A trailer for this came out not that long ago and although, in a few places, it was funny-ish, I was not really on board with what they were pushing. However, this trailer is soo much better than the last one. You see, I was never interested in this movie because "where is Venger?" This Dungeons and Dragons, I do not know what it is. I never played the game and my only reference to anything to do with this namesake is the old cartoon from the 80s with Eric, Bobby, Diana and them. So, what is this? But I must say, this trailer has won me over a little to be interested as I am loving a lot of the jokes, banter and humour within the film.
While I know nothing about this iteration of D&D or D&D as a whole, I did have a few laughs. Apparently, everything this film has shown us is accurately depicted in playing D&D. Chris Pine anchoring the movie down with various crazy characters, a wizard, a barbarian (almost like the cartoon) and maybe a witch? (the girl from Stranger Things, which also played a lot on D&D) this movie looks like it is very fantasy heavy, probably really expensive, but looks like it will be a lot of absolute fun. So despite not being exactly what I know or based on a cartoon with a bunch of kids going on a fairground ride and travelling through a portal to land in a different realm with all these things and a Dungeon Master, I guess I can still enjoy it...
Oh, and that short they do before a trailer starts to play, it is soo irritating and soo pre-pandemic.
It is kind of hard to believe that, a man named James Cameron made a movie called Avatar which came out in 2009 and 13 years later he makes a sequel to it creating a buzz that has gripped the world. While some people have their opinions and are divided on whether this is 13 years too late or no one actually cares about blue people in space to a rip-off of FernGully, what is this one going to be about? Let's be clear here, James is a revolutionary director with 9 movies to his name since 1982. In case you are not counting, that is 9 movies in just over 40 years. Christopher Nolan, a more recent director has 12 movies to his name since 1998. Zack Snyder has 11 movies to his name since 2004, but there is a stark difference between these three types of directors. Steven Spielberg has 30 movies to his name since 1975. But the difference between all these directors is, James is the only director who has two of the highest grossing movies of all time and every time (well almost) he created the highest grossing movie, he has also created cutting-edge technology that never existed before, revolutionising the movie-going experience. For Avatar there were 6 technological innovations he used re-inventeing motion capture, not to mention what he did for Titanic. So then it begs the question, why take this long to make a sequel to the highest grossing movie? Because, James was busy creating underwater motion capture to accurately capture movement underwater bringing this films budget to $350-$460 million dollars when it was all said and done. So, in the end you may be asking, "well, was it worth it?" 13 years for a 192 minute movie (3 hours and 10 minutes), yes...yes it was worth it.
We pick up 15 years since the events of the original Avatar movie and Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) now lives with his family Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and 5 children. The RDA invasion of Pandora sent the humans back to earth but the humans are now back, forcing Jake to fight once again, to protect his family and to protect his people from a known threat with a vendetta against him.
If you had not seen the original Avatar, while it is not imperative that you must to understand the storyline, watching it will definitely help. I will start off with my negatives first. I felt the movie for the first 10 or so minutes was moving at a break-neck pace that forced me to focus on what was going on. There was a lot of narration and while I was taking time to adjust to the 3D glasses at first, I was finding it difficult to settle into what was going on, what was happening, who was who etc, but soon after that, the movie seemed to have slowed down to a steady pace which had me following everything nicely. The 3D was, well...3D and although it was amazing, what would I expect since I saw the first movie in 2D and 3D and it was great in both mediums, but 3D was just soo much better. Although not really a negative, I could have just done without the 3D on this occasion, although great, the 3D film over your eyes does wear a bit thin after 2 and a half hours. In one area specifically, the movie slowed down a bit for me and while I did get a tad bored in this moment, it was indeed, James Cameron flexing his muscles at this point. It was an underwater scene and it just looked beautiful and soo real, well...as much as a blue skinned humanoid person standing at around 9 feet tall swimming in water belonging to a planet in space, could look.
As for the positives, this film is colourful, vibrant and simply beautiful, so so beautiful. The planet of Pandora, while I believe the first movie had more terrors and creatures that could harm a Na'vi creature, the planet just has creatures, amazing looking creatures, vast and huge. You can also tell that, considering the introduction to another "tribe" of Na'vi, the world of Pandora is massive or at least we are led to believe this. With the design of the creatures, James had created such a beautiful place the first time around, the second time around, the world is simply expanded introducing newer and bigger threats and things making up the planet. Pandora is not just a planet with trees, it is also a planet with wast amounts of sea so it would be interesting to see how far reaching we can go in this world. The music was great, the acting goes without saying. Zoe Saldana has the best cry-face ever on camera. She is the best cryer. The actors playing the children are also great. They are pretty much the main focus of the movie but what they were getting upto along with the dynamics simply took me years back to how I was when I was a child many many moons ago. The sound design, amazing! There was a specific scene where something was going on and it was the sound design that took me out of the film a little as I stopped and marvelled at the sound design used. The story, while not too riveting or wheel re-inventing, I had no issues with the story at all. Without going into spoilers, a film about a man trying to protect his family from a known threat. However, when watching this movie, I saw traces of nearly every film Cameron had directed before this one. The Terminator, Avatar (obviously), Titanic, maybe even The Abyss and definitely Aliens.
This is Jimmy's 10th movie in around 45 years and in case you did not know, he has written and directed sequels to "The Way of Water" already and yet to film some more sequels after the follow up sequel. We are talking about Avatar 3 and 4 and considering this movie is likely to make 1 billion, Jimmy is going to be, AGAIN...in the highest grossing movies of all time (likely) and potentially with 3 films. Definitely worth the watch, especially the 3rd act where a lot more of the action takes place. I had watched the original recently and the film still holds up graphically with the special effects, the fact this movie is pretty much 98% special effects, it is a marvel how Jimmy does it and captivates us all the same. Great storytelling that is, he get's us with great storytelling. And at 3 hours and 10 minutes (other than the bit I personally felt a little slow - it was not that long a shot, if I am honest), this film sails by and you barely feel the length of it at all.
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I have been playing computer games since NES Turtles and the only reason why I have not played the computer game 'The Last of Us', (the game this show is based on) is because I did not have a PS3 or PS4. And although I am aware of some details of the game, I will still purchase the remake (as I was interested in the Remastered) for my PS5 and play the game, even if the show will cover the story plot points of the game, why? Because I heard the game's story was soo good, it was one of the best stories in gaming out there and quite possibly, ever. So I guess this is the reason why we have this show and what a great choice to make this into a series because a movie will not capture what had made the game soo good.
The show starts with a TV interview discussing possible pandemics and why people should be scared of them. The conversation slowly turns from bouts of laughter to a quiet stillness within the studio this is being recorded in. You see, whilst one of the scientists is explaining a possible deadly virus, the show is letting the audience know how serious this show is going to get. After the opening credits, we open with a day in the life of Joel and his daughter. There are some subtle hints that things are not right within the world, but these hints occur gradually more and more as the day goes on.
Three minutes in, thirteen minutes in, twenty-three minutes in and this show does enough to grip you, lock you in, tie you up and then make you cry...and the show is only 1 hour long, we have not even got halfway through at this point. We are introduced to the "protagonist" Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his family life and the world they live in. There is a time jump and we are reintroduced to Joel and the world they currently live in and we are looking at a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is on the brink of extinction. We are introduced to a little girl named Veronica and a few seem-to-be key characters (I do not know because of the game), and a hint of what this show will be about.
The music from the opening credits to the slow and quiet scenes. The action scenes, whilst not many unlike a computer game, everything has simply been executed to absolute perfection. Pedro Pascal shows us in less than 25 minutes of dialogue and story, why he was chosen for this role. Bella Ramsey, whilst I have not played the game to fully make an opinion on her performance as she has significantly less screen time than Pedro in this first episode, I will say she was excellent. I mean, if you had seen her in Game of Thrones, she was quality. You can tell there will be a special dynamic between her character and Pedro's which will be enjoyable to watch.
So far, the first episode is excellent and I can only imagine, for those like me who have watched this episode and really enjoyed it but have not played the game (if gaming is their thing), may consider buying the game and/or console to play the game so they can get involved with the story. So far, so good and if the remaining episodes are as good as this first episode, we will definitely be onto a winner. So if you like The Walking Dead, this may very well be right up your street.
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