It is really bad for me to admit this, but I saw the first Nobody movie and really enjoyed it. That is not the bad bit. The bad bit I am now admitting is that I even wrote part of the review for it, and I had been trying to finish my review and post it here. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into a couple months, and I was still going to post it and back-date it, but, it is only until this trailer and now that I write this review about the sequel to the movie I really enjoyed, is when I realised that I never finished my review for the first movie. I feel bad now, and I just went to double-check to see if it is still sitting in drafts, and it is! With that said, this trailer is great, and it seems it will follow the lead the first movie (the one I really enjoyed) took and is completely running with it. I mean, if it isn't broke...
So, it is another day and the protagonist, John Wick's uncle (let me check out Nobody's name), Hutch! You know, as soon as I read it, I remembered hearing it! Anyway, Hutch is going on a family vacation with Doc Brown in tow, and it seems like, whilst on vacation, he stumbles into hurting a bunch of fools, while he cracks the backs of all those he touches. That elevator scene is definitely a homage to 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', but did you see that Harpoon gun arrow thingy-ma-jig? Maybe it is not a harpoon gun, but whatever it was, it is a "now you are very messed up and possibly dead-gun or thingy-ma-jig". The Whack-a-Mole, the environment being used to mess these guys up. THIS trailer is what this film is about. Pure unadulterated violence in a way, very few movies can do and have done. And it seems like a really good popcorn flick! Let's just hope Derek Kolstad has done it again. And if you do not know what I mean by that, here is a hint...he is the writer for John Wick 1-3, the first Nobody movie and a few episodes of 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'. Whenever you get him or any of these two, Chad Stahelski or David Leitch, we are onto something very entertaining.
When I first heard of the Gladiator 2 movie, I was not sure how to felt about it. This is a sequel to an old film and the premise they had at the time was something about Maximus coming back from the dead or something weird. It might have been a fake rumour or something else but eventually, the story started to circle around the son of Maximus and a similar premise to the previous movie. Then I started to hear that Joseph Quinn was joining the cast along with Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington, so it was starting to get meaty, you know. A nice healthy cast. The addition of Denzel threw me a little but, whatever, let's see what this is all about. The next thought I had was, do I watch the first movie before I watch this sequel or do I go in clean? You see I have not seen Gladiator since I saw it all those years ago in the cinema. I remember it being a long film and I also remember enjoying it. But then my thoughts started to circle the idea of comparing how the sequel should go and how it should make me feel based on the first one. So I wondered, should I watch the first movie for an update on the story? But would that ultimately put my mind in a place where I will constantly compare the sequel to the first movie. I was not sure what to do, so last night, I wanted to go cinema, I decided on Gladiator, I did not watch the first movie beforehand and upon coming out, "Are you not entertained?" Yes, I was.
The film picks up with Hanno (Paul Mescal), spending time with his wife Arishat before the Roman Army invades their city led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) ordered by the corrupt twin emperors. Once captured Hanno is tested as a fighter to become a potential gladiator only to build up his notoriety to take revenge on Acacius.
I enjoyed this movie. A bag of popcorn, drink, action, loud music, a wonderful score, really good acting, but a decent storyline, not a great one. The storyline is not anything groundbreaking at all and may even mirror the first movie but for what it is worth, I enjoyed the storyline even though it is definitely not one of Ridley's best. A few gripes I had with the movie were the special effects as they were not great and some of the set pieces and the things they did in the movie, due to using the special effects heavily, are the reasons why some of it just did not work and stood out like a sore thumb. I was very entertained by the end of the movie, which is the main thing as that is what we do as movie-goers; we are out trying to be entertained by stories that transport us from our reality. The special effect hinders that experience just a little. Some elements of the movie also made zero sense and were not explained but you simply run with it, it's a movie...relax and enjoy.
The acting was good and Denzel was also really good. Not his best work but a little different from some of the roles he has played previously. It was great to see Connie Nielsen and Joseph Quinn was ok, again nothing special about his character although his performance was good, but I do feel he was wasted, slightly (he's a good actor). I really liked Pedro Pascal's character as he had layers to him which as an audience you begin to understand later as the movie goes on, his motivations and reasonings. I will say Ridley did a great directing job with this movie but I do wonder if this movie was 20 years too late or if the execution is the issue or was it the writing? because Top Gun: Maverick has an even larger gap between the two movies but everything about that movie was written, acted and directed well.
I am going to watch the first one again and I am sure it is going to look dated in comparison since it came out 24 years ago, but without comparing the two (hopefully), chances are, they are both the same (for now) until I watch the first one again, which is still considered a classic, might I add. Paul Mescal is ok, but Russell Crowe had more weight on his performance and owned the role more than Paul. There was a level of gravitas Russell carried but Paul didn't seem to carry that in his performance. This is not saying he was trash, but maybe miscast, or swallowed and drowned out by Russell's performance. He had some pretty big shoes to fill, and that is the only comparison I can really make at this time. Go watch it, you will enjoy it.
I tell you what. You cannot say that, Zack Snyder does not have a vision. You also cannot say that, Zack Snyder does not know how to execute said vision with create great cinematography. For a film which was essentially 4 hours or so, stopped, taken over by someone else, continued filming, chop and screwed and ended up being 120 minutes long...you can definitely say that Zack Snyder does not know how to tell short stories and truncate his work, because this movie is 242 minutes, that's equivalent to 4.03 hours!!! From this trailer alone though...you can see what is difference from the original Justice League movie Zack was unable to make and this trailer, in all it's glory, shows the world what we have been missing and what happens when a studio ties your hands and restricts your creativity. Granted, some people may go off the rails and maybe this does too, but it's Zack...let him tell his story.
This trailer looks more than phenomenal. I actually feel like the word EPIC doesn't even begin to some it up. From beginning to end, the trailer shows the threat, shows the harbinger, shows the heroes and pretty much, a lot of the shots in this trailer is FRESH AND NOT in previous trailers. I mean he has 4 hours and 3 minutes to play with but every shot looks amazing. As if you could pause the film and frame specific shots. That Omega Beam shot as well as two Superman shots and that Wonder Woman fighting shot and the Cyborg shot....too much. There is definitely an argument to be made to say that you have seen this before, but to be perfectly honest... 120 and 242 minutes...this different pretty much says it all. Can't wait to somehow see it.
Directed by Zack Snyder and starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J. K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds
When I saw Bob's face on the thumbnail of this trailer, I thought to myself "oh, that's the guy from 'Better Call Saul' and 'Breaking Bad!'" (two great shows by the way) and then my immediate thought was, "oh, is he in a film?". You see, it's one thing having someone acting in TV series, but to see them in film, you do often think if the film would be any good because acting in film and acting in a TV series are two completely different things. For the most part, most or quire a few TV shows are character driven so you need a great director who will be able to pull out an actors talents and what they are known for or what they excel at in TV, so I instantly thought that maybe this trailer could be interesting. Ultimately, it could be rubbish.
Upon watching this trailer, like most films of this ilk, it starts off a little slow giving you a little of the character's current life situation. Then we are hit with the switch and what changes the character. Then a little history on what the character used to be in his past before he settled down and became a family man while at the same time, wrecking havoc and messing up fools. If you liken this to John Wick, well...David Leitch is the producer who is responsible for Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw, so yeah that guy is behind this. And although this can be seen as a tired trope and "Yeah, I've seen this all before", it really is about the acting and execution and Ilya Naishuller brought us music video and Hardcore Henry?
This looks great. Bob is fairly comical as he has a comedic background so I can see some witty and clever lines woven into this script, along with situations, but I can assure you (well at least i think), if you like John Wick, you are likely to like this with a very slight comedic element to it but with all the seriousness of a Wick film or better yet, an action thriller. I don't think it will fall flat or at least I hope it doesn't. Nice to see Christopher Lloyd in this too.
Directed by Ilya Naishuller and starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Aleksei Serebryakov & Christopher Lloyd
I'm guessing this is the FINAL trailer as the link only says "Official Main Trailer" (again) but having looked at the above two links, the Official Main Trailer above for the Warner Bros. UK & Ireland YouTube page is pretty much the exact same trailer!
I'm not sure if this is an error on their behalf, or maybe it is because I have access to UK & Ireland YouTube page, but this is or at least seems like the same exact trailer from August where at the end, Wonder Woman grabs Cheetah by the scruff of the neck. With talks of possibly now dropping this movie on HBO Max and countries where cinema's are still open, in the UK, our cinema's are closed and we do not have access to HBO Max, so it's interesting how this would now pan out!
Directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright
I'm going to try and not repeat what I said in August 2020 regarding this debacle. You can read that here: Zack Snyder's Justice League Trailer. But it is very much worth highlighting here or briefly mentioning that, this was an utter shambles when Warner Bros decided to try and switch gears to catch up with Marvel's success. With no real plan or direction, you end up with the Josh Whedon directed movie which is both Zack's movie with Josh's touches and edits. Apparently, Zack has never watched the Justice League because it isn't his movie and more power to him. I liked it for the most part, it wasn't terrible.
A trailer dropped in August and was pulled a little while after due to copyright infringement on the music choice used. Apparently it wasn't cleared. I'm just hoping that such a simple thing, isn't another spanner or something that is going to plague Zack's vision and stop us (I say that loosely) watching it on HBO Max. We don't have HBO Max in the UK, so I wonder how that will work, Netflix maybe?
So, Zack has decided to drop an updated trailer and I'm going to be real with you, I'm not sure if there is a difference from the one dropped in August. It does seem like there are a few newer shots with more of Ray Fisher's Cyborg and his story, and some other clips which were likely left on the cutting room floor, but although I'm not a huge fan of how the trailer is pieced together,, I still think it's phenomenal, albeit, I just want to see it now. And now hearing he is adding more scenes, this trailer really is to showcase the NEW editions that were added, which now makes me think, maybe he has seen the Josh Whedon version...lol.
Anyway, it's shaping up to be a different kind of movie in terms of feel and I'm all for Zack telling his story. WB seem to be doing right by him at present. Oh and just before I forget...that quick shot of Cyborg commanding all those (I'm assuming nukes), in his varsity jacket, is totally a boss shot! Also, the black and white is cool, but I think I'd prefer colour.
Directed by Zack Snyder and starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J. K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds
First of all, imagine being a director and the studio feel you haven't done such a great job (not like the studio knew what they were doing or if any of them are comic book fanatics anyway), they use your recently passed young daughter to remove you from the film they wanted you to make and get someone else to finish the job, adding the same kind of flair that director helped to make another similar movie popular and a lot of money for the studio's rival or main competition. I'd feel a type of way, I'm not going to lie.
Warner Bros. have been trying to catch up with Marvel (well Disney, now) since the very first Iron Man movie in 2008. With nobody at the top detailing a plan and sticking to it, they were simply trying this character, then that character, rather than starting with a character and building a story and an over-arching plot/plan etc like what Marvel did with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Saga spanning 22 or so movies. Apparently, it was to start with Batman Begins, they asked Christopher Nolan and he wasn't on it and wanted to make his own thing. Then they attempted again with Green Lantern, but that was a dud. DC have been chasing behind Marvel all this time and unless someone can tell me otherwise, is the reason as to why Zack has gone back to this project to finish it because he was essentially robbed of his movie.
This trailer looks phenomenal. I know Zack is a lot of style and flair, but damn! And considering, he will be putting a little bit more money into it (I think I heard), with no reshoots AND this movie will be something like 4 hours long, I can only assume this movie will fully flesh out how the movie and story was meant to play out without troubled Josh Whedon getting involved. I don't really talk about the behaviours of actors and directors etc, but from when I heard Josh was being a twit to the actor who plays Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and also removed a lot of his scenes, made me feel a type of way towards him and now I'm looking at Josh sideways. I hope this movie turns out to be very good and blows Josh's one out of the water.
Directed by Zack Snyder and starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J. K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds
What has been really weird of lately is that, I've not reviewed a few trailers and many would go by and somehow I would, well, not review it for some reason. I'm going to try and get on top of that in a way that benefits us both, myself the reviewer and you, the reader. In some ways, I'm thankful because I'm not reviewing 26 trailers for one film or TV series, like The Boys for a good example, but then at the same time, I'm not reviewing the subtle differences with these trailers. The Official Trailer was 8th December 2019, pre-covid....lol!
Anyway, this trailer is a huge step up from an already great looking trailer. It shows more of what is going on and what is meant to be happening in regards to plot. It seems as though Maxwell Lord is able to grant people wishes in which Diana Prince wishes for Steve Trevor and Barbara, wishes to be more powerful than Wonder Woman, an Apex Predator and becomes a Cheetah. She doesn't look like Cats the movie, so that's a good thing and the CGI/Special effects on her may need a little tweaking, but this film looks really good. It looks like it's about greed and balance. Imagine, the film is meant to be out already, but hopefully it is out soon. I'm still loving that majestical flipping truck scene and Wonder Woman is gracefully floating.
Directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright
DC don't have the best track record in relation to Marvel, but they have released a few Gems, here and there. After the first Wonder Woman, we got Shazam, Aquaman and Man of Steel (in my humble opinion) was great. So it's good to know, the same director is back for the sequel of WW and this trailer looks great!
The confusion everyone had or will have, is the Steve Trevor aspect of it all, but we can wait until we find out how it pans out when the movie comes out. I'm just hoping that the explanation isn't lame. Also, how is she just lassoing lightening like no big deal?
Directed by Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright
You could say it is the beginning of superhero fatigue as to why this film didn't do well. You could also say it is because of the negative or mixed reviews which came out just before release, but I really do believe that the projected $110-120m for the weekend was hampered for many many reasons and Warner Bros. would never have reached it.
Not something I want to really get into, but I do believe the films shortcomings has come from many different things circulating the movie alone and the movies that came before it, in which I feel I need to give context and clear the air a little.
For example, Man of Steel opened to mixed to Positive reviews. The film was divisive between critics and fans. A really good film but the story was slightly hammy as certain characters were not portrayed accurately and the execution was just OK, albeit, some things never explained.
Four years later, Batman v Superman came out to very mixed to Negative reviews by critics and fans. A film with great potential, but the execution was terrible. Two of comics greatest and most iconic characters in a film together and the film was not as great as it should have been. For the most part you'd enjoy moments of it, but the story and the third act was not great. This was not well received. Not to mention the terrible trailers.
Within the same year followed Suicide Squad. A film which could have been told in a different way. A film which was actually decent-ish, but had problems that weighed almost as heavy as the good elements of the movie. This meant that critics and fans generally liked it, well better than WB's last Comic book outing, but the problems were there. WB wanted re-shoots. WB wanted to change the tone thinking it was the tone which was wrong with Batman v Superman. It was choppy. The jokes didn't all land well and the movie was all over the place tonally. It should have been better...especially with the final act. The cast were not the issue as the acting was good. A little annoying that it centred on two specific characters, mostly.
Then came Wonder Woman. A movie that basically did everything right from the ground up. As DC Movies have slowly got marginally better over time, Wonder Woman opened to really great and excellent reviews from critics and fans. Because of WW being such a great movie, WB decided to make changes to make her more front and center in this movie.
On top of the re-shoots and editing to make this film more attractive for all those who watched Wonder Woman, the tragedy with Zach Synder's family, knowing Warner Bros wanting to truncate their movie from 2hrs and 45mins to 2hrs, from knowing Henry Cavill had a moustache and it had to be digitally removed for filming the re-shoots, from learning that Ben Affleck doesn't want to play Batman any more and from Warner Bros being soo reactionary with all their previous comic book movies after BvS and not having someone like a Kevin Feige to take the lead and be the head honcho of the Franchise, WB would have always had an upward struggle with this movie and their predicted $110-120 million on opening weekend was never going to be met. Ever! Why? Because you did not control the narrative and you gave away too much of the film's behind the scenes problems. You have lost the trust of the audience, the critics and the fans. Batman V Superman literally made nobody care for them. Only a little trust was gained with the outcome of Wonder Woman, but Gal Gadot can only do soo much. Damn, Katherine Bigalow single-handed "Saved" WB.
Now with saying all this, is by no way a means to be a disclaimer to Justice League because the film is bad and you will not have fun with it and thoroughly dislike it, not at all. The film does have it's problems, but it is still a good film as like Suicide Squad, or should I say, unlike suicide squad, the balance of what is good out weights the bad, 70 to 30, in my own personal opinion.
Superman is dead. With the visions Batman received from The Flash, he teams up with Wonder Woman in order to recruit a few extraordinary people to help him in his cause to stop an unknown threat. This threat is Steppenwolf, a being of great power who has come to Earth to collect these ancient boxes, called 'Motherbox' and use them to take over all life on the planet. While Steppenwolf and his Parademons, scour the planet for these three boxes, will loner Batman be able to gel with his potential new recruits and will they have what it takes to thwart Steppenwolf and save all life on Earth?
This is the general gist of the film and if I'm honest, it's decent. The villain doesn't have much layers but sometimes that isn't necessary. The film has some great scenes, the beginning scene with Batman, the scene with the Amazonians was excellent, the quieter scenes with Cyborg was cool and even the scenes with Aquaman was ok. The best and more funnier scenes are the ones with The Flash as Ezra Miller is absolutely hilarious in the movies and it helps to break up the serious tone. What I will say is, while the film is very choppy and goes from scene to scene quite quickly, the film still works. The scenes with the scientists are great and the scene at the memorial of Superman is possibly THE BEST SCENE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE! Second is the final fight where they all come together. But the main problem with the movie is the third act and the Joss Whedoning of it all. Yeah, there are some great bits and he is a great director, but Joss and Zack are two completely different directors and it shows. Weirdly enough, Zack is akin to a Michael Bay, but at a more elite level. They both go for style over substance, but Zack has more style AND substance in comparison.
Visually, the film is amazing and it IS just a fun movie at the end of the day, but with the current track record and the handling of this movie and everything surrounding it, it is probably best if Zack handled it. If it was a mess, then it's Zack's fault. This film reeks of studio interference and a hodge-podge of trying to piece together another man's genius and doing it wrong. Plagiarism at it's finest! It's a pity we couldn't see what Zack was cooking!
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