Glarsh

I had not heard great things about this, but I wanted to see it anyway. I reckon that's the cause of most people seeing it.

Through a contrived set of circumstances, Bruce Willis in a Poncho, James McAvoy with Multiple Character Schtick, and Samuel L. Jackson in a wheelchair all end up in the same hospital. And I hope you like that hospital because the majority of the movie takes place there, with talking, more talking and then other characters talking. There are a couple of action sequences, but by the end M. Night is going "I am amazing, don't let others bring me down!"

The premise is "what if they aren't superheroes?" when the fiction of the previous movies already established "hey, they are superheroes". So guess how well that is going to go down. Frankly, most of the time I was spent waiting for them to get on with it, and while the waiting wasn't terrible it was just watching a lot of filler.

The ending may annoy people, but there are different bits that will annoy different people. That we don't get the location doesn't bother me. The first twist I saw coming. The second twist ties into the "I'm really amazing" aspect M. Night is trying to sell with this. So your own patience may vary with how you want to deal with aspects of that.

This feels meh. Not great, but as long as you don't have high expectations of M. Night at this point, it clears the bars.

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Spoiderverse

Everyone who says this movie says it is good nee great. I am really adverse to seeing over hyped movies. However, I also found myself with time to go to a theater so there you are.

So the premise is that Peter Parker dies and co-incidentally Miles Morales gets bitten and is there when that happens. And the time that it happens there's a breach across multiple parallel universes, making the various Spiderpeoples of those universe turn up in this one. They must come together, and Miles must learn what it is to be a Spiderbeing, in order to save the entire city (and several realities) from collapsing.

A common thing people talk about is the animation styles, and that is styles as each Spider gets their own style in keeping with their original comics. It can get a little confusing with mess on the screen at times, and other times I watched the dots overlaying the animation rather than the pictures themselves, but for the most part it was fine and helped kept things fresh. (And then there was the end credits joke - Ha! I joke that! Memes!) Although I did spend far too much time not accepting their model of Wilson Fisk.

Story wise, aside from the parallel reality thing, yeah, this is fairly standard. New hero is born, needs to learn how to be a hero while contending with threat that killed off previous hero. That's a trope I plan on using myself! Performances are good, with a few voices that you might not get until you see the credits list (at least I didn't). Production side... there were a few moments where the visuals and the sounds were a big overwhelming and I couldn't work out what was being said, so that could have been tweaked. But only a few moments of that.

So yeah, the movie is good. I'm not going for great, and I know some people immediately felt like seeing it over again and I'm nowhere near that hard for it. But it is at least good.

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Mulhullund Druve

Just five minutes into this movie you can already tell this movie is Lynchian AF. And it feels like it came straight out of the Twin Peaks universe too.

Betty comes to Hollywood and finds Rita in her apartment, after Rita suffers an accident. They become friends, then more, and Betty is trying to become an actress. Then Betty is Diane who is friends and more with Rita now Camilla and...

Okay... what the hell? I can usually follow Lynch well enough that even if I can't explain everything, I can at least follow the ideas and trend he is going for. But this... this I have no idea. I gather what is the typical explanation (dream sequence), but I don't buy it. In some ways, because that is too simple for Lynch, and frankly alternative realities would be more his style.

This is two halves of decent enough films, but I'm not sure what they are together.

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AquinasMan

I will say up front that this movie makes me want to check out Justice League again. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Orm has had enough and decided to gather the undersea forces to attack the surface world. However, some of them don't want that, so get Arthur Curry involved to stop him. And go on a fetch quest, because that's always important. And there are other bad guys to fight because this is a superhero movie.

One strange thing this movie did was framing around the villains. We have Black Manta and Orm, and when they are the main characters in (their own) scenes, the film is shot as if they are the heroes, no matter what they are doing. Which, yes, they do say everyone is a hero in their own movie, but this isn't their movie, so if we are supposed to be rooting for them in their scenes, why then should be on Aquaman's side when he has to fight them?

On the plus side, while this movie is long, it does flow well, so the time does pass quickly. It's well paced, easy to follow, still has enough going on to be a substantial story but...

But

It just doesn't feel that deep (sic). It's a good time, but it's not a great time.

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Doctor Who 11.X

So this is a Chibbers New Years treat. I'll allow that we can have an iconic creature back for it, but there's a lot in here that just feels like padding to get to an hour long special.

First of all, hey, a bunch of humans managed to defeat a Dalek! Way to go guys! And then the British completely hump everyone else by killing the guy that was going to secure it. Way to go guys! Fortunately the Dalek has magical teleportation powers, otherwise we might have been somewhere that wasn't Sheffield. Also fortunately, it being New Years Day, no-one is around to be anywhere, from an archaeology site to a major research institute to ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT GOVERNMENT SECURITY BUILDINGS EVER. But, hey, we don't have UNIT either because... screw you Chibbers! I know you are trying to establish your reign as a separate and special thing, but screw you!!

Never mind, it's all about the companions, although once again Yaz has less than nothing to do. For a moment, I thought they might actually leave Graham behind, which will allow more focus on Yaz in the next season, but that clearly isn't something they want to do. We do have Aaron, and he is... more there for the microwave oven than being Ryan's dad. Again there could have been an interesting point if Aaron did die to sacrifice the Dalek, but that would be going too far. Instead, after a heartfelt moment where Aaron and Ryan connect over the Dalek conflict... Aaron is just "goodbye". Wha? Chibbers really isn't that interested, is he?

Anyway, the Dalek. I will allow that one Dalek is a problem, and again we see a Dalek vs an army and the Dalek winning. As it should. Even the new body of the Dalek is growing on me. But this story mainly reminds me of Dalek, which is so much better than this will ever be.

Next Time: A whole year away...

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Vonem

So yeah, this turd of a movie. They really should not have done that line.

A space vehicles falls from space and infects various creatures around the place and converts them into horrendous beasts that rampage the city... no wait, that was Rampage. This is alien creatures coming down and infecting people and .. sort of turning them into creatures? Goo shoots all over the place for Eddie/Venom, and then there's a big fight. With CGI creatures, because of course it comes down to a fight with CGI creatures.

The most surprising fact was that this was only a 90 minute movie, with 20 minutes of credits. Really, we hit the 80 minute mark, and I'm like "hang on, there's 30 minutes more, but it feels like it is done, what else are they going to do?" Credits. That's what. That is not a great sign of a movie when a huge part of it can be walked out on. (Yes, there are some mid-credit scenes, but not worth sticking around for.)

A common comment is that the second half of the movie is a lot better than the first half. Certainly the first half drags, and it doesn't really find any fun until the second half, and that part works a lot better. There are plenty of stories around about that, which shows there could have been a better integrated movie.

But ultimately, no-one is really trying that hard. Again I point to effectively the 90 minute run time. They weren't really putting effort in.

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