Incredibles 2 is a great follow up to the first movie.

Not gonna lie, The Incredibles used to be my least favorite Pixar franchise. A major factor is that when it’s released in 2004, The only well known live action super hero movies are Bryan Singer’s X-Men for Fox and Sam Raimi’s Spiderman movies for Sony.

Then the MCU came. The MCU made me appreciate superhero movies that it made watch the others and I decided to watch The Incredibles again. As I watch it, it made me realize that the movie was way ahead of its time and it made me appreciate the franchise better.

I have low expectations for this as Brad Bird decided to venture into the live action genre with Mission Impossible 4 and Tomorrowland then I read a news by the time Tomorrowland got released that this would be Brad Bird’s next project and I just decided to watch it.

On to the review. To my surprise it matched and it’s also better than the original in some aspects. This is a sequel that when you watch the first movie, you’ll want to watch this afterwards.

This movie takes place just a few minutes after the original ended with the invasion of the Underminer. The Incredibles saved the day but the damage they caused got them arrested and made them go into hiding. From here onwards, you start to realize that certain plot points from the first movie are carried here such as the family’s house got destroyed and Bob Parr has no job to provide and support the family. Thankfully, a business tycoon named Winston Deavor and his sibling Evelyn Deavor decides to help them to provide publicity stunt that will help to change people’s perception about superheroes and make them legal once again. They decided to recruit Elastigirl to do the work as she’s the least destructive of the superheroes compared to Frozone and Mr. Incredible.

I can say that the animation improvement for the past 14 years made this movie much better looking than the first. The original voice cast all came back with the exception of Dash and Agent Rick Dicker(RIP Bud Luckey). This is a very fun movie with great action sequences, great character development and very funny comedy.  The only weak aspect of the movie is the villain Screenslaver. Syndrome is very menacing while having crazy motivations. Screenslaver is not menacing but has a somewhat valid reason for doing such evil act albeit it’s somewhat delivered via exposition.

Pixar sequels for the past few years have underwhelmed me. Nothing will beat the Toy Story sequels in terms of quality as they are still my personal favorites. But this one comes close to them. The Incredibles 2 is worth the 14 year wait and you must see it.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5
RECOMMENDATION: See it in your nearest movie theater ASAP. I recommend you watch/re-watch the first movie to fully appreciate this one.

The Incredibles 2 was released on Philippine Cinemas June 14, 2018.

 

A Quiet Place is an entertaining piece of horror/thriller

A Quiet Place tells the story of the very few people who survived a vague apocalypse that killed most of the human population by creatures who hunt by loud noises.

On this movie, we explore how a certain family survives their everyday lives by trying their best to make as minimal noise as possible. That’s the minimal explanation I can give to this movie as if I mention anything more, they’re potential spoilers.

Gotta be honest, I’m not a huge horror fan and I can be easily shocked on some things in real life and jumpscares are a major turn off for me. If anything, I really enjoyed movies like “10 Cloverfield Lane”, and “Get Out” if you count them as horror movies that is.

I really enjoyed this movie but the critics are way overpraising it. If anything, the things worth praising here are the masterful use of sound and the 80% dialogue free of the characters. They mostly use sign language to convey their message with the help of subtitles. I also think that this movie is more enjoyable to watch on a theater than on digital formats and physical video format.

RECOMMENDATION: A very good watch. if you have the time to watch this on a theater, please do so. This is one of those movies that the enjoyment can be detracted once you rely on a low quality speaker.

RATING: 4 out of 5

Avengers Infinity War manages to deliver a coherent story despite the enormous number of characters.

10 years since the first Ironman movie and 6 years since The Avengers, it all comes down to this.

I have to say this right off the bat, to really appreciate this movie, you must at least watch the previous Avengers films otherwise, you’ll get confused on some of the story elements of this movie.

If anything here are the essential MCU movies to watch before seeing or understand Infinity War better,

1. The Avengers
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Avengers: Age of Ultron
4. Captain America: Civil War
5. Thor Ragnarok

Honorable mentions:
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. Black Panther

Now on to the review,

Marvel is notable for the so called villain problem and they’re now trying to deliver on that promise and it succeeds for the most part. Since this movie has so many characters, Marvel decides to give the spotlight to Thanos. This is his story and his quest on getting all six infinity stones and his motivations for doing so. I personally liked his motivations on this movie compared to the comics.

Is it a perfect movie? No. if anything  some scenes are not as fleshed out as the run time is already at 2 hours and 40 minutes. The best part of the Avengers in the comics is the interaction of the characters from across the different franchises and some of the characters in this movie are underused which hopefully, will get fixed on the upcoming sequel. Marvel used to market this as PART 1 and by the end of the movie, it really does.

I’m really hoping for an extended edition of this movie on home video.

RECOMMENDATION: An entertaining movie for Marvel diehards but casual moviegoers can get confused and might have many questions by the movie’s end.

RATING: 4 out of 5

 

Thor Ragnarok: One of the funniest Marvel movies to date, which is also it’s biggest problem considering its premise.

I’ll say this right off the bat. This is easily the best Thor movie out there.

This movie tackles the question where Thor and the Hulk were during the events of Captain America: Civil War. Thor is back on Asgard and is looking for clues about the Infinity Stones and his visions to no avail. To make things worse, Hela arrives and Thor and company must stop her on ruling Asgard.

As usual, all of the actors are amazing from Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Ruffalo as seen on the previous Marvel films.

As for the new characters, The real stand outs are Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and Taika Waititi himself as a CGI rock character named Korg.

Action is good, character banter is fun and the comedy is great, which is also my biggest problem considering its premise. Kevin Feige said that Ragnarok means “The End of All Things.” Unfortunately, comedy still exists even on the most dramatic parts of the movie that I don’t even feel the high stakes impact on the whole MCU.

To be fair, Taika Waititi is a great director. He’s able to tie loose ends on the events of other Marvel movies like certain cameos and plot points.

 

Recommendation: Definitely worth watching for Marvel diehards as well as for those looking for a better Thor movie. My personal nitpick won’t be an issue for most people but it’s an issue for me.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Kingsman: The Golden Circle improves everything you loved from the first one while also adding problems.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle kicks off when Eggsy is being attacked by a former Kingsman applicant and rejectee Charlie Hesketh. He also works for Poppy who is the head of an organization known as “The Golden Circle”.

I’ll start off with what I love about the film. It’s silly and over the top but a very fun popcorn entertainment. The cinematography is amazing from the dark night scenes very well lit. The action scenes are amazing. Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Colin Firth and Julianne Moore give out their best performances.

As for the things I didn’t like, it suffers from pacing issues in which some scenes can be taken out as I personally felt its long 2 and 1/2 hour length. The villains aren’t memorable, Channing Tatum is so underused that he can be taken out of the movie.

This is a movie where it doubles down everything you loved or hated about the first movie so this is a crucial statement where you’ll decide if you’ll watch it on theaters or not.

Personally, This is an entertaining sequel but it isn’t as fleshed out and I didn’t love it as much as the first one.

 

RECOMMENDATION: Kingsman fans will definitely like it so go see it. If you didn’t love the first, don’t.

RATING: 3 out of 5

 

Wonder Woman Review: Finally, Warner Bros. has delivered a good movie for the DC Extended Universe.

 

I’m very late to the party about this movie but I’ve only seen this last week. But regardless, I’m here to review Wonder Woman.

As the basic template of super hero movies go, Wonder Woman tells the origin story of Diana Prince as the princess of the Amazons. She is determined to become a warrior against her mother’s wishes. One day, Steve Trevor crash landed on the shore of Themyscira and Diana saves him. Diana also got informed on the war that’s currently happening in the world. Believing that Ares is the cause of the war, She joins Trevor on finding and hopefully, killing him.

Gal Gadot is good as Wonder Woman, both in warrior form and her being curious about the human world. Chris Pine giving his best leading performance on a supporting role(Marvel can learn more from this for their future superhero girlfriends).

On the whole, The movie suffers from pacing issues on some scenes especially on the exposition in the beginning. The final battle has a somewhat weird execution as well. In my opinion, the villain was miscast. This movie also reminded me of Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor but I respect that as this is pretty much a part of Wonder Woman’s origin.

If anything, I really enjoyed this movie with Diana and Steve just spending time together talking during their soft and quiet moments as well as the battle that happens in No Man’s Land.

A Wonder Woman movie has been requested since forever and Warner Bros finally answering that request. What we got was a good female super hero movie that fans have been clamoring for ages. Your move Marvel.

VERDICT: Worth a watch

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

Cars 3 Review: A solid sequel to the 1st Cars movie.

Cars 3 is about Lightning McQueen going on with the flow of his racing career, getting satisfied on every finish he can get within the top scoring points. Along the way, he’s also a seven time Piston Cup racing legend. As time passes, Lightning starts to lose his racing edge and all of his fellow veterans are retiring and/or being fired by their team/sponsors and are being replaced by the rookies, most notably Jackson Storm.

I can tell right from the the get go that the animation is really amazing. Pixar is known to give amazing details on its world creation.
Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo are amazing. The supporting cast from the previous Cars series also return giving out a great performance with the limited script they’re given. The notable new addition character is Cruz Ramirez, Lightning’s trainer who maybe has the capability of racing.

Telling this right off the bat. The Cars franchise can only be enjoyed by kids(for the toys obviously) and adults who love to watch racing, whether it’s Nascar or Formula 1.
I’m more familiar with Formula 1 myself and I can relate very well to Lightning McQueen’s struggles with this movie similar to what happened on real life
Formula 1 drivers Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

Overall, I personally liked this movie. However, audiences who aren’t attached to this franchise doesn’t need to rush themselves to see it.
This is a movie that’s made for its fans like me.

Recommendation : Worth watching in theaters when you have nothing better to do.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Baby Driver Review: a simple but fun action flick from Edgar Wright

 

Baby Driver is a nice crime thriller coming from director/writer Edgar Wright.

Baby(yes, the main character’s name is Baby) is a highly skilled getaway driver hired by a crime syndicate leader named Doc and Baby has to settle his debt to him by becoming his driver for all the robberies he’s making. When Baby sees an opportunity to leave his life of crime behind when he meets a beautiful waitress Deborah, he must figure out a way to leave his past behind without the crime syndicate interfering with his new purpose in life and everybody he loves.

The premise is straight forward but it’s the execution of it all that really stood out.
From the amazing car chase sequences, Ansel Elgort and Lily James’ good onscreen chemistry, to its amazing use of its soundtrack on setting up the entire mood of the movie. Kevin Spacy as the Doc is amazing, Jaime Foxx, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez as Doc’s goons are great.

Since I’ve only started watching movies more frequently for the past two years, I’ve only heard of Edgar Wright when he was first attached to Marvel’s Ant-Man. The news broke out that he left the project due to creative differences with Marvel and Edgar Wright deciding to do this movie instead. It just happened that I was in a mall during its advanced sneak peak screenings on July 25 and Lily James was in it. I decided to watch it and I’m glad I did.

It’s nice to see Lily James outside of Cinderella having more Hollywood projects but I also got an amazing action movie directed by Edgar Wright.

Overall, I loved this movie.

RECOMMENDATION: Watch it ASAP.

RATING: 4 out of 5