Black Adam and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

The king is dead!

Black Adam

In a fictional Middle Eastern place oppressed by Intergang (mercenary goons who apparently never flee), a dangerous artifact and a powerful being (the titular Black Adam, played by Dwayne Johnson) with the powers of Shazam are discovered and released into the world. While Adam is viewed as a savior by the locals, internationals forces feel he is a threat and send other heroes to apprehend him. Violence ensues because he's one tough cookie.

While the plot is mostly predictable here, the action scenes are a great spectacle and there are lots of them (though almost all are just of the CGI variety). I also do find it refreshing for this superhero protagonist to be super violent to the extent that he goes out of his way to kill people. Alas the main child actor is a bit weak in the acting department and suspect his "cool" skateboarding skills were meant to make up for it. Nope. At one point he tries to sneak quietly ON A SKATEBOARD. Expect silly things like that. Also the female hero was unnecessary and could have been cut from the film. Still an enjoyable flick if you turn your brain off.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

In an attempt to continue to hold monopoly on their space rock, the recently kingless Wakandians (futuristic spear wielding Africans) find themselves in conflict with the ocean city state of Talokan (futuristic spear wielding aquatic Mexicans) who happen to have space rock of their own. This results in ridiculous unnecessary pursuits, poor decisions, some flat comedy, stupid CGI battles (seriously, Black Adam's were better but at least here the are non CGI fights which are great) and a lot of bloodless violence. Did they really try make this movie for kids while also including numerous languages that you'd need to subtitle for?

The worst part is I didn't care about the characters at all. The antagonist is a moron, protagonist Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) is a whiny know it all who doesn't obey orders and so obviously she gets along with student genious Riri (Dominique Thorne) who is introduced here to setup Ironheart (As an aside: Why? Is she so weak a character she needs a movie intro? Answer: Yep). But my favorite thing to laugh at here? The aquatic Mexicans were destroying people and buildings with water balloons! 

Terrible movie. Probably better if it had focused on the bad guy as the main character, ditch the Black Panther/Wakanda title, and explained better why he didn't try harder to make friends with the surface world or just Wakanda itself. As it is the entire plot could have been solved with simple diplomacy. Not recommended.

Rampage and the Man with the Iron Fists

Action movies that are unbelievable? :P

Rampage

When cutting edge, experimental genetic alteration experiments end up in the wild it turns a number of creatures into gigantic, angry mutants. Luckily the protagonist primatologist (played by Dwayne Johnson) is on the case, complete with cheesy lines and death defying feats of "no one should have survived that".

In all fairness I'm surprised they managed to get an OK script for something that's based on an old cooperative arcade game which soley focused on destroying cities. With decent CGI it's certainly entertaining as long as you turn your brain off.

The Man with the Iron Fists

Jungle Village becomes the cauldron of wire fu martial arts and ridiculous weaponry when various clans vie for control of a caravan full of gold that comes through. Embroiled in the middle of it all is a master weapons blacksmith (RZA) who happens to be supplying all sides.

"Spectacle" is probably the best word to describe this, and while the plot is so / so it features many good action sequences (even if some are hilarious)  and a good amount of gore which always gets points from me. I'd say Rampage is better than this movie, but if you like martial arts and wire fu you should definitely check this out afterwards.

Jumanji: The Next Level and Spiderman: No Way Home

A poor sequel and a great sequel.

Jumanji: The Next Level

Having not learned the lesson from last time, people find themselves in Jumanji once more in this action comedy which is somehow even lighter / more nonsensical plot wise. While the acting is ok, what kills this is the script and comedy aspect with repeating jokes and honestly a few mind numbing fools that deserved to be offed. It also over stays its welcome and is a threat of being a snooze fest as some points. Not recommended.

Spiderman: No Way Home

When Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and those closest too him start feeling the problems of fame, he decides to visit master magician Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for a spell to make people forget who he is. A spell he promptly keeps interrupting until it misfires, opening tears to dimensions which just lead to more problems for spidey and his gang.

While the start is a tad slow, this is an excellent superhero action flick and one that rewards long time fans by putting in many familiar faces on the screen. While non-spidey/non-superhero viewers might not like this, I found it to be really great once it started to pick up. Good pace, good story and basically a lot of fun. Highly recommended!

Red Notice In Time

A pair of movies in the middle of the deck.

Red Notice

The plot for this action comedy where no one knows how to shoot has an FBI agent (Dwayne Johnson), thief (Ryan Reynolds) and a femme fatale (Gal Gadot) race against/team up to collect all of Cleopatra's eggs (wtf) for a huge pay day. Most of the cool parts happen near the early part of the film and some of the action sequences later on should probably just have been cut out. Annoyingly, the story itself is only mediocre with just one particular high note that makes the ending somewhat anticlimactic. Two jumper cables out of five and no, I wouldn't watch this one again.

In Time

In an alternate world where people are genetically modified to remain 25 and get a clock for only one year to live which also doubles as this world's currency, Will (Justin Timberlake) is one of the many poor people who literally lives with only the hours of the day in reserve - requiring to earn more via a low paying job. A twist of fate gives him the opportunity to try fight the system using the tried and true method of crime.

Better than Red Notice.

While this film has an interesting premise and some decent acting, it is let down by the story itself wherein every single character has the flaw of lacking foresight. So many things could have been avoided if any of the characters just had some planning skills. Ah well. It's an OK movie, but it could have been a fantastic one. Two and a half time capsules out of five and yes, I'd watch it again.

Get Smart (2008)

There's no such thing as too much information.

Secret agent analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) dreams of becoming a field agent one day, like Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), to help his covert agency "Control" from stopping the evil plots of their counterparts at KAOS.

He's got everything under control.

Based on the old series of the same name, this action comedy has some really fun bits and is quite an entertaining  watch with many gags and a few decent action pieces. Like anything comedy, there will be hits and misses for everyone, and for me is was mostly the former which led me to enjoying this but I still felt it did run a little long. Anyway, one for a light hearted evening - I give it two and a half mini crossbow bolts out of five.

Skyscraper

Like Die Hard but with "The Rock".

Brand new, "modern" building? Check. Squad of bad guys who infiltrate it? Check. Protagonist's loved ones trapped inside? Check. Importance given to duct-tape? Check. Crawling in an air duct sequence? Ch.. oh wait.

 It has something like this instead?

No, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson doesn't fit into air ducts but fortunately he fits well into the action hero role as he goes through some pretty crazy stuff to try save the day and stop the bad dudes.

There's not much in the way of surprises here as everything is heavily lamp shaded right at the start but the action sequences and the decent enough performances are enough for an enjoyable, turn your brain off flick which is great for everyone that enjoys such things. Everyone else, stay away. Not much else to say as the plot is as shallow as the stage is tall. I give it 2 prosthetic legs out of 5.

Hobbs & Shaw

When a lethal virus goes missing it's up to two unlikely partners Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), who have partnered before, to retrieve it from a cybernetically enhanced assassin. Much like the other Fast & Furious movies which spawned this spin-off, there is a mix of fast cars, violence, and ludicrousness. Is that a word? If not, I need the word that describes fat tribal guys beating up highly trained spec-ops teams. Yeah, that word.

The perils of being a panty inspector.

Entirely predictable, this one is definitely only for turn off your brain action buffs as there's more on the "beating people up" than car racing. The plot is so shallow there's not much else to say other than Vanessa Kirby is hot? I give it 2.5 surprise Ryan Reynolds out of 5. Probably not going to watch it again.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

What, no save points?

A bunch of teens come across an old game and decide to play it, quickly finding themselves transported into the world of Jumanji as the characters they chose, which happen to differ wildly to who they are in real life.

Meet the intrepid heroes!

Great liberties are taken in the Jumanji world where not a lot makes sense, but most games (especially older arcade types) never did so in this instance its fine. More importantly while the action is ok, the comedy is great which makes for a very entertaining show.

Might be too silly for some viewers, but it was just the right amount of silly for me. I give it 3 weaknesses out of 5 and would like to watch it again.

The Fast and the Furious: Five to Seven

Fast Five

Only one way to quit being a criminal, and apparently that's by doing a big crime.

Carrying on right after the fourth installment, the crew are now all wanted by the police - more so when a "botched job" gets a number of DEA agents killed. Having had enough of this BS the FBI decides to send in their best hunter (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) and his team to hunt down those dastardly thieves once and for all. To make matters more interesting, the same botched job also pisses off another wealthy bad guy who is out for blood to get back what is his. Deciding it's time to quit the criminal life, Dom (Vin Diesel) plans one last big heist and assembles a team composed of characters from all the previous movies. For me, especially having watched everything in sequence, this is pretty cool.

I'd be worried too if The Rock got me in a headlock!

It then turns into a little bit like Ocean's Eleven, only with more cars involved and while it also makes for a longer movie it also makes it better! They've added a ton more violence, fighting and gun play here and while they've slowly been upping the kill count I think this one certainly holds the highest so far. While there is less actual racing, the few races present actually have more meaning or are more interesting than the previous ones. I quite liked the cop car one as that was the most level playing field the characters have had for awhile.

I suppose I should also mention that there's a fair bit of Portugese in the film being set in Rio and all, and that Gal Gadot is hot, but the important part is that I give this movie four tires out of five and would definitely watch it again. I even watched all the credits this time to watch the CGI race at the end! All up, this sequel better than the initial outing!

~~~

Furious 6

Where the writers thought... what other vehicles can we throw in there?

Best FBI hunter man (The Rock) is hunting another band of thieves in fast cars, this time with a more military background, but since they are too slippery for him (seriously, does he catch anyone on his own?) he is forced to ask help from the now "retired" Dom and his team. To help convince him he does have an interesting hook - one of Dom's old pals is working for the competition. That, and pardons for his crew if he gets the job done. I quite like the opening credits to this one as it has snippets from all the movies that have come before.

With most of the cast returning from the previous movie, it's pretty cool that they get to combat a rival team this time who are driving modified F1s, and it's refreshing that they aren't going up against "another cartel boss". Luke Evans is a welcome and more hands on bad guy from the previous bunch and while there's certainly still killing and shooting, there's less of that than the previous flick and more focus on hand to hand here. I was most impressed with Gina Carano's fights in particular. Once again there is also awesome CGI and a high volume of vehicular destruction also gets the thumbs up from me.

Good luck catching this!

Despite all this there are quite a number of negatives for me - the main one being some ridiculously over the top action sequences that break suspension of disbelief. There's also an unnecessary trip by one character into "danger" which is basically filler and could have been cut out. I should also mention that the chicks in the London street racing scene are the most conservative so far, which could be a plus or minus depending how you look at it. Ultimately I score this film three and a half tires out of five and... yeah, I'd still watch it again. :P

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Furious 7

The first movie that actually happens after Tokyo Drift.

The big bad brother of the bad guy from the previous movie is the main bad now, and has sworn vengeance on Dom and his team (most of whom return again here). For me he is even better villain than his brother since he mostly works alone, and he's Jason Statham! His intro scene is bloody fantastic. Unfortunately, for a supposedly ultimate deadly assassin he makes ever increasing faulty judgement calls. The main one probably being warning his mark that he's coming for him.

They finally find an excuse to dress up!

Yes, there are car chases here - and again with new vehicles to chase and be chased by them combined with over the top BS CGI physics that I was hoping they'd steer away from but it's almost on the same level as last time. At least the hand to hand combat is epic, this time with Ronda Rousey and Tony Jaa showing off their skill. It's really the flaws of Statham's assassin that get me because ... gah... logic!? Just be sneaky and you'll win! Anywho, I still give it three and a half tires out of five like last time since it was pretty entertaining and yeah, I'd watch it again.

I also was quite touched by all the feels for Paul Walker near the end there, possibly because I watched all the movies in sequence. At the same time I was impressed that they managed to make the rest of the film with body doubles, CG replacements and voice and film snippets for his character. That did get it some bonus points from me.

Hercules (The Rock's Version)

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Hercules is a pretty interesting take on the story of the rather well known greek demigod, and he makes an excellent lead in this sort of thing. Unlike Kevin Sorbo's version who pulls his punches, the Rock has no qualms about killing (and beheading) any enemies that threaten him, or his employers. Yup. This Hercules being a mere mercenary is just the start of rocking the boat to try throw off whatever expectations you brought in with you.

Or smashing them. As Hercules does. :P

Alas while the telling of the tale is an interesting one and the special FX are pretty damn good (I think the standard has raised because I keep saying this of most things now), the main plot is still pretty predictable and formulaic so don't get your hopes too high. Just enjoy it for the action flick that it is and you will be entertained. My only complaint is that there isn't enough on screen death of named characters, but I'm a little weird like that. I give it 2.5 out of 5.

GI JOE: Rise and Retaliation

This is a double review for the GI JOE movies which I'm putting together for ease of comparison.

In "Rise of the Cobra" an arms dealer with a score to settle sets in motion a spree of violent attacks and general terrorism on the world. Good thing the elite fighting force known as the GI Joes are there to save the day. The plot mainly follows Duke (Channing Tatum) as he first learns about both Cobra (the bad guys) and the Joes, the latter of which he joins after an "intense" training/testing montage. Part of his training involves some super futuristic body armor that for some reason IS ONLY USED BY THE NEW GUYS. What? There's also a shooting test which seems to be pretty tough to pass. The Joes only take the best you see. Guess they had a lull in recruitment at one point since all the non-named Joes can't hit a barn door.

Not as colorful as their cartoon counterparts.

Cobra on the other hand have awesome bullet proof armor and freaking energy weapons. Too bad that the armor only protects them against the weapons of non-named characters. If Snake Eyes decides to shoot them with his desert eagle, or throw a shuriken at them the armor is useless. Actually I'm not sure why the rest of the team was required at all as Snake Eyes pretty much handles everything himself. That said there are good FX, good action sequences (especially from the flashback kid actors), to make it pretty decent entertainment. I give it three bullets out of five.

In "Retaliation", everything takes a downward spiral. Both the Joes and Cobra lost almost all their high tech gear for more standard issue stuff (though there are very nice vehicles added in). The previous Joe team is mostly replaced by new and mostly less interesting characters too (other than Dwayne Johnson's Roadblock), and while Snake Eyes is still around his introduction arc is very off-beat and he is no longer as useful plot wise as he suffers from a repeated theme in this movie where "Ninjas are Stupid". I suppose Cobra's engineers must also be ninja descendants because their major plan has a pretty big design flaw, outside the plot holes that you will be poking at. Not sure what happened to this movie but I give it only one and a half bullets out of five.

Sacred: BFG

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

One of the skills available to a Seraph is called "BeeEffGee", which summons a large, holy spear that shoots destructive heavenly energy at things. Magic works with different rules to that of conventional weapons in this game. With conventional weapons there is a roll to hit section to see if your opponent parried etc. With magic, if the graphic touches you - you are hit. You take damage. The end. This particular skill puts out a truck load of magic damage, firing a shot (which goes through all enemies) as fast as I can press the mouse button. Takes a while to recharge and a little bit to cast but the effects are impressive.

Guess how I killed DeMordrey's Dragon.

With all the enemies dead (and starting to respawn), Wilbur and I continued on our journey - handling an evil magician in his mansion and a cave full of slavers with captives that were all freed before coming to the small town of Slaters Grave which had its own share of bandit and slaving issues. We were less fortunate in the rescue attempt there as the local Hill Giants were faster than the women we freed.

We then pushed on North and finally reached the Sharuka encampment - the one supposed to reinforce Prince Valor at Wyvern's Pass. Upon showing the Count's signet ring though the Captain revealed that that was in fact, the signal to kill us. At that instant the other guards attacked and slew Wilbur instantly before freezing in terror. Apparently I was a few levels too far above from what they'd normally aggro. This made executing them one by one all the more sweeter.