploring this western paradise, you will get punished accordingly, and you will have to pay your bounties or face the consequences, and due to the realism of the world, you feel bad about hurting people and taking what doesn’t belong to you.

It is not all sunshine and open pastures however, I hate their menu system. I know it is supposed to make the game more ‘tactile’ and ‘real’ feeling but holding down buttons while cycling other buttons is a chore, and once you have played for a while, the long horse rides do feel a little grindy, so you will be more willing to pay for a train ticket or a stagecoach ride.  These are minor quibbles, but over a lot of hours, they do start to get more annoying.

While I know this review is a little late for most gamers because they are already playing Red Dead Redemption 2, I just wanted to add my two cents because I have been thoroughly enjoying myself.  If you haven’t spent the money on Rockstar’s latest epic yet, you should.  It is an amazing accomplishment.