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Borderlands (Prime Video) 2024

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Famed director Eli Roth. An all star lead cast of Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, and Chris Rock. Coupled with Great looking visual effects, a trailer that promised energy filled, off kilter cinematography and story, and yet…..I left feeling underwhelmed. It is not a horrible movie, just extremely underwhelming.   I have not played the games and as such cannot comment on its accuracy to the source material. Visually the movie looks great; I like what I see. The vibrant colors and offbeat appearance to everything complements the visual effects nicely. I love the cast, with Blanchett and Curtis being my favorites. The issue here is the narrative itself which up front feels like at least 3 separate stories that someone tried to salvage into something coherent.  On one hand you have a cliched “badass loner gets saddled with protecting annoying person and they end up helping each other” plot involving Blanchett’s Lilith character and Tiny Tina. On another hand you have a “di
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Ultraman Rising (Netflix) 2024

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Ultraman Rising may not be the first American Ultraman production, nor the first animated Ultraman production, nor the first English language Ultraman production, but it is on track to become its most successful in all 3 categories. It boasts a surprisingly emotional narrative full of heartfelt moments and a story that would be relatable to a wide spectrum of audiences.  Ken Sato is a famous devil-may-care baseball player who moves back to native Japan. He has to juggle leading a new team with being the superhero Ultraman, a role he inherited from his father. Unfortunately Ken is estranged from his father and reporter Ami Wakita hopes to dig more into his suspected unresolved family issues.  Following some disastrous matches, run ins with the Japanese Kaiju Defence Force and battles with giant monsters, Ken comes into possession of a baby giant monster. What follows is a heartwarming exploration of responsibility, maturity, and personal healing for Ken as this quirky father/child rela
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Cinema) 2024

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Every once in a while, a movie comes along that I am compelled to watch in cinema instead of waiting for it to come to streaming. FURIOSA, the prequel to 2015’s surprise hit MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (which i absolutely adored) is just such a movie. It was supposed to the tale about Fury Road’s co-protagonist Furiosa; her tragic childhood, her violent upbringing under the cruel thumb of wannabe warlord Dementus, and her eventual rise to the rank of Praetor in the army of Immortan Joe.  What I expected was an intimate character driven piece showing the rise of a warrior, a journey from frightened little child to a hardened rebel fighter. What I beheld instead was less of a Furiosa focused story and more of a story of the Post Apocalyptic Wasteland as a character; a world building story instead of character story.   Simply put, Furiosa as a character came across as rather bland. We do not really get into her head much. Her motivations are simple, straightforward, and she barely talks. Though A
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Madame Web (Netflix) 2024

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Up front I will say that Madam Web ain’t as bad as I was led to believe. Sure it is tame compared to epics like Zack Snyder’s Justice League or Avengers infinity War, and also lacks the established familiarity from sequels like Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, but compared alongside similar superhero origin movies of recent years such as Blue Beetle and Shang Chi, Madame Web really isn’t that bad.  Madame Web re-envisions the mysterious marvel comics character into a more contemporary superhero while also serving as an origin story for her as well as three other characters who will eventually become Spiderwoman,  another Spiderwoman  and Arana from the comics.   It is 2003 and Cassandra Web is a paramedic who unlocks a special precognitive super power after a fatal accident. This power was seemingly granted through a mysterious ritual by an indigenous Peruvian tribe after her pregnant mother was shot by a man named Ezekiel Sims. The ritual involved getting bit
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Fallout (Amazon Prime Video) 2024 - season 1

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Fallout premiered on Amazon Prime Video in April 2024, and it caught my attention immediately as yet another live action video game adaptation for streaming, coming on the heels of THE LAST OF US (HBO), TWISTED METAL (Peacock) and HALO (Paramount+). I do have some history with the Fallout Game Universe, having played Fallout 3 and then snippets of Fallout 4, but that was about it, so I am unable to comment on the faithfulness of the show to the source material's more deeper cut lore. However, I can say that it definitely captured the sometimes dark sometimes quirky sometimes darkly quirky tone of the games that I was familiar with while presenting some really lovable characters and intriguing plot twists.   Fallout (season 1 as of this writing) follows multiple story arcs that end up intertwining. The first is that of Lucy, an idealistic chirpy young woman who has lived all her life in Vault 33 with a peaceful group of like minded individuals that is run as a caricature of 1950s &q
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Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver (Netflix) Apr 2024

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Rebel Moon Part 2 is the second half of Zack Snyder’s tribute to science fiction and Akira Kurosawa that began last year in Rebel Moon Part 1. Though our band of heroes triumphed against the cruel Admiral Atticus Nobel, they return to the farming community on the moon of Veldt. No sooner are they welcomed that they find out Nobel cheated death and is arriving with his Dreadnaught ship and the imperium’s legions to sack the moon, take what they need and destroy everyone involved.  In five days, the motley crew of warriors have to train the peaceful farmers into a force able to stand against imperium soldiers. Traps are dug, an entire tunnel system is created, and plans laid out for the oncoming siege. In the downtime between preparations, the warriors come clean with their pasts and their paths leading to who they are today. All this time, the ancient war robot “Jimmy” keeps watch over the community. What follows is an extended base defence sequence along with a risky gamble to infiltra
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