(series review) [STREAMING] - DC's Stargirl

Greg Berlanti is the one guy who I can imagine in the most recent of years to be the living and breathing depiction of Scrooge McDuck jumping off of a diving board into a pool of money.  You see, he is solely responsible (to my knowledge anyway) for every single DC show you are seeing now, hearing of or have seen in recent years.
In 2012, the show Arrow starring Stephen Amell played the DC character Green Arrow.  Fans and critics alike deemed the show to be a Batman "Rip-off", not rip-off per-say but, his enemies were Batman's enemies.  That didn't stop the show as the show was great and improved by each season.  I believe it was season 2 where they introduced Barry Allen whom would later become The Flash, to then have his own series a year later, introducing crossovers from each show and then expanding the now aptly titled 'Arrowverse (Arrow universe) wider to include lot of other heroes and different teams throughout DC history.  Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman and the up and coming Superman & Lois, not to mention other DC shows he helps to produce, Titans, Doom Patrol and Stargirl.  Even when you watch the Chillin Adventures of Sabrina, Greg's name is there! But without him and his input and efforts, Stargirl may not have been made and be as good as it is.

I'm not sure which year Stargirl takes place, whether before the Arrowverse characters as I'm assuming, techinically, it is meant to be as Stargirl is part of the Justice Society of America which comes before the Justice League of America, but the JSA have been wiped out by the villains.  The villains win and the sole survivor, Stripesy meets and marrys a lady named Barbara, Courtney's mother and they move to a town called Blue Valley and he leaves his past behind him.  Unfortunately, Courtney stumbles across the Cosmic Staff, previously held by Starman and would ONLY work for Starman, Courtney, now Stargirl wants to pick up where Starman left off and try to uncover a plot of villainy.

This show is decent and well worth the watch.  Having watched ALL of The Arrow episodes season after season, fairly caught up with The Flash, up-to-date with Supergirl, Black Lightning and Titans (although Titans is a separate thing, kinda), I'd like to say that Stargirl has the tone of the Arrowverse, especially shows like Supergirl and The Flash as it is fairly lighthearted, but it does have some slightly darker elements, not enough to be Arrow dark or Black Lightning dark in some cases, but we are talking about a bunch of teens taking on supervillians and these supervillains are no joke.

With that said, the choreography, like all the aforementioned shows have been amazing.  This show, blatantly wirework, but the use of movement with these characters are excellent.  As stiffly fluid as they possibly can as most of if not all of the fight scenes are practical.  There are some fights that are blatantly special effects but most of the special effects are for other elements of the show, so i found that the fighting scenes were very entertaining.  Yes you can tell it is wirework, but the fights are just great.  These teens get slapped up soo much, it made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions.  They do give as hard as they get in some cases and the work with the cosmic staff is excellent.

The cosmic staff is essentially its own character.  If you are into Marvel movies and know about Thor's trusty hammer, the cosmic staff is similar to that in the sense that only the user can use it, but the staff is sentient.  The staff moves by itself, helps the user to fly, flashes a bright light and can be used as a formidable weapon in combat.  The way the staff moves with and around Stargirl helping her whilst she is wielding the staff is nothing like i've ever seen before.  The staff does however come across as very convenient to plot and story though.  When they want to have the staff work for the story or move/act in a particular way, it would. If they don't want it to work in a particular way and they want to show Courtney get hurt or whatever, then it won't.  There were times I felt like the Staff could have assisted Courtney in moments and it did nothing.

Onto doing nothing, some of these villains were just in the show for the numbers.  Some were pointless and others didn't really show face until the end and still didn't do anything.  I liked that some of the villains were selfish, had their own goals and ideas which caused conflict between some of them, that was good, but for the most part, you only had possibly 3-4 villains which were great and entertaining.  The music was decent and just overall, the story was intriguing enough to have you engaged.  A little fluffy and bubblegum in places but I liked how they managed to balance teenage angst and heroism.  If you can watch the show. It would be interesting how a second season would go especially how it ended.

(film review) - Zombieland: Double Tap

Around 12 years ago, they mentioned making a film called Zombieland (I even reviewed it - gosh I feel old) and I wasn't sure what to make of it.  10 years ago, they released the trailer and the movie seemed goofy and fun, but I wasn't sure what to make of it.  Saw the movie in December 2009 and as my review stated, I really enjoyed it.  I had been awaiting a sequel to this movie ever since and it had been on hold because director Ruben Fleischer had been busy making films like 30 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad and the more recent, Venom.  They did try to launch a TV series back in 2013 with Amazon Studios, but the show didn't even get past the terrible pilot as it was that bad.  I watched it and for the most part, it seems they got most of the core elements of the show, but it was just bad, really.  The characters had no chemistry and it just seemed very much like a budget Zombieland.  This sequel on the other hand, something we have waited 10 years for, not only does Ruben address the elephant in the room with it being 10 years, he also doesn't even bother to try and fix the concept of Zombieland, only expand/evolve it and that is BRILLIANT!!!  I mean, if it isn't broke, why fix it?

The film literally picks up 10 years later in real-time and since the events of the first movie, the zombies have evolved.  Whereas in the first movie it doesn't seem there is much civilians left that had survived the apocalypse, the now dysfunctional family have taken residence in The White House.  However, when Little Rock (Abigail) meets a guy named Berkeley (Avan Jogia) and goes missing, Wichita (Emma Stone), Colombus (Jesse Eisenberg) and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) go off looking for Little Rock at Graceland, Elvis' home.  On their travels they have a new tag-a-long named Madison (Zoey Deutch) who has been living in a freezer the entire time and once they make it to Gracelands, chaos ensues, of course.

It took me a moment to get into this movie this time around and I'm not sure what it is, but I wasn't fully tuned in at the beginning.  I thought it might be because it has been a long time since we have seen these characters but I actually re-watched Zombieland last week so this feeling I was having confused me.  Maybe I was tied (which I was).  Maybe I was thinking it was 10 years too late and I wasn't invested any more or maybe it wasn't as witty and funny as the last one, but it was, it was witty and funny.  I really started getting into the movie once they met Madison and once we got to Graceland.

The rules are still there and we get to learn a bunch of new ones.  And just like what I said for the first movie, you might need to watch it again for the rules alone, but this film is just like the first one. The family are exactly the same.  Crazy Zombie kills, chaotic, clever and funny dialogue and with the evolved zombies, the humour definitely still fits in the world we had established 10 years ago.  One of my favourite scenes was at Graceland where they meet a 'Doppelganger' family and how that part of the story pans out.

Ruben Fleischer does an excellent job directing with keeping the same tone as the original and bringing back the now very well established cast.  Emma Stone, Golden and Academy Award winner, since the first movie.  Jesse Eisenberg, Golden and Academy Award nominee since the first movie.  Woody Harrelson, Primetime Emmy Award winner, 3 x Academy Award nominee and Sag Award ensemble winner to various movies, it's just great to see that these actors decided that this role wasn't too little for them and a brilliant job done getting back into the roles because Woody, Jesse, Emma and Abigail are excellent.  The film literally feels like 10 years later, we are still with these guys and they are still killing zombies and it's great.

My only critique of the movie is that, I would have liked to see the rules clearer as they do pop up obscurely throughout the movie and the lack of one of the zombies they named during the first act.  Other than that, if you enjoyed the first movie, this film continues with no bumps and no displacement since the 10 years.  I'm also glad the didn't try to do anything too outrageous that would have taken you away from the world of Zombieland and out of the film, although that Leaning Tower of Pisa part was teetering on the edge.  Just like the first one though, I would definitely watch this one again.