(film review) - Shazam

It hasn't been long but Shazam is now here and since the last decent movie was indeed, Aquaman a few months ago, it seems as though the DCEU or whatever they want to call it is now ramping up.  There has been a few whispers of other films but it's interesting to see where they are going to be going considering there isn't a lot of great DC movies of late.  At the Moment it's Man of Steel, Wonder Woman and Aquaman.  One of DC's biggest flops, although it was alright, just (I mean I enjoyed it for the most part), was Justice League, but DC has a long way to go to keep pumping out excellence with consistency.  Maybe, just maybe we will have it here.

Billy Batson is a 14 year old foster child who has gone from home to home not being able to settle anywhere.  One day, Billy is pulled into a mysterious place and granted the powers of Shazam enabling him to change from boy to man in an instant with superhero powers, strength, healing, fire-proof, superhuman speed, superhuman reflexes, Electrokinesis, flight and with his friend Freddy Freeman, Billy must find a way to live with his new found powers and also take down Doctor Sivana who wants the power for himself.

I enjoyed this movie. It wasn't great, it wasn't wow, it was "Oh, ok, that was cool" There were some funny bits that made me chuckle and it is an overall decent movie, but if we were going to jump onto the comparison train, this movie does not hold a candle up to the recent comic book movies out.  I'd say it isn't as bad as Suicide Squad but that movie reeked of heavy studio interference.  the music and scores were decent and the visuals were also decent but if I'm honest, although not a jaw dropping movie, this movie does stand out as one of the better ones from DC, Aquaman, Wonder Woman.  It's been soo long since Man of steel and to think that Shazam essentially is pretty much equal to Superman, would be nice to see him in a future project or even, Black Adam especially as that has been mentioned a little while ago which seems like forever.

The acting is great from Zachary Levi and he bounces off Jack Dylan Grazer well. Asher Angel is also great and so in Mark Strong, as usual as he always delivers a great performance.  If they do choose to change some things should they do a sequel to this movie...I hope they tone down the suit as it literally looks like Zachary is in a muscle suit and the colour is wildly too bright.  And to not give any spoilers, but I would like to see more of Billy Batson's family in any future project too, especially as this could have been hinted by the end credits scene.  Give it a go, you might enjoy like I did.

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(film review) - Captain Marvel

We are at a stage in our lives and in Marvel's franchise that an origin movie may now be out of place.  I mean our lord savour, Kevin Feige has mentioned no more origin movies, yet this one is a semi origin movie with a twist and ultimately, Marvel has stumbled with this one.  It's sad to say, but they have and although I will review the film, I won't go into all the details and spoil anything, but reasons as to why they stumbled but didn't fall.
Marvel have stumbled with many films.  Their way of doing something different and/or when they first started out, they were slowly piecing together what they wanted to do with the franchise.  The Incredible Hulk is good, Ironman 2 is good, Thor: The Dark World is good and Ironman 3 is Goodish (not one of my favourites at all), but Marvel have had greater and many more hits than misses and have made small ret-cons here and there.  One of the major ones of recent, by no fault of their own I guess, was with the Spider-Man: Homecoming movie, regarding the year.  But that came down to communication and "admin" error? However, this is something that has  been more forgiving by fans and helps with the integrating of such character into a grander story.  If the new and upcoming Avengers: Endgame grosses around 3 billion worldwide, we are looking at a 10 Billion Dollar Franchise.  10 Billion.  That's 9 zeroes.
But how does Captain Marvel's story fit into this? Well, any way Marvel can squeeze it in...for the women of the world!?

Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is a Kree operative for Starforce who goes by the name of Vers.  She is a confident, upbeat, determined, yet hard-headed woman who get's the job done at any cost.  She has a good moral compass but is plagued by dreams and visions of what seems to be another life.  On a mission to eradicate the Kree's sworn enemies, The Skrulls, the mission goes wrong and from that point, Carol aka Vers spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out the mysteries of her dreams and visions, who she really is and what and whom she is ultimately fighting for.

It sounds great on paper, but I personally feel that this movie could have been executed in a better way.  This is where I feel they stumbled, and not fell.  I felt that it was not fully fleshed out and that some of the characters could have had more depth as well as maybe, the film being a psychological thriller, a bit like how 'The Winter Soldier' was a 70's political thriller.  With the themes in the movie, this film could have touched on that in a big way.  What is real and what isn't.  Who am I?  Total Recall did that.  And for the most part, that movie is a classic for many reasons.  But they would still need to cater to the young ladies of the world to aspire to be Captain Marvel.

I didn't hate the film as I quite enjoyed it.  Brie is not miscast at all and their are some great visuals and some really quiet moments that allow particular characters to shine.  Lashana Lynch is great as well as Samuel L. Jackson.  But as I said earlier, some character development with some other characters would have made the story a bit meatier.  There are some decent visual gags as well as the many mid-nighties references.  With many easter eggs and visual references of movies from that era, this movie hits it out of the park, but ultimately felt like a Phase 1 Movie in a Phase 3 world.  Doctor Strange is a origin movie, even Black Panther, yet these movies feel like they pack more of a punch, especially with Black Panther...and this woman has glowing fists!  I felt that it was shoehorned into the MCU because DC made a Wonder Woman movie which was very good.  And these two giants are in deep competition with each other, so there is always a company trying to out-do the other and this is possibly another reason why Marvel stumbles.

A lot of people are saying Carol is over powered and personally, although that is somewhat true, I feel we should have more powerful characters in the MCU, because this is how we will separate the many different tiers of these heroes and be able to tell a variety and multitude of different stories.  Phase 4 is looking to be great and varied, especially with the conclusion of the Fox Deal, I'm very interested in seeing what Carol will be doing in Avengers: Endgame and after.  A sequel and the many prospects it has is great fore the future of the MCU as well as the many women and little girls who will feel empowered by Captain Marvel.

(film review) - Alita: Battle Angel

This film seemed to be going through all types of hell in order to be put onto screen.  James Cameron wanted a specific look to this movie and to also enforce a “gimmick” with the help of Robert Rodriguez to tell the story of Battle Angel: Alita, I mean, Alita: Battle Angel, and with their sensibilities together, produced and directed a film that I, actually, well…really enjoyed!

After a major war known as “The Fall”, society is split with those who live at the top in the City of Zalem and those who live at the bottom in what is known as the Iron City, a junkyard dumping ground.  Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), whilst in a junkyard, finds a disembodied female Cyborg and decides to put her together and name her Alita (Rosa Salazar).  Now discovering a whole new world, the people in it and the life or death competitive sport of Motorball, Alita stumbles across the person responsible for the murders of innocent women and instinctively engages into a fight which allows her to remember old memories of a previous life she had and rediscover her unique fighting style.
With a passion for fighting and feeling invincible, Alita decides to join the hunter warriors and enters the brutal game of Motorball to help send her friend, Hugo (Keean Johnson) up to the City of Zalem, but when Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley), a huge cyborg is out to kill her, requested by Nova by way of Vector (Mahershala Ali), and now that there is a bounty on Hugo’s head, set by an assassin named Zapan (Ed Skrein), it is up to Alita to go toe-to-toe with those out to kill her and her friend whilst trying to unlock the secrets of her hidden past.

I enjoyed this movie as I went in with zero expectations having seen possibly only 2 trailers and I just wanted to see it as it looked cool.  One of my thoughts whilst watching the movies was “When are they doing Akira?” As Akira is one of my favourite Manga movies from back in the day and I would love to see it.

I don’t have any complaints about this movie as I knew what I was getting when I was going in, in regards to the big eyes, which actually wasn’t THAT bad.  Maybe if the eyes were even bigger, then it would have been more distracting than it already was, so it wasn't that bad.  And although the story of a person with missing memories and hidden talents is done to death and old, it was great to see in this movie, as it also reminded me of the old Geena Davis movie, ‘A Long Kis Goodnight” (I love that film).  The film also had similarities to Elysium.
At one stage, I kept asking myself, why does everyone have a missing arm? But then I started to see more cyborgs and when it came to the Motorball sport, I was introduced to even more cyborgs which broadened the world even more than it already was.  I can’t go into too much of the story without giving away plot points or parts of the story, but we only see a small part of Alita’s story with what is obviously set up for even more movies, because everyone wants to do a Franchise! With that said though, this is something I would love to see how deep and far they will go into the world of Alita as what I saw, I really enjoyed and I never watched the manga or read the comics

The acting was great and the CGI and special effects were quite phenomenal. You can’t really expect anything less from James Cameron, you know.  I even saw this in 3D and sometimes 3D can be off-putting or distracting...it wasn't this time around.  But I’d suggest that if you want to see more films like this, then this film will need to get supported or films like Akira, Attack on Titan and other Anime/Manga, just won’t get done….especially with their worlds being soo vast and great.  I think Robert and James did a good one with this one and I definitely want more.