SUPER LATE REVIEW: Marvel’s The Defenders

Howdy ladies and gents, it is time for a review and this is a review I should have done at the end of August. But it’s been chilling in my draft section for ages so I thought I’d finally finish it. I am of course talking about Marvel’s The Defenders. Now this was a show I was eagerly anticipating for ages up until Iron Fist came out and that brought down my hype by a considerable amount (review available here). But with some solid trailers I was ready to love the show. But now the show’s been out since August and before I review The Punisher (which I’ve already seen but will give another watch), I wanted to share my thoughts on this show. So if you’re still interested in my thoughts on this show read on and find out. 🙂

So the story can be described as the following: “Set a few months after the events of the second season of Daredevil, and a month after the events of the first season of Iron Fist, the vigilantes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist team up in New York City to fight a common enemy: the Hand.”

The Defenders primarily furthers the plot and characters of the Daredevil and Iron Fist shows, however you don’t have to have seen the previous shows in order to understand whats going on here as it is a self-contained like The Avengers, that being said watching the previous shows helps you care about the characters and the significance of the stakes involved. The story starts off a big slow re-establishing the characters and storylines from the previous shows, but by the latter half of episode 3 things really pick up and start to become fun and from there you feel like you’re getting the show you were promised with fun crossover character interactions and cool fight scenes. There’s also some good action, drama, mystery and revelations. However, by the time the show ends, I feel like things could have played out in a far more captivating manner. The plot takes time to set up certain elements that will have pay off later on, the only issue is that once everything is laid out on the table it feels rather lacklustre and unsurprising.

Episode highlights include:

• The H Word
• Worst Behavior
• Royal Dragon
• Take Shelter

When it comes to the cast, I think they did their best considering the material they were given and some actors/actresses were good while others didn’t fare as well. The Defenders themselves were quite good. Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil was one of the most effective characters besides Jessica Jones. He probably had most character development and it was cool to see how he evolved from the end of DD season 2 to this show and see how he interacted with the team. Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones was great, all of her wonderfully bad and good character traits were on display, she didn’t like to play with others and was very rude, but did do some investing and showed up when it counted. Mike Colter as Luke Cage was good, still the strong and smooth dude from his own show, he was good though I wasn’t keen on what they did with him and Claire’s relationship. Finn Jones as Danny Rand/Iron Fist was weird, it was almost like they did a bit of a course correction for the character as he comes across smarter and more confident not only in his personality but his fighting skills too. Alas, it doesn’t take long for the character to fall back into his childish and foolish ways, he’s such a weak link it is painful. The Defenders have the same sort of group dynamic that makes team formations so much fun to watch like the Avengers of Guardians of the Galaxy, they have that different personalities and ideologies and seeing them but heads and team up was great especially with Matt and Jessica. Oh and Elodie Yung as Elektra, part of me likes her, but at the same time considering how her character was handled it was just messy, a tad confusing and annoying.

Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra Reid has some moments of interest but ultimately adds up to a forgettable/boring villain. She makes a lot of sinister speeches but rarely does anything that directly impacts the heroes and the way her story arc concludes is one I not only saw coming but also felt like a slap in the face to anyone who had invested time her character. As for Scott Glenn as Stick, e was one of the best parts of Daredevil, but here he was less compelling and a little more annoying, just talking about how bad the enemy was. Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple is still the same likeable character from before, she’s good. Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing was good too, she had some decent action scenes, nice interactions with some other characters and some story stuff that carried over from Iron Fist. Simone Missick as Misty Knight was cool, sassy and proactive and while she wasn’t always on the right side of the heroes, she had some solid moments in the show, though I wish she was utilized a little better. Seeing Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker and Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page was nice as they brought a nice bit of flavour from their respective shows

As for the presentation, it was good for the most part. Visually the show was solid. One of the things the show did well was the action, I feel like the fight choreographers brought back the flair and intensity that was sorely lacking from not only Iron Fist but also Luke Cage and Jessica Jones to a degree as well.The fight scenes here were faster, better in choreography, sometimes reaching that Daredevil quality. Alas, the action isn’t always consistently good with some fight scenes looking unrealistic, slow and silly, and it also doesn’t help that some of the sequences are shot and edited in a strange way to be stylised when in fact they’re less interesting than they should be. As for the soundtrack by John Paesano, it was good. I think it was a smart choice to bring him back considering the solid work he brought to Daredevil. In this show, Paesano brings a more bombastic, intense and dramatic sound that I think the show needed especially when it comes to the opening theme. There were points where it felt a little overly dramatic but for the most part, it was really nice.

In conclusion season 1 of Marvel’s The Defenders is a decent show that has some great moments but didn’t live up to its potential. I really did enjoy the character crossover not only from the main heroes but also the secondary cast, and when the action, dialogue and soundtrack were on-point it was a fun show to watch. However, this team up series didn’t give me the compelling story that I wanted, there were some bad decisions made with the use of the villains and Iron Fist, the action scenes weren’t consistently good and there was a lack of payoff/satisfaction that I felt once the show was over. The Defenders wasn’t terrible and was easily the best material Marvel and Netflix have done since the first half of Luke Cage, but as it stands, Marvel and Netflix are really gonna have to step up their game if they want to keep the fans coming back for more.

So have you seen Marvel’s The Defenders and is so what do you think of it? Did it live up to your expectations or were you disappointed? Also, how would you compare it to Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist? Please leave your comments below and I’ll see ya in the next review, laters. 🙂

 

London Film & Comic Con 2015 Review

Howdy ladies and gentlemen, today I’m gonna give you my thoughts on the London Film & Comic Con took place on the past weekend. I went last year and had a pretty good time (read my review here), so I decided I to go again because there was people at the convention this year I just had to see. Unlike last year I’ll only be talking about the one day that I experience rather than the three-day experience that I had before. There’s a lot to get through so let’s get started!

Now for those unaware, this convention is to do with films, TV, comics and video games. But the big focus is primarily on the special guests who attend, most people who go are normally coming to meet the celebrities who are there for talks, photo sessions and autographs signings. Otherwise you can buy a range of merchandise including, clothes, toys, anime and manga, DVDs, comics, artwork, posters and so on. In addition to that you can play video games new and old, see writers and artists of comic books or take pictures of cosplyers. So now I shall talk about my experience.

This was the scene from the entrance around 10am, yeah it was this full already.

My experience started out fine, I got the venue okay (even though I got one wrong train beforehand) and when I stepped outside the building I lined up in a long queue around 08:45am and for the first 20-30 minutes it was fine, but then the line stopped moving and there was nothing, for AGES. There was also a line across the road that was moving and yet we stuck at a stand still for at least an hour. My legs weren’t too jolly and I was getting a bit irritable, but EVENTUALLY the line moved and I got into the building just after 10am. So what did I get up to? Well I cruised around, talked to some fellow attendees. Got to see some cool toys, t-shirts and art. I even got to meet up with an old friend at the convention who I’d met at last year’s convention too. And of course I got to take some pictures of cosplayers but I didn’t do nearly as many as I would have liked because it was too crowded and I constantly had to be somewhere.

But I spent most of my day in queues, just moving from one to the other especially after 2pm. The only downtime I got was when I went upstairs and played in the video game section, while it was significantly smaller than last year’s it still had the one game that mattered and that was Super Smash Bros. Melee and you had to get stuck in. Just like last year I got into my groove real quick and started schooling some kids. I felt kind of bad because two of them weren’t that familiar with Melee’s game mechanics, one of them didn’t know how to do recovery attacks! I felt terrible and had to give them pointers. Out of the three there was one kid who was pretty good with Kirby. That being said I still kicked all of their asses on multiple occasions as Link, Donkey Kong and Captain Falcon to name a few. At one point the youngest kid got really pissed off and really wanted me dead shouting “I hate Donkey Kong!”, “Let’s all team up and kill him!” And when he did kill me on the odd occasion he got so happy like “Oh yeah, I killed you! I’m happy when I kill you!” I was like damn, this kid has issues. But it wasn’t like I was going to play badly, I’ll never pull my punches especially when it comes to Smash Bros. and even played with characters I’m bad with like Yoshi, Zelda/Sheik and Marth and I still laid waste to my enemies, besides one sudden death match which I won, every other match was a straight win. After around 30-40 minutes I pulled out to give other people a chance to play haha.

Once again I came to Smash Bros. Melee and just owned people.

But the best part was meeting the celebrities. Firstly I got to meet Erin Cahill who played Jen in Power Rangers Time Force. Ever since 2001 she’s been my favourite Pink Ranger because she was tough, more fleshed out and was just as much of a main character as Wes (Red Ranger) was. And Cahill played the part so well and I’d been dying to get to meet her in the flesh, and on the weekend I got to and I was beyond happy. I was basically fangirling in front of her saying how nice it was to meet her and how I’ve waited so long, but she was so nice, warm and receptive to my admiration. Erin said she liked my smile and said that it was fans like me that make her like conventions like this. I felt so honoured to be in her presence and she hugged me twice. I was pretty much in the best mood ever and it wasn’t even midday yet. 😛

Erin was so cool!

Then after that I got to meet Jason David Frank, legendary Green and White Ranger from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers (a good few other PR series’). Meeting him was a childhood dream, I’ve had a mad appreciated this guy for years and in the last few years where he’s appeared in Super Power Beat Down and at all these conventions through social media has only made me love him more, but seeing him, shaking his hand and getting actual photo with him has been the most surreal experience ever, possibly more so than Stan Lee (with Stan I mentally prepared for it, but this was different). He was so cool, enthusiastic and just genuine. 😀

I got to meet one of my favourite actors from childhood. JDF is such a legend and is just as amazing in person! 😀

I also got a photo with the awesomeness that is Bill Paxton! I knew I had to see him in person after loving him in Twister, Aliens and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and he was such gentlemen. So funny and kind, I went over to him and he asked me how I was, I said “I’m fine, haha hail Hydra.” He laughed, we took the picture and he said “Haha, hail Hydra indeed.” Don. That was singlehandedly my favourite photo session moment. 🙂 But then I got to meet Sigourney Weaver, she was one of the main reason for attending the convention. I mean when else am I going to meet Ellen Ripley or Dana/Zuul in the flesh? Weaver’s an amazing actress and I was so giddy to meet her, after I took my picture she asked me “Are you having fun?” and I was like “Yeah!” So happy! 😀

There were people I didn’t get to see/meet and stuff I never got around to doing. I never got to see Hayley Atwell (who I didn’t even know was attending until the morning I arrived, so gutted), I never got to see Michael J. Fox or Christopher Lloyd (super gutted especially about Lloyd) and Jason Faunt (Wes/red ranger from Time Force) even though I was right next to him on a few occasions I didn’t talk to him because I was short for time. I also didn’t get to talk to any of the artists at their stands and this time round I never got to sit down and see any talks at all. See, that’s how busy things got haha.

The thing about LFCC is that it is a pretty massive undertaking, the event is huge with A LOT to see and do, and if you’re not prepared you can be overwhelmed by the amount of chaos going on. There’s so many people, many places to go, so much to buy and SO MUCH SCHEDULING TO DO if you’re going after the celebrity signings and photo shoots. I had a lot of fun this year, but I was definitely done after my final photo shoot because all of the queuing I’d been doing. I’m not sure how I managed all three days last year, but I think that may have been because of the friends I was with and the fact that it was my first time. I will say that the venue was pretty big and cool but getting around proved to be quite troublesome and tedious because of the elevators that were always jam-packed and the stairwells that were full of constantly shifting people. And, just like last year, the organisation when it came to queueing not only to get inside the venue but also for the photo sessions was messy. While it was slighty better than last year, I still felt like the people who worked there just going with the flow and didn’t always have the situation under control.

In conclusion my second year at London Film & Comic Con was frigging mint. Besides all the queuing, unorganised waiting areas and super sweaty movements while getting from point A to point B, I had a hell of a good time. I got to see so many famous faces, live out some of my childhood dreams and get my game on with Smash Bros. Melee. I left this event with such a good feeling and lovely memories. Something tells me I’ll probably be back again next year if I’m available.

So if you attended London Film & Comic Con this year what did you think? Did you go for one day or the full weekend? And if you didn’t go would you consider going next year? Whatever your thoughts are be sure to leave them below and I’ll see ya on the next review. Laters! 😀

 

SIMPLE REVIEW: Chappie

Howdy people of the internet, time for another SIMPLE REVIEW where I tell you my thoughts on a film in a more condensed manner then my standard reviews, and today I’ll be discussing Chappie. Now from the trailers I can’t say I was that excited for this, but in the weeks leading up to its release I started to get more intrigued. Then the reviews came out with the film being pretty much mixed to negative which didn’t give me much hope for the film, that being said I wanted to judge the film for myself, so I saw it and now I’m ready yo pass judgement.

I’m going to say this straight up, Chappie, it is a good watch, but it has problems. What the film does get right is its approach to artificial intelligence. AI is something we’ve seen in countless films before, but I will always welcome more if the story and character aspects are handled correctly and this film gets that aspect right. From the way Chappie comes into the world and tries to make sense of it, to the human fear and frustration that comes from a sentient robot, all of those elements come into play wonderfully with some very beautiful, sad, humourous and satisfying moments. With all that being said the story had issues like:

• Not introducing the main character until a fair way into the film
• The pacing was pretty slow at times
• The film’s length felt like it could have been cut
• The film echoed Neill Blomkamp’s previous work like District 9 and Elysium, but not in a good way
• I feel like the plot wasted a lot of potential with the characters and a change direction could have made it a lot better

But other than those issues the film was fine. The actors were pretty good, for the most part. Sharlto Copley as Chappie did a good job providing the voice and motion capture, since the role was primarily voiced-based, Copley did well to use his voice to get us to emotionally connect with his character. Dev Patel as Deon Wilson was also good, however  feel like his character could have been much stronger in personality and would have been better if he had a bigger part to play earlier on. Hugh Jackman did well as Vincent Moore, even though his character is an idiot and creates all forms of havoc just for the sake of revenge and a little attention. Oh and Sigourney Weaver and Jose Pablo Cantillo was fine as Michelle Bradley and Yankie. Now let’s talk about the other cast members. At first I didn’t recognize Ninja and Yolandi from Die Antwood, but when I did I knew I’d be in for a questionable experience and man they were terrible verging on cartoon levels of overacting, their appearance in this film was so unnecessary. The best part of the film was the visual presentation, the film looked great, the CGI was awesome and very realistic while the cinematography was handled nicely. And while the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer was good, the music selection was terrible with such terrible sounds from Die Antwood, yuck.

Chappie was a very different film from what I anticipated, while some elements unfolded the way I expected, at the same time there were things took me completely by surprise. It was certainly better than some of the critics suggested, however I can not help but feel like this film could have been more if the story had gone in a different direction. I hope Neill Blomkamp can change things up in his next film because there is a sense of repetition starting to emerge.

Rating: 7/10

So have you seen Chappie and if so what did you think of it? Also how do you feel about Neill Blomkamp as a director, do you feel like he’s still got or do you think he’s starting to lose his touch? Whatever your thoughts be sure to leave them below and I’ll see ya on the next film review, laters! 😀

 

Exodus: Gods and Kings Review

Howdy ladies and gents, even though 2014 is over and I’ve already given you my top 10 films and my end of year review, I still have one more film review to give you before we transition into 2015 and it comes in the form of Exodus: Gods and Kings. Now this is a film I was actually going to give a miss because a lack of interest however near the time of release I heard some good things about the film so I decided to give it a chance. I watched it last night and now I’m ready to pass judgement.

The story, can be described as the following:

“Epic adventure Exodus: Gods and Kings is the story of one man’s daring courage to take on the might of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 600,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.”

I thought the story had some interesting updates to the classic tale but overall it just came across as bit dull. From the beginning you are meant to connect with Moses and Ramesses so that you can understand their goals in life, but the film doesn’t give you any time to know who these people are, what kind of connection they have and why we should care. You also don’t care for Moses’ mission to become a leader who has to safe his people because he does nothing significant to be of interest and it doesn’t help that his relationship with god is strained and complicated. I don’t know, all the time I was watching the film I was just comparing it to the original story and The Prince of Egypt and wondered, “Why was this changed?”, “Why did this character do that?” “Who is this random person?” All of the changes in the film felt unnecessary, strange and done just for the sake of change rather than having a good reason for it.

When it comes to the cast there were performances that ranged from fine to over-the-top to dull. In truth the only person that mattered was Christian Bale as Moses. Moses is the main character, however he isn’t that likeable, he has no great heroic or leader-like qualities and he has no personality either. He’s not a relatable protagonist and when he’s in trouble or is struggling you don’t care because he’s just a bit meh. Bale seems like the only person actually trying to put on a show in this film. Joel Edgerton as Ramesses II, my god, what a bore. This is not the cool character from the Dreamworks animation, instead what we have here is a spoilt brat who has no redeeming features, is not relatable and seems to have a stick up his ass all the time. Edgerton is better actor than this and I feel like this is the worst film I’ve seen him in. John Turturro as Seti I was actually alright, after seeing the horrible performances in Michael Bay’s Transformers films, he was very reserved, calm and quite nice. Aaron Paul as Joshua, it was a bit bizarre to see Paul in a film like this, he was alright but incredibly wasted. Ben Kingsley was decent as Nun but he wasn’t in the film enough to be that relevant. Ben Mendelsohn was invisible as Hegep. Sigourney Weaver as Tuya, all I can say is what a waste of a role. Weaver is just there to stand around and say a few lines, her character could have been played by anyone or written out of the film entirely and it would not have made any difference to the story. What a waste. María Valverde was okay as Zipporah, but she barely had enough screen time to be a fully developed character and whenever she was around she was boring as hell.

The presentation was probably the best thing to come out this film. The CGI is very detailed, realistic, epic and used to great effect in the huge action sequences. The music by Alberto Iglesias is pretty good too, I did like the way it had a certain level of epicness and drama to it.

In conclusion Exodus: Gods and Kings is serviceable film but an unnecessary one. For all of its grand visual flair it doesn’t have a story that’s interesting or engaging enough for me to care. The characters are dull and forgettable, the pacing is slow and there are chucks of details in the story that get completely omitted for no reason.

Rating: 5/10

So what did you think of Exodus: Gods and Kings? Did you like it, hate it or thought it was alright? Also how do you feel it compares to the original source material? Whatever your thoughts are be sure to leave them in the comments section below and I’ll see ya in the new year! Laters! 😀

 

Chappie Trailer #1 Review

Hello again people of the internet, time for another trailer review and today I will be talking about Chappie, the next big film from Neil Blomkamp. Now before seeing this trailer, I would say that my interest in seeing this film was mild at best. While I still love District 9, Elysium wasn’t really my cup of tea last summer and he’s fallen off of my radar of people to pay attention to in recent times. So how does this new trailer fare? Well read on and find out.

Check out the trailer below:

After looking at this trailer, my immediate thoughts? “I’m interested.”

While I’m not so keen on sitting through another sci-fi related film that is very much earthbound with robots, this one does look a little more interesting. Sure the concept isn’t overly original and you can make various comparisons to films which have had artificial intelligence versus humans, but I’m curious to see how this film makes use of its protagonist who just happens to be a robot. So what’s the premise here? Well from what I can gather from the trailer, Dev Patel’s character creates a robot for the soul purpose of living and that robot’s name is Chappie and from the scenes in the trailer it looks like he goes from being completely afraid of the world to fully embracing all of the good and bad that comes with it. I can’t say that I’m not curious to see another film about how an AI being comes to adapt to human life and then find its place in the world. From what I can see he goes from being as scared and curious as a child, to being mature as an adult driving cars and what not. And it seems like we’ll make friends and enemies along the way. It also looks like we’ll potentially be taken to Earth somewhere in the future where things look post-apocalyptic, again. Again don’t get me wrong, I love these kinds of settings, but it has been done a lot in films over the last 5 or so years, it does start to get a bit samey.

But this film is not just about the robot, there are human characters as well, obviously you have Dev Patel who looks like the robot’s mentor/father figure who really strives for Chappie to learn, adapt and make the most of himself. The rest of the people in the trailer look interesting enough especially the blond girl, but I’m not familiar with who they are as actors from a visual standpoint. The person who really has me intrigued is Hugh Jackman, it looks like he is taking on the role of antagonist again like it Prisoners (but in a much lighter capacity hopefully) and I’m okay with that. Jackman’s character seems to have a problem with AI being dangerous and taking over (which he and everyone in the human race should rightfully be afraid of), and will probably be the main man trying to take out Chappie, I’m curious to see how that turns out.

So what do you think of the first trailer for Chappie? Are you down with what you see so far or is it not your kind of thing? Whatever your thoughts are be sure to leave them in the comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀