Creed 2
Creed fights the son of his father’s killer, Ivan Drago. Rocky IV was a big staple of my childhood, so it was neat to see Dolph Lundgren in the role again, even though he wasn’t a huge part of this particular movie. I also liked that Viktor, Drago’s son, wasn’t as cartoonishly villainous as Ivan was in IV, but then you have to remember Creed 2 isn’t a blatant anti-Soviet propaganda film.
The da Vinci Code
A smarty-pants professor’s art dealer friend is murdered, and the whole thing is tied to a conspiracy to keep Jesus’ direct descendants hidden. Or to expose them. I don’t know. You didn’t know Jesus had children, did you? Neither did I. Anyways, I had read the book way back when it was released. It had some neat puzzles and an interesting take on Catholic church history, but not very good writing. The worst part is that the author claims it was all true, when it’s clear the history behind it was utter bollocks.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1
Some space-faring ne’er-do-wells, lead by the half-human, half-alien Quill, unknowingly steal one of the Infinity Stones, which is sought after by one of Thanos’ lunatic cronies. One of the better Marvel movies, maybe because it was one of the first with a comedic, colorful bent to it. Chris Pratt is one of the few A+ list actors who is both good looking enough and has some decent comedic chops. An insult-comic raccoon is funny by itself, too.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
Quinn finds his dad, who contributed to the alien half of him, and he turns out to be not what was expected. Quinn’s surrogate father’s (Yondu) redemption arc was nicely packaged up in the end, with his space pirate funeral. How would you make fireworks happen with no atmosphere?
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Tony Stark creates another AI from one of the Infinity Stones as a means to put his worldwide defense strategy into action, but the AI essentially reads the entire Internet and decides to wipe humanity out. If Thanos is the most loved villain in the MCU so far, Ultron may be a close second, at least for all of his quotable dialog. It’s interesting that he wanted to create the next global disaster by removing an entire city from the earth and crashing it back down, like a huge meteor. When you think of advanced AI and malicious robotics in stories, they’re always using nuclear stockpiles, Synthetic Plagues, or nanomachines. It’s never anything so primitive and “natural” as an artificial meteor.
Ant-Man
A cat burglar, fresh out of prison, is tasked to steal a high-tech suit that allows the user to shrink to miniscule proportions. Also, there’s large-scale ant mind control. There were some obvious hints that using the suit too much makes the wearer go a little nutty, which I thought was a little too hand-wavy as a way to limit its overpowered usage over time. Scott Lang (Ant-Man) is a Disappeared Dad trope to the nth degree; he seems a likeable character with a too-typical backstory.
Captain America: Civil War
Internecine conflict in the Avengers, as half want to side with the governing authorities after the events of Ultron, to make their life easier, while some value how they operate independently. This story had great value in that you have two sets of protagonists, both with admirable intentions, but opposite views on implementing them. There’s some effort the viewer needs to do to figure out who they would side more with. Not a typical situation for a superhero movie.
Black Panther
An ethnocentric, nationalist/tribalist, anti-immigrant, theocratic/monarchical, isolationist nation won’t share its technology with the rest of the world, so some parties would like to steal it. No, it’s cool, because said nation isn’t white or European, so they’re the good guys. This was okay, a different visual aesthetic than what was previously associated with the MCU. The plot runs into the “why not just give everyone an Iron Man suit, for Pete’s sake, and this will all be over” problem, with the Heart-Shaped Herb. A whole nation of Black Panthers, even without the vibranium, would be unstoppable. Since there is a strong religious element in Wakanda, the writers could easily pose the Herb as a power restricted only to the ruling class, as commanded by the nation’s gods. But, no…
Dr. Strange
After a car accident renders an arrogant surgeon’s hands unusable, he seeks out a mystical remedy. Has an interesting scene where Strange is shown that the material world isn’t all there is. Although, he’s just shown more material universes. Not quite “mystical” as I consider the definition to be, but not antithetical, either.
Mob Psycho, Season 2
Mob starts to figure out a little more how to use his powers. I feel bad: the animation value, characters, and design in this series is really good, but I don’t really remember a whole lot of what happened in this season.
2 Comments
Instead of watching movies these days I just look at reviews and analyses. That way I can get the story without wasting time with a bunch of stuff I don’t care about. Ultron had some really great lines, but the philosophical stuff is restricted to Western materialism. I agree that the Dr. Strange scene misses the point of mysticism, but oddly enough, it gets certain ideas right. The DaVinci Code was a hateful knife pointed at faith, just like the Church of Subgenius and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All typical of Western culture.
Oh man, I remember Church of the Subgenius. That got big when I was in high school because they were early Internet adopters. I thought it was stupid satire then, and I still do 🙂