(series review) [STREAMING] - Umbrella Academy: Season 2

We now live in a world where binging is a past time we indulge in shows that we love and we tend to consume it within just a few days.  I say "we now live in a world" but if I'm honest, we have been here a while now and binging is becoming the norm, especially during this Pandemic and for the most part, information is everywhere and nobody really want to have shows they are interested, spoiled for them.

What I will say though, although binging will take hours from you instantly, it does help you to catch up on shows you've never seen before or for a nice little recap.  I gave myself a recap on this show for the first season as I couldn't remember all the details and wanted to be ready for season 2.  I will go into season 1 ever so briefly, with mild spoilers before I go into my non-spoiler review. for season 2.

So, if you haven't seen the first season of Umbrella Academy, prepared to be spoiled just a little.

Imagine X-Men, a school for gifted children to hone their powers and do good in the world with said powers, The Umbrella Academy is a little like that.  Sir Reginald Hargreeves The Monocle, an extremely cold-hearted eccentric billionaire industrialist and world-renowned scientist adopted 7 children out of 43, who were all born on the same day at the same time across the world.  These 7 children were to have special abilities and he named them 1 through 7.  Number 1 The Spaceboy aka Luther (Tom Hopper) is the leader of the bunch and is super strong.  Number 2 The Kraken aka Diego (David Castañeda) can throw objects, usually knives with proficiency (somewhat bending their direction mid-air).  Number 3 The Rumour aka Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) can control minds once she utters the words "I heard a rumour...".  Number 4 The Seance aka Klaus (Robert Sheehan) can communicate with the dead.  Number 5 The Boy aka Five (Aidan Gallagher) can travel through space and time.  Number 6 The Horror aka Ben (Justin H. Min) can summon tentacle horrors from his body and Number 7 The White Violin aka Vanya (Ellen Page) has no powers.  

Sir Hargreeves trained the children vigorously whilst also scolding, berating and subjecting them to experiments.  He called the team 'The Umbrella Academy' and would send them out into the field to stop crime.  When arguing with Sir Hargreeves about the possibility of time travel, Five disobeys Sir Hargreeves and does it anyway finding himself stuck in a Post-Apocalyptic world where he lived for several decades.  On a mission, Ben dies and shortly after his death, the team disbands leaving Luther as the only person who stayed carrying out missions for Sir Hargreeves.  One day Luther is injured on a mission and after experimenting on him, Sir Hargreeves sends him on an important mission to the moon where he lives for 4 years.  Sir Hargreeves dies and having known about the end of the world, Five finds his way back to the past several days before the apocalypse and tries to band the team back together to stop the end of the world.

Having recently watched the first season, I instantly remembered why I found the show brilliant.  Not only did it have a comic book essence to it visually, some of the characters had layers but it was more of the family dynamics which captured me.  A dysfunctional family trying to band together, putting aside their grievances with one another, trying to solve the mystery of who it is who will cause the end of the world.  Although done on a non-movie budget, the special effects were quite top-notch for a Netflix show and the music was also very good.  The action and choreography was great and Umbrella Academy travels at a medium to slow pace that gradually brings you closer and closer to the mystery with a few twists.  On my second watch I found David Castañeda's character of Diego to be of a tragic story when on my first watch it was more Vanya.  Aiden Gallagher's Five as well as Robert Sheehan's Klaus are the screen stealers.  Another interesting element to the show is the Commission's two operatives, Hazel (Cameron Britton) and Cha-Cha (Mary J. Blige) who are a disruptive force running through the series as they both are on a mission sent by The Commission.

By the end of the show, in trying to stop the Apocalypse, the group find themselves travelling with Five through time, but we don't know where.

Highlights from This season is when the family is dancing in different locations of the mansion which I found fun and cool.  Another crazy scene was Luther dancing in the club.  The funniest moment for me was, when Hazel and Cha-Cha go to the lab. Comedy Gold.

The second season picks up immediately after the events of the first season and Five's time travel goes awry taking them back to the 60's.  When Five arrives, he finds his family fighting against the soviets in World War 3 moments before the planet is nuked.  Hazel arrives with just enough time to advise Five that he will need to get the family together as him and his family are the only ones who can stop the end of the world and another Apocalypse.

One again, the people behind The Umbrella Academy have not only done a great job the second time around, they have managed to get the audience to empathise and care for pretty much every single character in the show to some degree.  Some characters get a bit more to do than others and Klaus and Five are still the standouts, but they give Diego and Allison a bit more meat.  Both characters end up having love/relationship angles to the story that do not feel forced.  No scenes felt wasted as every scene led to something whether you saw it play out shortly afterwards or will have a role to play in the future.  A highlight for me was a scene involving 5 and the board members.  It felt like a scene from a movie I cannot say as it would give away the movie and what potentially happens in the show.  With that said, a Season 3 is very welcomed and I actually hope they are quarantining now in order to make this happen so they can start shooting in a few weeks from now...WE NEED SEASON 3.

They also gave Ben's character a bit more to do and it was great seeing more of him other than just seeing him to the side like a 3rd wheel to Klaus.  Ben had his moments and I loved them.  There were many great quotes and one-liners in this season, obviously by the two characters that stand out, Five and Klaus and the cinematography, especially the beginning/intro was straight out of a X-Men movie.  The music is on point and there really isn't anything wrong with this season at all.  There were some real laugh out loud moments and one that particularly stood out for me was with Luther in the Alleyway shouting out for Allison.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I feel the intro give you insight to what you will be getting through the 10 episodes.

But this season isn't all fun and jokes as it does touch on some serious topics with Vanya, Klaus and moments with Allison's character and her storyline.  I won't lie, but a scene brought tears to my eyes and I even tweeted about it, with Allison's story.  It was masterfully handled and it was not great to see, but great to see in a show like this, enabling people all over the world who will watch the show to see these scenes and have an understanding of History as a lot of history was cleverly woven into the story.  I won't go into much to avoid spoilers, but the moment couldn't be more pertinent.  With that said, the new characters were excellent, Raymond Chestnut (Yusuf Gatewood) and Lila (Ritu Arya) and the main villain, in which I will no go into due to spoilers, was also great and loved every moment they were on screen chewing up the scenery.

While the show continues to have secrets and twists throughout, it is fun to discover them as they came at you as you get soo engrossed with these characters to the point, near the end of the show, I was wondering which of the new characters will be brought forward.  The final fight could have been a touch better, but I didn't mind how that wrapped up, but the final scene was great and will be intriguing from a story standpoint going forward.

If you liked the first season, I don't see how you wouldn't like this season as they do expand on what came before, in more better ways than one.

(trailer review) - Umbrella Academy: Season 2

When I watched the first season of Umbrella Academy, I was blown away.  If you are into Superhero shows, movies and that genre altogether, then you will understand what this show is about and what it is similar to.  X-Men, but not as PG as there is swearing involved and extreme violence.  As the Superhero genre has been booming in TV and film for over 18 years and since the 2000s, it was refreshing to watch this show of a dysfunctional superhero family in this over saturated industry and to be honest, this is not a bad thing at all.
I'm going to have to watch the first season again before this season starts as I cannot remember everything that happened, but it's going to be a delight as the acting is superb and seeing them all again is great.

This trailer is great and while I was waiting for this trailer since forever, I'm definitely loving the crews dynamic and how it seems they have now gelled well as a family and are actually bonding more with their natural squabbles here and there.  I'm loving the fact Five is still the bearer of knowledge and telling people what is happening since he is the time traveller and it is interesting and very cool to see Ben more throughout this trailer and i'm assuming throughout the second season.

Unless I'm mistaken, it is out later this month and due to the success of the first season, providing they keeping the same energy as the first season, this will be another successful season.  It was just upsetting that I had not seen Mary J. Blige as she was soo good in the first one.

Directed by Steve Blackman and starring Aidan Gallagher, Cameron Britton, David Castañeda, Ellen Page, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Justin H. Min, Robert Sheehan & Tom Hopper.

(film review) - X-Men: Days Of Future Past

For me, Bryan Singer destroyed X-Men from the very beginning. From when Wolverine was made center of attention, for me, the X-Men film/franchise was just nonsense. I mean EVERYBODY knows Cyclops IS the leader of the X-Men and although this didn't change in the film, having everything center around Wolverine just didn't sit well with me. This is not to say I didn't enjoy the X-Men films, X-Men and X2, but I made do with what Bryan Singer did with the franchise. With that said, X-Men: The Last Stand could not have been any more of a useless mass of mess and Brett Ratner needs to redeem himself with the new Hercules film with Dwayne Johnson. With X-Men: First Class directed by Matthew Vaughn sliding into the X-Men franchise and somewhat saving it, Bryan Singer had a lot to clear up from the mess he started with (although we dealt with it and accepted it), the diabolical nonsense Brett Ratner did and also tidy up a little of First Class. And just before I start the review, I would like to conclude and reassure you with great news. Bryan Singer DID THE JOB.

Although the characters are all over the place, lets just roll with it.

We are currently in a dystopian future where Sentinel's are targeting and killing Mutants (what they are designed to do) but are also targeting humans. With both humans and mutants being imprisoned if not killed, there are only a few mutants in the world left who are trying to build up a resistance. Professor Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart) & Magneto (Sir Ian Mckellen) have finally joined forces and work together to try and bring an end to the onslaught of sentinels to try and save mankind.
Accompanied with Storm (Halle Berry) & Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) they come across a bunch of X-Men, Bobby Drake aka Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Peter Rasputin aka Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Warparth, Sunspot, Bishop, Blink & Kitty Pryde who then devise a plan to send Wolverine back to the past to try and stop the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), from ever creating to Sentinels in the first place so they can rewrite history and save their future.

As for storylines, nothing out of the ordinary. As for the direction and execution of the film, brilliant. With something being as flawed but acceptable as it was, then to have other people dabble in the franchise and basically mess it up, Bryan Singer did a very good job with trying to tie ALL the loose ends within the franchise and his best at bringing together a story that made actual sense.

When the film was announced with all these Mutants, people along with myself were thinking, "There are too many characters, they won't have enough screen time. Bryan Singer is going to mess this one up too" And rightfully so, we should feel like this, but to add that their were 4 villains in this film and yet, the charcaters served the story well and these characters were used effectively, you'd complete miss the fact that not only Bolivar Trask and the Sentinels are the bad guys here, you'd miss the other two bad guys.

As seen in the trailer, there are some totally great moments. If you had seen the opening battle, with Blink, Colossus, Iceman and 'em, this plays out MUCH better when you watch the film. Brilliantly crafted and excellently executed. Teamwork in tandem. If you have seen the Quicksilver picture of him running on the wall, an excellent if not the actual best scene within the movie. It's like watching the beginning of X2. Bryan Singer DID THE JOB.

If you are used to the sentinels in the comics and cartoons and was put off with the sentinels in this film, trust me, it all makes sense when you watch the film.

Funny in places, serious at times and tension building up as the film climaxes and during certain moments of the film, I can only say, this film is brilliant. If you stay to after the credits at the very end, there is an EXCELLENT clue to the following film's story plot, but with such a neatly crafted and interweaving storyline and very well acted scenes from McAvoy and Fassbender, this film is a definate MUST SEE.

If you ever felt like an X-Men film just didn't cut it or the last couple of X-Men films weren't great and the Wolverine films were also a little sub-parr, than you will definitely enjoy this film. Try not to scrutinise this film too much as there are still a bunch of holes in the script and with a few of the characters, but to still arrive out on top with a very good viewing, you can only congratulate Bryan on his work and hopefully, in the next film X-Men: Apolocypse (so it has been called), hopefully he will do things right this time around...or at least try to and clear up some of the other nonsense plot holes. Maybe, just maybe he could bring in cloning into the storyline. But if that is the case, he would need to bring in Mr. Sinister. How great would that be?

(film review) - Inception

This is a film you may need to see twice, but if you generally understand the concept, then you'll pay attention through the whole film and still ask yourself the inevitable question at the end.

That question is, "so, was it real or was it a dream?"

A lot of people have their pwn interpretation of the film and some would say that it was real and wasn't a dream. Some people would say it was a dream. Me on the other hand, I'm just going to remain quiet until I can see it again.

This film is nothing from short, nothing from linear, nothing from simple and nothing from half-arsed! When I say Christopher Nolan makes a film, what I mean by that is, from screen direction to music, everything just seems epic.

Just to give you an idea of the film. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) designed a machine that enables himself and his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), to perform corporate espionage by entering the subconscious minds of their targets, using two-level "dream within a dream" strategies to "extract" valuable information. As "extractors" they carry a "totem" which has a special and personalized behaviour which is only known to the owner. This object is used to determine if they are within another person's dream.

The problem is, you may not know if your are in a dream or not. Behaviour patterns change within people or the "reality so, if you feel you are in a dream, you'd take out your totem and use it to determine reality. Dom wants to extract information from Cillian Murphy but needs a new Architect because an architect with personal issues will never be able to get the tasks done. This problem arises after Dom teaches a young gifted and smart architect how to think outside the box and manipulate their dreams but then realise that a certain woman keeps appearing in every inception. This is Dom's Angry wife. So as well as Dom trying to fight his own personal demon's and reach his main goal, he has to uncover the truth and also gain his goal the best way he can without too much trouble. Obviously, there is much more complications that arise when you are in someone's dream who realises they are dreaming. Moreover, when you are not in control of the dream and other people are.

This is a definate MUST WATCH! Even buy it on video if you have too.