Category: Movies

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This Weekend Is The Big Test For Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice!

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Two things happened with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice last weekend: One, It was panned by critics, and two, it made a ton of money at the box office.  For some reason people were surprised that a movie featuring two American icons fighting made money hand over fist even though the critics hated it, but the first movie with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman was always going to make a lot of cash the era of mega-blockbuster weekends.  The big question is will it continue to make money.

Last weekend industry analysts (I wish I had a job I could be wrong at all the time) said Batman v Superman was going to make a little less than $150 Million, and maybe even less than that due to bad reviews.  The movie went on to make $166 Million.  There are some troubling signs for Warner Brothers/DC however.  The movie made an enormous $82 Million on Friday (including all the Thursday previews), but it dropped all the way to $34 Million on Sunday.  That is the biggest same weekend drop of all time.  Now there are a couple of factors at play here: Thanks to reasonable Thursday preview show-times Friday numbers are getting very inflated.  They need to start counting Thursday as its own day.  Also Sunday was Easter.  Which is a day for being outside hunting eggs, not inside watching hyper-violent superhero flicks.  So analysts aren’t sure if that historic same weekend drop was due to bad word of mouth or reasonable Easter weather.

For mega-blockbusters a second weekend drop of about 60% to 65% is the norm, so if Batman v Superman is truly critic-proof we should see a total of $65 Million to $60 Million this weekend.  A much bigger drop than that Warner Brothers/DC should be concerned about the future of their franchise.  If it takes in more than that Warner Brothers should be very excited since they were able to not only dodge a bullet, but that they were able to truly start competing with Disney/Marvel.

As for me, as much as my review of Batman v Superman was mixed, I kind of hope that it is able to truly shrug of critics and become a massive success.  I think critics often get an overinflated view of themselves.  They feel like they are they are the gatekeepers of entertainment, and that they are the reason movies, books, music or whatever live or die.  When honestly their job is to simply inform the public of their professional opinion and then let the public decide, so sometimes it is great when the public just completely ignores them.  I will say that Batman v Superman has some really great big-screen moments that will just not be quite the same when it comes out on video, so the public may be right in ignoring the critics because some things, good or bad, you just need to see for yourself.

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Pitch Perfect 2 Fails To Hit The Same Notes

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The first Pitch Perfect surprised me with how fun and different it was, but Pitch Perfect 2 doesn’t build on its predecessor.  It instead just follows the same formula.  The songs are catchy, and it is still silly fun, but it feels like watching a lesser clone of itself.  It is a shame too because with this talented cast it could have been much better.

The Barden Bellas continued their winning ways after the events in the first movie, and they have successfully defended their National Title twice, but when Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) rips her pants at President Obama’s birthday they once again have to sing their way to the top.  Because to save themselves from being disbanded the Bellas will have to win the World Championship.

Pretty much the plot just serves to make them underdogs again so they can do a bunch of random stuff while singing.  Thankfully the music is the best part.  It is well choreographed and funny.  Everything else plays out how you would expect.  Even right down to the only way to win is to embrace the new girl’s (Hailee Steinfeld) talent.

Rebel Wilson is reliably goofy, so there are quite a few laughs, but sadly the rest of the cast just pretty much gets to hang around and sing.  The only other full character arc belongs to Anna Kendrick, but it isn’t super interesting, and it is confusing as to why she is keeping her dream of being a music producer from her friends.  Well they do give a reason it just isn’t a good one.

If you are just looking for some more songs and a few laughs Pitch Perfect 2 might be perfect for you, but if you were looking for the movie to try something new, or for it to be better than first Pitch Perfect, you will be a little disappointed.  Pitch Perfect 2 was hugely successful, so Pitch Perfect 3 comes out next year.  I just hope they can figure something out to shake things up.

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Daredevil Season Two Wrap-Up: If Ninjas Are Boring You Are Doing It Wrong!

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I figure enough time has passed for me to give my final judgement of Daredevil season two.  Which will be way better than my midseason impressions I assure you!  For the most part this was a pretty successful season.  The Punisher stuff was very good.  Frank Castle becoming the terrifying murderous vigilante was great.  Surprisingly what wasn’t great was the Elektra/Ninja storyline.

I mean Elodie Yung was an excellent Elektra, but that story really never went anywhere, and it mostly served as a distraction from all the good stuff that was going on with Frank.  It just seemed like any time there was a lull in the story they just threw some random Ninjas at it and started talking about ‘The War’.

The only real positive the ninjas served is bringing up the question of if superheroes should kill or not.  For the most part we can all agree that they shouldn’t because then they would be replacing the law, but in the case of the ninjas their clan would just sweep in and collect them, so none of these guys that Murdock was knocking out were ever going to serve any jail time.  He was just going to have to fight them again tomorrow.  So if he was truly fighting a centuries old war, maybe, just maybe, he should stop pulling his punches.  Maybe then he could have saved us from a couple of those boring ninja fights.

I have to tell you that I never thought ‘boring ninja fight’ was something I would write, but here we are.  Daredevil has boring ninja fights.  Now like I said they are only part of what happens this season, and I do think they are building to something bigger, but they are kind of forced in to a holding pattern until Iron Fist shows up.  Once all the Marvel TV series are launched we can probably get to the interesting ninja fights.  At least I hope so.  If the Luke Cage show is filled with boring ninja fights I am going to be ticked!

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Batman v Superman v Story Structure!

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People were right to worry that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would struggle because it tried to do too many things.  This movie has so many story threads that instead of having a standard plot it is really a series of vignettes, and some of those vignettes are really good, but not enough of them.  Plus they are all jumbled together so it is hard to follow.

The main plot, as best as I could discern, is that Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) can’t bring himself to trust an alien that destroyed an entire city including his Wayne Financial building, and every small incident involving Superman (Henry Cavill) only makes him angrier.  Meanwhile Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is investigating one of those incidents herself trying to figure out if someone is manipulating the public’s opinion of Superman.  Someone like Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) perhaps?

Anyway that should get you started, I am still trying to sort out the rest.  I mean this movie has three dream sequences.  Three!  So an already confusing movie has random stuff thrown in to boot.  Then they try and shoehorn in the rest of the founding members of the Justice League.  While it is great to see them on screen for the first time, they add nothing to the movie.  Well, with the exception of Wonder Woman played by Gal Gadot.  She is amazing.  Wonder Woman by far is the best part of Batman v Superman.  The movie gets better every time she shows up, which isn’t often.

Ben and Henry did a fine job as Batman and Superman, but really they weren’t given a whole lot to do but snarl at one another.  I mean after filming their faces must have hurt from all the sneering.  They only person that got to smile or show any range of emotion was once again Wonder Woman.  She was so good you guys!  Then that brings us to Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luther.  Again fine, but I am still not sure what Lex’s endgame was.  Not to mention I am pretty sure that Lex was insane which was an odd direction to take for the smartest man on the planet.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice needed to be longer and explain everything better, or be shorter and cut a lot of stuff out.  At its long two and a half hour running time it was a pile of randomness.  There were parts I liked: For instance when we finally got to see Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all fighting together I was the happiest man alive.  Looking back they should have just bucked up and made the Justice League movie and forgot all about the Batman and the Superman v’ing each other.  That would have been the movie the suits at Warner Brothers obviously wanted, and what the fans wanted too.  Plus we would have gotten more Wonder Woman!