Captain America: Civil War Review (Spoiler Free)

          While the Avengers were on a covert mission in Lagos, Scarlet Witch accidentally did something to cause an unexpected amount of damage. That caused the UN to write up something called "The Sokovia Accords." These accords say that the United Nations choose when it's necessary to call in The Avengers. Iron Man  believes that the Avengers need to be put in check and is pro-Sokovia Accords. Captain America believes that if he sees a problem going south the team has to go fix it even if someone doesn't tell them to and is anti-Sokovia accords. These two different political ideologies causes a rift that tears the team apart. 

         This movie is ultimately about friendship and vengeance and how when those two things come together, you can experience some of the biggest problems you will ever face. It dove in deep into those themes while at the same time continuing the MARVEL humor that we are all used to at this point. When I first heard about Captain America: Civil War I was worried that the movie was going to be more Captain America: Civil Dispute than an actual war between these characters. It was definitely a "War" between the two sides. I was impressed with the way that it introduced the problems in the movie. I was surprised with how serious they took these problems. They grounded this movie to make it a movie where you felt that every decision that was made will have a dramatic effect on someone or something. The movie depicts the political and social issues/conflicts with such maturity that you will understand everything that is going on. You will never get confused on why characters are doing certain things. You understand why every single character is fighting for the things they are. There isn't one moment where you question a character's motives. 

          This movie is also a ton of fun. The action in this movie is literally some of the best that Hollywood has ever produced. The only thing wrong with the action in this movie happened in the very first action scene. It used the shaky camera effect to try and exemplify the action but that never works. Fortunately that only lasted for the first part of the first fight. But other than that you will hear no one complaing about the action in this movie. The stunt team for this movie did a phenomenal job at choreographing the fight scenes. Most of the fighting you see in this movie is hand-to-hand combat. It's very impressive and difficult to show that on camera with so much more going on. The stunt men deserve some major praise for the jaw dropping stunts they incorporated into this movie. They did such a great job at incorporating CGI explosions, chase scenes, and other awesome moments into the action scenes. The airport scene is some of the best action I have ever seen in any movie ever. Not just in comic book movies, but movies in general. During this scene you will be on the edge of your seat, geeking out the whole time. 

          A difficult task for this movie was to introduce two new characters. One of those characters was Black Panther played by Chadwick Boseman. Right when you see this character, they give you a reason to get behind him. I didn't know anything about Black Panther. After I saw this film, I felt like I knew everything. They mentioned his origin story in a matter of seconds. They made you understand the character in such a short amount of time. When you first see Black Panther fight, you get right on board with him. You will not be able to wait for his standalone movie coming 2018. However, with how great Black Panther was, he was not the best new character. The best new character is Spider-Man. He only has about fifteen minutes of screen time and this is the best Spider-Man movie ever. His chemistry with Tony Stark is impeccable. This is the best Spider-Man we have ever had. Tom Holland portrays this character so closely to what Spider-Man should be. I can't say anymore without spoiling it but, trust me when I saw you will be very pleased with Holland's portrayal as Spidey. Spider-Man is my favorite superhero and Holland definitely did the character justice. He's my favorite Spider-Man ever. I can't wait to see his standalone movie coming next year. 

          MARVEL has always had problems with their villains (aside from Loki.) You never really understand why they are doing the things they are doing. But like I said before, you understand why every character is doing the things they are doing, and that included the villain Zemo played by Daniel Bruhl. You understand his mentality and why he feels the way he does. He is not your stereotypical "mustache twirling" villain. He has depth and character. They made sure they didn't make him a throw-away villain. He doesn't really have that much screen time but, he didn't really need to. The main source of conflict comes from Cap and Iron Man so the conflict that Zemo adds is just a bonus.  

          The writing in this movie did such a brilliant job at not making it obvious which side you should join. During the whole movie you switch between cheering for Iron Man and Cap. The whole thing that was "Team Iron Man" or "Team Cap" was just a promotional gimmick. You don't know which side you should cheer for. It makes it very interesting. And that is what good writing is. 

          Of course without spoiling anything I'm just going to say, Ant-Man. Ant-Man, Ant-Man, Ant-Man. You will know what I mean once you see this movie. 

          Another thing that should be appreciated is how good Robert Downey Jr. was. Every single movie Tony Stark is in he has developed. The Tony Stark you see in Civil War is a completely different Tony Stark than the one in the first Iron Man. It's nice to see the continuing development of Tony Stark. Also the emotional scenes were tremendously acted by Robert Downey Jr. He was the best performer in this movie. 

          Civil War does have some problems with it. One of the "big reveals" that was revealed by Bucky was a little underwhelming. There were a few scenes that could've been done better. There was one scene that Steve Rogers listened to someone give a speech and that speech motivated Steve Rogers to finalize his position. The goal that the scene was trying to achieve could've been done in a better way. 

          The big question is where does this rank amongst the other MARVEL movies. I would rank it at number five. I would put it behind The Winter Soldier, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. I am going to give Captain America: Civil War a 4/5

Captain America:The Winter Soldier (2014) Review

          Let's continue the Captain America Marathon with The Winter Soldier!  

       One part spy thriller, one part character journey, one part action movie and,  one part superhero film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the best comic book film to come to the big screen.

      Captain America 2 has much more depth than what we have seen previously in other comic book movies. They were able to accomplish that because the directors didn't treat this like a comic book movie. They treated it like a political/espionage thriller first, then they treated it like a comic book movie. Most comic book movies have that feel that they are there to showcase the hero and how awesome he/she is. In this they wanted to showcase the political drama. They knew they had something special with the story so they made the smart move and decided to put emphasis on that instead of putting all their attention on making great action set pieces. They needed to do that because this movie will/already has changed the future of this franchise. 
         I know I'm talking a lot about the story but that is by far the best thing about this movie and I really can't say enough about it.  The story is superior to anything else we have seen before. It's grounded in reality. There are no aliens in this movie and even better, there are no giant alien worm things coming out of holes in the sky (yes, that is a reference to the first Avengers.) The events and conflicts that happened are the kind of things you could expect to see happen today. That made it so it was easier to relate to everything that was going on. 
         The best action scenes in film history, (not just comic book movies), happen in this movie. You have the Nick Fury car chase, the Captain America vs. Winter Soldier highway battle, the beginning scene on the boat and, the elevator scene. When I was watching this I cheered out loud because these are some of the most adrenaline rushing scenes I have ever seen. They were all choreographed really well and, it was nicely edited. The scenes were very smooth shot action scenes which is particularly hard to find these days. 
          As expected Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie (The Falcon), and Samuel Jackson all do great things in the movie. The biggest surprise however was Robert Redford. Never in a million years would I have thought that Redford would sign onto a comic book movie. I didn't think Redford was the type of actor who would do well in big studio films. He was just so good. His chemistry with everyone was spot on. It seemed like he belonged in there.  I'm still kicking my self in the head because I doubted Robert Redford, You never doubt Robert Redford. 
          One thing this movie didn't have which I really wish it did was the Captain America theme used in the first movie. Even though I loved the feel of this movie, I missed a little of that Captain America charm that was there in the first movie. I believe that was due to the fact that they didn't keep the same composer which was a mistake. In all reality, that is my only nitpick with this movie. 
          Captain America: The Winter Soldier is my favorite comic book movie of all time. It balances everything out perfectly. I'm going to give Captain America: The Winter Soldier a perfect 5/5. 

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Review

          With Captain America: Civil War coming out this week, let's revisit the movie that kicked off the character!
          Steve Rogers is just a young man from Brooklyn with hopes of joining the military. Rejection after rejection, Rogers finally finds his way into joining the US Army.  Rogers finds his way into becoming the "super soldier" Captain America and along with it, has to defeat the terrorist group known as Hydra.
          The negatives in this movie are very few. However, they are prominent enough that they end up making a big difference on how you enjoy the movie. Right from the start they show the character of Steve Rogers before he took the "super soldier" serum. In order to create this effect that Steve Rogers was a small, skinny guy, they had to CGI Chris Evans's face onto another person. There isn't much they could do about this but, it just looked bad. You could obviously tell that they had to computer generate his face onto another guy. But like I said, I don't know what they could have done to fix it.
          One thing that has always been Marvel's weakness (apart from Loki) is their villains. I wish this movie was an exception but, unfortunately it wasn't. You never get a clear understanding on what Red Skull's motivations are. You get a sense that he is evil, you just don't get a good sense of why he is evil. You have a basic understanding at the beginning but as the movie goes on, you can't gather information (because there is none) as to why he wants to accomplish his goals. Also at the end of the movie he gathers a pretty big army. You don't know how he got it, and you don't know why he got it. And frankly you don't really know why he needs it because he goes a long and tries to do everything by him self anyways.
          This movie does have quite a few things going for it. The one-liners in this movie are hilarious. The only way one-liners can work is when the cast has great chemistry with each other. And the cast has exceptional chemistry with each other. Going along with that, the movie was really well casted. From Tommy Lee Jones playing a colonel in the US Army, to Sebastian Stan playing Rogers's best friend Bucky Barnes, you enjoy watching what these actors bring to the screen.
          The thing the bugs me the most about comic book movies is the love interest. The majority of the time I am always so annoyed with the romantic interest. They always take focus away from the movie and turn a comic book movie into a wannabe romance movie. However, the love interest in this movie is my favorite in a comic book movie.  It is my favorite because the character of Peggy Carter just dominates in every single way. She is heavily involved in the action in the movie, she is heavily involved in the plot of the movie, and she is heavily involved in the development of Steve Rogers's character. When you have those 3 things in the love interest, it turns the love interest into a great character that you don't even think of as a love interest.
          The thing that I love most about this movie is that it takes place during World War II. World War II is one of my favorite time periods in history and I love when ever I see a movie that takes place during it. Apart from this being a comic book movie, it's a great period piece. It captures the struggle of the allies during the war, along with the sense of victory for the allies when the war ended. This is one of the best WWII movies out there.
          I can't finish this review without mentioning the spot on performance of Chris Evans as Captain America. He just embodies the character so well. Evans as Captain America is my favorite portrayal of a comic book character.
          When you first hear the Captain America March composed by Alan Silvestri, you get right on board with this movie. It will be hard trying to restrain your self from cheering when you see Captain America fighting along with the US Army. I'm going to rate Captain America: The First Avenger 4/5.

The Jungle Book (2016) Review

          The Jungle Book (as many of you might know) follows a little boy named Mowgli who was raised by wolfs and is hunted by the vicious tiger Shere Kahn. Mowgli is constantly trying to make sure Shere Kahn doesn't get to him while at the same time trying to get back to his people. 

          When Jon Favreau (the director) introduced this movie at D23 (the all Disney convention), he said this was going to be one of the most technologically advanced movies of all time. And it sure was. This whole movie was shot in LA on sound stages/sets. Nothing was shot in an actual jungle. Not one animal in this movie is a real animal. They were are all done with computers. That is crazy to think about. This whole movie was shot indoors. The movie was breathtaking and beautiful. I often found myself having to bring me back into reality because I believed what I was watching was real. 

          The only practical thing in this movie was the boy Mowgli played by first time actor Neel Sethi. He had to act with nothing. He acted by himself this whole movie. For being a young kid, he did an exceptional job. I've seen adult actors completely fail at acting with nothing. Sethi did awesome. 

          Besides the visual effects the main reason I wanted to see this movie was the cast they got to do the voice acting. Everyone, and I mean everyone did a perfect job voicing their characters, so I'm only going to talk about my favorites. Idris Elba as Shere Kahn was very menacing. He gave layers, and depths to his character that wasn't there in the original. The character as a whole had better motives than the one in the cartoon. Elba's voice is so smooth, and dark that makes it a perfect choice for a villain. Christopher Walken voiced King Louie. And this, this was inspired casting. Walken has one of the most iconic voices in Hollywood, and casting him as one of the most iconic Disney characters was the best thing they could've done. But the best voice in this movie was Bill Murray as Baloo. Murray has been on a cold streak lately, not putting his full effort into his performances. But you could tell that he put effort into this character. Murray is one of the greatest comedic actors of all time and it definitely showed in this movie.  

          The Jungle Book is a movie that you will not get bored watching. If you are not liking the story/writing, the visual effects will keep you invested. It's hard to say that a remake of a movie is better than it's predecessor, but the 2016 Disney Jungle Book is better than the 1963 Disney Jungle Book. This modern retelling added story points that enhanced the story. It actually improved on the original. This will now be known as the definitive Jungle Book movie. At least for this generation. 

          But do beware, if you have little kids that are under the age of 6, you probably shouldn't take them to see this. It has some dark and scary moments. But I guess it just depends on your kid. If they were fine watching the Lion King, they would be fine watching this. I'm going to give The Jungle Book a 4.5/5. There were some slow story points, so I can't quite get it to perfect. 

          If you were worried that there wouldn't be any classic Disney songs in hear, don't worry. There are 2 and they are absolutely my favorite parts in the movie. If you want to here more classic Disney songs, stick around for the credits.  

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice Review (Spoiler Free)

          There is a lot of controversy surrounding Superman. He is an alien that has caused A LOT of destruction in Metropolis at the end of Man of Steel. Bruce Wayne/Batman isn't very happy about this because people who he loved and cared about, along with innocents died in this battle of Metropolis. Batman is ready to take down Superman. These two heavy weights are going head to head while Lex Luthor is planning an evil scheme.
          Ben Affleck absolutely killed it as Bruce Wayne/Batman. One of the checkboxes this movie had to check off was, it had to make Bruce Wayne a compelling character and it had to show why he disliked the idea of a Superman. They did that and more. Wayne was interesting, he was compelling, and I completely understood why he went against Superman. It's very important to have a good Bruce Wayne because if you don't have a good Bruce Wayne, you wouldn't care about Batman. Let me tell you this; This is by far my favorite Batman we've had. All respect to Keaton and Bale's representation of the character, but they didn't really do much when it comes to the fighting/martial arts part of Batman. The biggest thing that has bugged me about their representation is that they treated Batman like he didn't really know how to fight. He just throws punches and that's it. This Batman was brutal. He was dark. He definitely knew how to fight. The action scenes with Batman are by far the best parts about this movie. Along with Affleck, Jeremy Irons was a pretty awesome Alfred.
          I wasn't a big fan of Henry Cavill's portrayal of Superman this time around. I loved him in Man of Steel but, something was just off in this movie. The biggest thing that made me feel that way was his line delivery. It could've been the fault of Cavill. It could've been the fault of the script. I just don't know who to blame for this issue. Another thing that felt out of place was they never really gave any motivation to why Superman dislikes Batman. In the end they try to give him a reason for hating Batman, but even before that the two characters had an encounter and it made no sense why Superman was so pissed of at Batman.
          Lex Luthor played by Jesse  Eisenberg will annoy you. Even if you liked him in the trailers (which I did), he will annoy you. If you have ever seen Batman: Forever with Jim Carrey as the Riddler, that is basically what Luthor is in this movie. A character that is very socially awkward and has lots of ticks that get annoying after 2minutes of watching him on screen. Eisenberg's portrayal of the character was good, it's just the character that will drive you insane. The one thing I liked about Luthor was they made his motivation of why he is doing the things he is doing make sense. They didn't however make sense of how he did the things he did. (This is not a spoiler because it appears in the trailer) when Luthor creates Doomsday, it made no sense of how he did it which caused a lot of confusion.
          Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman was pretty awesome. For the brief time she was on screen I felt really pleased with her performance.
          The action in this movie is fantastic. The fight at the very end where the 3 big superheroes team up and fight Doomsday (again, it was in the trailer so therefore not a spoiler) was awesome. Snyder really knows how to direct action and it showed in this movie. The actual fight between Superman and Batman was awesome. It was like it leaped right of the page of Frank Miller's graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns" (if you haven't checked that out, GO DO IT.) The action won't be one of the things you complain about when you leave the movie. It's a really pretty movie, it's a good looking movie but unfortunately, it was also a big mess.
          Batman V. Superman has a lot of problems dealing with the narrative/story.  Zack Snyder can direct beautiful movies, just sometimes he has a tough time balancing substance with story. The biggest problem with this movie is that it has multiple movies in one movie but, it didn't find a way to connect these multiple movies/stories. It had the political thriller of what should the government do with Superman, it had a story with Bruce Wayne trying to figure out things about people that may appear in future DC movies, it had a story with Superman having conflict with Batman. All stories are great on their own,  there was just no way to connect them. It felt very messy and very scattered. The worst part is, when this movie already had too much things going on, it opened another can of worms. You can tell that they wanted to include so many little details that it ended up causing the movie to have way more things that it could handle.  Lois Lane has a tough time being a relevant character. She goes back and forth from being a character that needs to be there, to just being Lois Lane.
          At one point Wonder Woman gets an email from Bruce Wayne and the subject line of the email should have just said "Let's get ready for the Justice League!" It was the laziest way to shoe in these characters. The movie was so focused on getting every puzzle piece in place to set up future Justice League movies, that it forgot to be a good stand alone movie.
          Batman V. Superman isn't a good movie, but it isn't a bad movie. You will be entertained by it. There is no doubt about it. It made me excited for future Justice League movies. I saw this once on Friday, and wanted to go see it again on Saturday, and I'm going next week. It's not bad enough to make you never want to see it again. It's worth going to if you want to be entertained. But it's not worth going to if you want a well done, cohesive comic book movie. It's not that bad.
Batman V. Superman gets a 2.7/5

Go give this movie a shot.

Zootopia Review

          Zootopia tells the story of a rabbit named Judy Hopps who really wants to become a police officer. This is not something that is normal. In fact if she does become a police officer (which she does) she will be the first ever rabbit that is part of the police force. When she manages to get a case that has to do with missing mammals, she teams up with a sly fox named Nick Wilde that tries to help her solve the case.
          This movie is fantastic. It has so much more meaning than I ever expected it to have. It's definitely a more mature/adult oriented movie than I thought it would be. This is a great well rounded film. Not only is it a great film for kids to enjoy, it's a film that adults will enjoy as well. In fact it has a lot of themes that kids will not understand like sexism, racism, drugs, etc... I'm being dead serious about that. I was absolutely surprised about what kind of issues this movie handled. At some points I was surprised about what they put in the movie because kids just won't understand it. Now, don't get me wrong this is still a film kids will have a great time watching. However it is a film that I believe adults will actually enjoy a little more.
          Zootopia puts more effort into telling you the story it wants to tell, rather than putting it's effort into making you laugh. It really felt like this movie was made for adults but instead of humans being in the movie,  there were animals that walked and acted like humans.  Even with this movie tackling the certain themes, it was extremely entertaining and fun.
          The two main characters were so great! Ginnifer Goodwin as Hopps and Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde did fantastic voice work. Same with all the other celebrities that had a part in it. JK Simmons, Idris Elba, even Shakira did a great job. Michael Giaccino (it seems like he composes every Disney movie now a days) once again strongly delivers, giving this movie a fantastic score that I already downloaded. I don't want to sell short the amazement I had watching the action scenes. The animation was beautiful, it felt much more real then other animated movies.
          Zootopia is definitely in my top 3 Disney animated movies, it's also in my top 5 animated movies of all time. The characters were great, the script is one of the best, the message is well above anything I've ever seen in a kids film before. And I can't forget to mention how funny this movie was. It was hysterical. There were points where I was laughing, and I just couldn't stop. I can't wait to see this movie again because I know there were jokes I missed when I was laughing.
          I'm going to give this movie a perfect, 5/5


And there is a great Godfather reference that I really appreciated.

The Good Dinosaur Review

          The Good Dinosaur is the latest movie in the PIXAR collection and it is about a dinosaur named Arlo, trying to get back home after he got lost in a flood.
          PIXAR's first film this year, Inside Out was phenomenal.  An animated film only PIXAR could have done. That movie was above average in every way, shape, and form. Inside Out found it's way into my top 5 favorite PIXAR movies. The Good Dinosaur looked like it was going to be a good PIXAR movie. It wasn't going to be better than Inside Out, but it seemed like it was going to be a top tier PIXAR movie. Unfortunately, it wasn't.
          The movie was just an animated film that was below average. It didn't seem like PIXAR made this film. It felt like it was made by an independent studio. It didn't feel like PIXAR for 2 main reasons.
          1.) The story was very rushed. The Good Dinosaur was all over the place. It knew where it started, and knew where it wanted it to go.  It just didn't know how to get there. Every moment in the middle was a very big important part to the overall story arc. There were just too many of the very important parts. They needed to show you all these parts that they only spent a limited amount of time on them. That caused for very fast paced story telling which PIXAR hasn't done before in any of their movies. They could have eliminated 3-5 of those parts and expanded upon the ones that were left over. That would have caused for a better flowing story. With the studios weaker films like Brave, Cars 2, and Monsters University, they still had brilliant story pacing. Even though the story was very rushed, they still delivered the emotion they wanted to deliver, and it still made me cry like basically every PIXAR movie.
          2.) The characters. When this film starts off you see a mom and dad dinosaur waiting for their 3 eggs to hatch. When each egg hatches a dinosaur comes out with a very distinctive personality. Their personalities work for when they are new borns. When they are grown up, it doesn't work so well. The dad dinosaur character doesn't fit in with the story at all. I swear he had some king of bipolar disorder. He was a terrible father. He is trying to encourage his son Arlo to try new things, then the next scene he is basically yelling at Arlo telling him how bad he sucks. Very un-PIXAR to have a sudden change of character with no motive or story behind it. Arlo's siblings and mother are really forgettable. They didn't have good enough traits to remember them.  On Arlo's adventure, you meet other dinosaurs. You never care for any of them because they don't focus on them enough. That goes back to the problem I stated in point number one. You never care for the characters that aren't the focus in the story. In one of my favorite PIXAR movies Cars, the miscellaneous cars that Lighting McQueen meets have distinctive characteristics to them so when the ending of the movie comes around, you care for each and every one of them. The only characters you care about in this movie are of course the main dinosaur Arlo and the little boy that follows him. Again, it is very un-PIXAR like to only give focus on your main characters.
           Overall The Good Dinosaur is a disappointing edition to the PIXAR library. In fact i'm very sad to say that this is my least favorite pixar movie. It gets a 1/5.