Into the Longbox

Wow, this movie did not disappoint. I'm a little late to getting to this movie because I finally watched it last week. I won't make you wait to give you my feelings, I loved this movie. I still love Spider-Man: Homecoming, but this is easily my second favorite Spider-Man movie of the Holland movies. Scratch that. Out of all of them. And yes, I liked it more than Spider-Man 2 (the Raimi/Maguire one). Anyways, be prepared for spoilers. This movie is quintessential Spider-Man and I will tell you how. In the comics, Peter/Spider-Man is constantly put upon. Either by choices he made or something happening to him. He gets put through the wringer, but he still does the right thing and saves people. That is the throughline of this entire film and you watch Peter wrestle with his choice from Spider-Man: No Way Home.  He's out there doing Spider-Man things and nothing else. I felt so bad for bro because he is not dealing with all of this well. At all. Tom Holland is so good as an act...

Oh no. Another female super hero action movie. If you know the internet at all, the usual, lazy ass backlash of calling this film woke arrived just on time. Ignore all of that. I thought this movie was pretty good. A solid B+. I did enjoy it and I had very few issues. Per my usual, here's my lazy, bulleted format: Milly Alcock I think is the perfect choice for this newly rebooted Supergirl. She was able to carry off the whole hero arc her character HAS to go through in the movie. I liked the smart way they nerf her powers. Super people (her and Superman) are overpowered, so by having her traveling the galaxy that have different suns, you get to see the effect it has on her. Did the story dictate this? Yes. But also, it helped to show how she can be heroic without powers. On the flip side, the villain is so one note. And that is OKAY. I don't need to be invested in the bad guy. He is an obstacle to get punched into oblivion later. Normally I don't like kid sidekicks, but Rut...

I finally got around to watching the most recent Superman and I definitely have thoughts. I'm still processing them, but this I do know. I wanted to love this movie more than I did. At the end, I was like, "This was good, but not great." It's not beating Fantastic Four as my comic book movie of the year.  Before I get to my thoughts, I want to lead with this and be up front. I'm not a huge fan of James Gunn. I've liked some of his movies/shows (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, Peacemaker) and disliked others (Guardians 2 and 3, THE Suicide Squad). I haven't watched Creature Commanders and I'm leaving out previous movies like Slither and the many others I'm sure someone will call out. I don't like his music choices. I don't always love his comedy beats. I don't always love how he films action scenes. This movie had a lot of what I like from him and what I don't like.  One thing I will say and it might sound like tepid praise based on ...

What in the blue hell? Sony has just been scraping the bottom of the barrel to meet the requirements to keep the Spider-Man properties. No one in their right mind would want a Kraven movie, but here we are. Down is up, up is down.  I've said this before, I'm kind of a movie mascochist. No one makes me do this. I do this to myself. After enduring Madame Web, I had to move on down the list to this movie. It is everything I thought it was. A stupid movie, but there's something more at work here. Lemme get into it. I feel for the lead star, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He clearly bulked up for the role and really thought it was going to be something special. This movie is not going to help his case. He's fine, but this is a dumb movie and you're the face of it, bro. Remember how I said you can tell Aaron bulked up? Yeah, he walks around like a guy that just did arm day at the gym. The way he poses and all his action scenes are there to show off his work. Good job, my guy. Do y...

I'm a deeply sick, disturbed man. Multiple people told me DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Saying those words are like catnip to me. I was gonna watch it. All I needed was time and opportunity. Over the labor day weekend, I was doing chores. Okay, I was putting comic boards into comic bags for my haul for the last couple of weeks. I figured, I'm doing something mindless, let me watch a mindless movie. That's when I found the time for this movie. Is this movie as bad as they said? Yes. Absolutely. It was a waste of my time, but I wasn't raging at the stupidness of this movie like I thought I would. I was laughing because I couldn't believe this was a serious movie made with real money. This movie is par for the course on the terribleness of all the Sony Spider-Man properties. I'm excluding the last two Venom movies because I haven't watched them yet, but I have no doubt they are equally terrible. Let's get into my thoughts: I've never seen anyone with less ch...

My dream as a long time FF fan has come true. They did not only a good movie, but a GREAT Fantastic Four movie. Dare I say...Fantastic?! I know the bar was extremely low, but this movie did all the things the other movies failed to do. Combined. At this point, I don't think I have to provide proof, but I will anyways. For those of you that have seen my comic book collection, you will know that it is pretty massive. Let's just say the most of one title I have is Fantastic Four comics. They are one of the very few comics I've bought every issue consistently for the past 20 years without breaks. I've endured a lot of ups and downs with the series, so I feel like I have a pretty good feel on them. I want you to trust me as an expert. Or at least someone who is speaking as a big fan and then you can still dismiss me. This movie combines the best elements of the characters for this movie. Let me get my review. I am going to gush a lot about this movie, so let me put this into...

I'm trying to keep up with the rest of the world in regards to the kind of movies that exist in my realm of expertise (i.e. Nerd shit), so I was only about a week late on watching the Thunderbolts*. I'm getting better at it. I'll be honest, this is not a movie I asked for from Marvel. They have been floundering since Avengers: Endgame to come up with something that will catch on. I don't know how much Thunderbolts will actually catch on, but I did enjoy it. In what is a surprising rarity for Marvel movies, it was pretty grounded and street level. If by street level we mean espionage experts that are excellent hand to hand specialists. With the exception of the Sentry showing up, the power levels of everyone remained on the same level. Let's continue in my new format that lets me get lazy and just bulllet point shit. There are spoilers so if you didn't watch the movie, you might want to wait to read this. Unless you don't care about that sort of thing. The GO...

I know that this is a comic blog and this movie is not technically a comic book movie. Let me break my own rules with these flimsy connections. Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. Michael B. Jordan was in Black Panther. Hailee Steinfeld is in the Hawkeye show and is Kate Bishop that will appear in other movies. Wunmi Mosaku was in the Loki series and the Wolverine & Deadpool as an agent of the TVA. In doing a quick scan of credits, Delroy Lindo was in a tv show, "Marvel's Most Wanted", a spinoff from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show. So, you know... a lot of comic book ties. Justification complete! This movie was fantastic. It was an unapologetically black movie. I'm so proud to see a movie like this doing so well. Gives me a glimmer of hope for the future as this "anti-DEI" bullshit takes a hold and manifests itself in my country. I've been thinking about this movie for days before I finally got it together and put this out.  Any...

I saw Captain America: Brave New World on Monday and now that I've sat with my thoughts a little bit, I can share what I thought. I'll save the suspense and say I thought it was a good movie, but not great. It was a very SAFE movie. That statement is what I want to explore with my review, which will be a little different than how I normally talk about movies. Apologies if this gets a little long, but it will give you a little insight into how I feel. Disney/Marvel missed a real opportunity here. Having a Black Captain America is a huge deal and instead of leaning into that, Marvel made a movie that is essentially color-blind, ignoring that topic completely. The "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" series addressed this and I thought this movie would take the opportunity to take that conversation further. It doesn't. The fact that a Black Captain America has a Hispanic side kick is also a huge deal. Again, not discussed here. For little black and hispanic kids, this was...

I'm just as surprised as you that I didn't see this movie, day one. I can explain that. Life stuff was happening and I couldn't find he time, so I had to wait a whole WEEK to finally see it. That is a lifetime in trying to avoid spoilers on the internet talking about the numerous amount of cameos in this movie. I finally did and let me tell you, I enjoyed it and thought it was great.* You may be thinking, he put a * , what does that mean? I put this as a qualifier because I'm going to be real about something. My level of enjoyment was raised because of the massive amount of meta commentary that was throughout the movie. Unfortunately, a lot of that is built on whether or not you have read comic books in the last twenty years as a more than a casual fan, kept up with all the studio nonsense behind all these characters, watched the first two Deadpool movies, Logan, both seasons of the Loki series, any of the X-Men movies and some of the other Fox/Marvel movies that you fo...

I saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom last Thursday and I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet in this review. It's a bad movie, but it was also kinda fun. So I guess I liked it in the way that I like the Fast and Furious franchise. You have to turn your brain off because stuff will not make sense. Just drift away in the current. (See what I did there?) Otherwise, you will be UPSET. This movie is in a weird spot because we know that it doesn't count in the grand scheme of DC's future movie franchises. I guess they thought they could recoup some money, but honestly, they should have just put it on Max and called it a day.  They'll bury a Batgirl movie, but let this one see the light of day? Give me a break. We're not really told where this movie fits with his appearance in that Justice League movie. Its as if the two movies themselves are in different universes. We start off finding out that Aquaman and Mera (we'll get into her later) had a kid, Aquaman is...

A few weeks ago, because we have Paramount Plus now, I finally got around to watching this movie that came and went over the summer. If you missed it, let me save you the trouble with this review. Don't bother unless you're a sucker for punishment like I am. It's amazing the sunk cost I have with these live action Transformer movies and I keep going back. I KNOW I have a problem. That's on me. Let's hope you're not with me, because misery loves company. First of all, God love Peter Cullen. Here he is like 40 years later, still giving voice to Optimus Prime. I hate that they trotted him back out for this movie. Like Kevin Conroy, he is always the definitive voice of this character. However, it's time we all faced reality and accept that they need to get new blood. These movies hurt my soul because these movies always make Optimus look like a completely incompetent leader and I hate hearing the voice of my childhood attached to that. Who knows what the timelin...

I just saw "The Marvels" on Monday night and I wanted to write about it as soon as I could. To not bury the lede, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It is easily the best Marvel movie this year. I have more in-depth thoughts about the state of the MCU that I'll share at the end, because they are emblematic of something far worse and it's nothing to do with this movie itself. There is an undeniable fun chemistry amongst the three leads of this movie. If you hate strong female leads, you better go elsewhere. The lynch pin is definitely Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan. She was so damn likeable in the Ms. Marvel TV show and she's equally, if not MORE likeable here. Instead of being a useless third wheel, she holds her own in all the action scenes. Her family also makes the transition to the big screen and they bring some lightheartedness and grounding to the movie. Brie Larson actually gets to show a personality in this movie, something that had been missing in all her a...

I could come up with a million excuses why I'm late on my review for this movie. You've heard them already, so it doesn't MATTER. Let's get into it. Blue Beetle. Let's be honest, this is not the movie any of us asked for. But it is the movie we deserve. What do I mean by that? We deserve a fun, super hero movie that isn't about saving the world, but a personal story with our main character. You can be reductive and say it's like Iron Man's origin movie or Ant-Man's, but that is going to make you miss out. Also, other than the fact that all the heroes where a suit of armor, that's the only similarity. Don't get forget that Tony Stark and Scott Lang were assholes before they put on a hero suit. Jamie Reyes is none of that and is instantly more likeable.  Okay, let me also say this. The trailers for this movie do it a huge disservice. They make it seem like Jamie (Xolo Maridueña) is this poor down on his luck kid. In actuality, he just graduated...

Look, I am always behind in how long it takes me to post about what I watch. It's now become a feature, not a bug. So let's just get right into it without you accusing me of ANYTHING. Over the years, I have come to realize that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are probably my favorite property. It is easily top four with Transformers, Dragon Ball Z and Power Rangers. I can't explain it, nor WILL I. It's my prerogative. I have figures all over the damn place in my room and my favorites, by a mile, are my 1/4 sized set of the Ninja Turtles from the first live action movie. The property has been rebranded, rebooted so many times, it's hard to keep count. And I've watched nearly all of them. I enjoy each iteration. When I heard this movie was going to skew the turtles on the younger side of their teenage years, I half rolled my eyes. I go hot and cold on Seth Rogen. I feel like I've aged out of most of his humor and I can find him very annoying. All that being s...

In all my anger directed Secret Invasion, I forgot to mention that I finally got around to watching this movie on HBO Max. This was my first reaction after finishing this movie. I'm going to hate that the fun type of movies like this coming from DC will probably go away under James Gunn. I think this is a character and franchise that should continue on in the new DC Cinematic Universe.  Truth be told, I actually enjoyed this movie. I feel bad for the actor that played Billy Batson, because this movie was almost exclusively featuring Shazam. Don't get me wrong, Zachary Levi is fantastic and I'm glad he got to shine in this movie. We also get a heavy weight like Helen Mirren being in this movie. She instantly elevates anything she is in. They used her sparingly, so that when she shows up, there is an impact. If there is one small gripe I had with this movie, is that it leaned into the trope of incompetent super heroes doing their best. Then getting super competent in the end....

Batman should be in the front! I know I'm late on getting to see comic book movies, but I make it when I can. It seems that they don't last in theaters long like they used to. Anyways, I just saw "The Flash" last week and as usual, I have thoughts. When my friend, Jay, turned to me and asked me what I thought about it, my words were: "Well, I didn't hate it." I think that is my general feeling of this movie. I'm sorry if I come off like I hate DC movies. They're just not good. And you may say, "But Kevin, you're such a Marvel zombie. You like anything they put out." You would be half right. I am a Marvel zombie. But as far as phase 4 and beyond has gone for Marvel, there were a lot of hits (Wakanda Forever, Shang-Chi, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) and misses (ETERNALS, Doctor Strange and Multitude of Madness, Ant-Man: Quantumania) for me. Black Widow and Thor: Love and Thunder are in the middle. So the lus...

Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. I'm super late talking about this movie. We'll chalk it up more to life than anything else. Rather than go on with my excuses, I'll dive right in. I don't even know where to start with this movie. It was fantastic. Just before I watched this, I was like, "When did that last one come out?" and when I did the math I was shocked that it had been five years! After watching this movie, I could see why it would have been five years in between movies. The animation here is next level. There are so many intricate details that I am sure animators had to work out the kinks for YEARS before this was released. A prime example is when Spider-punk shows up. His whole deal is he is animated in a punk rock style, re: the posters you would have seen. So he moves at a different frame rate than EVERY THING AROUND HIM. That's insane. There is a whole chase sequence of multiple Spider-Men in the back third of this film that is a beauty to behold and...

I saw the third volume of Guardians of the Galaxy and now that I have let about two weeks pass, I'll go ahead and share my thoughts. I will still try to keep this as spoiler free as possible. I'm only human. Even if you don't read anything past this sentence, I will say this. I liked this movie. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. I feel like it was a good course correction after the last movie, which I did not like at all. There were so many things that movie did wrong that this movie gets right. Maybe after doing "The Suicide Squad" (hated it!) and "Peacemaker" (loved it!), he found the right mix of his humor and humanity. This movie was a satisfying conclusion to this iteration of the Guardians that we've been with for the last ten years.  I don't think this is a huge spoiler, but if you've been on the edge of your seat to learn about Rocket's origin, this movie is for you. I won't go into details, but we delve into his past an...