True Reviews, Updates and Common Sense Opinions
Listen to this honest review of Chris Pratt’s new Amazon Prime film, The Tomorrow War in the newest episode Boldcanon The Podcast.
Is this what the Terminator saga needed?
Continue reading “The Tomorrow War – Amazon Prime | Podcast Episode 2”
Despite not having any expectations of this movie, the first moments of Underwater were reminiscent of Alien. I thought I was wrong, but I was definitely on to something.
Continue reading “Underwater (2020) is full of terrifying moments | Movie Review”
I was surfing through Netflix and just as I was about to give up because there were too many options, I found Time Trap. The film surrounds a professor looking for his parents that disappeared years ago while chasing the fountain of youth.
Continue reading “Buried in Netflix: Time Trap (2017)”
After watching Dark Phoenix, I was not blown away by the story and felt that certain story arcs should have been explored more to help with certain character development. I wrote a full review about it here.
I don’t feel like I was overly critical because I’m a glass half full kind of person. So even though I wasn’t blown away, I’d never say Dark Phoenix was bad. I just figured that the reboot may have been wrong for this point in time.
I mean this is an era of superhero movies that evoke tears! This is an era where people rewatch and rewatch until every easter egg and theory has been explored. Some times, the type of connection that fans have with a film could cause it to be re-released in theaters only one month and some days after the initial release.
Cough cough, Avengers: Endgame.
Dark Phoenix didn’t evoke that.
That being said I decided to go back in time to 2015. To a time when the world saw a reboot of another story about the Fantastic Four.
Previously, in the 2005 version, it was a story about 2 scientists, a researcher, an astronaut, and a pilot journeying into space to experiment with cosmic energy against the better judgment of certain party members. They get caught in a storm that turns them all into superheroes. Right away three out of the four participants use their powers for good, the fourth one eventually comes around and the Fantastic Four save the day while the fifth powerful being goes rogue.
The film was light-hearted enough. No real consequences that interrupted the flow of the world. Plus at the end of the day, the Fantastic Four stood victorious and all was well.
Cool.
Now that we’re up to speed, let’s look at the most recent reboot.
Reviews for Fantastic Four ( 2015) weren’t the best. In fact, if you google the film you’ll see mostly negative reviews. But I watched it for myself four years later and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve been thinking about this all wrong.
This isn’t a whimsical story about superheroes. This is a sci-fi horror film!
Think about it.
Five teenagers who are under supervised with chips on their shoulders use their expertise in science to create a portal to an unknown planet. They have no respect for authority, barely get along with each other, and of course, there is a love triangle involved.
The lack of supervision gives them time to set up an exploration of the unknown planet and when they arrive there is an unknown entity waiting to pounce.
Student number one gets crushed by rocks, student number two is burned alive, and student number three is presumed dead after falling off a cliff into an acid lake.
While trying to bring their ship back,, student number four gets infected due toa blowback blast causing her to go into a coma. And student number five seemly gets away without an issue until he realizes that he is permantly deformed.
Student number five flees after the four surviving members of his group are captured by a private sector of the government. Pleagued by guilt due to the cost his friends have paid he leaves them to be experimented on by the government.
Eventually, the student who fell into the acid lake comes back when the adults, who weren’t paying attention in the first place, try to revisit the unknown planet. His skin is charred and he is unrecognizable. He’s seeking revenge. He’s being bent on death and destruction. He is no longer a human and now his only goal is to kill those who left him behind and destroy the earth by sucking it into a black hole.
See doesn’t that sound good?
Granted the end of the movie sees the four other teenage students band together to destroy the threat but, some horror films have happy endings too.
So next time Fantastic Four (2015) is on TV watch it with new eyes and tell me what you think.
Last week, I watched Swamp Thing for the first time. I watched it without referring to any source material and without any preconceived notions. The only thing I knew about the series was that it had been canceled. With only one episode available, the Swamp Thing series on DC Universe would end after episode 10.
After watching the first episode, I had a few opinions but I didn’t see anything that would warrant such a hasty cancellation. I actually enjoyed episode one. So I’ve decided to continue watching it. Episode two turned out really weird, so I’ll start with the easy stuff first.
Spoilers ahead
Last weeks episode left me with a theory of my own regarding Avery Sunderland. The first episode set him up as the wealthiest man in the town and we found out that he was Holland’s employer. This led me to believe that he had to be the person hiring boats to drop the mutagen accelerant in the swamp.
I was proven correct in this episode. Turns out that Avery is the reason that the accelerant is being dumped in the swamp. Apparently, he consulted two scientists (Jason and Caroline Woodrue) to find out ways to make use of the swamp.
The accelerant was their idea. It was supposed to help the swamp thrive, but of course, that backfired and now the townspeople are dying. Jason Woodrue stands firm that an accelerant would not cause disease. He pretty much said blame the swamp for doing swamp things.
Avery is definitely the big bad! All through this episode, he made strides to keep people from investigating the swamp and the dumping. He denied Abby the help she asked for to find Holland (who is presumed dead as far as the characters are concerned). He also threatened the scientist he consulted with blackmail, and he admitted to those same scientists that he is “handling business” to keep his name away from the swamp problem.
So, if we read between the lines, we can deduce that Avery had Holland killed by the mysterious man with the rocket launcher from episode one. Remember, Holland went up to Avery after a town hall meeting and told him that something was happening to the water. This must have prompted him to kill Holland so that he would not figure out the full scope of the conspiracy.
Little does Avery know, he created a swamp monster with a vendetta.
Here is where weird things start. Apparently, patient zero (Susie Coyle) has a psychic connection with the swamp.
I don’t understand how because she was not in the swamp when the initial attack by the vines happened. But okay.
In the last episode, when her father (Eddie Coyle) revived on the autopsy table, Susie had a moment where she called out to the dead corpse that was being controlled by vines. In this episode, she escapes the hospital in order to go meet the Swamp Thing.
The first time she tries to escape the doctor catches her. He asks her why she is trying to leave. Susie says it’s because the man in the dark is scared and needs her.
What could he possibly need from her? Does she hold the cure?
Eventually, Susie does escape and the sheriff’s office and doctors are looking for her in the swamp. Abby is scared because she has seen the Swamp Thing before and no one has believed her up to this point about the dumping, the monster, or the Holland conspiracy.
Susie ends up on a boat with some men who have been hired to dump by Avery. They don’t know she is there and after they have a disagreement, one of them kills the other.
This death prompts the Swamp Thing to rise from the water and save Susie. He rips the boat henchman apart and Susie is saved. However, Abby finds them just in time and takes Susie away.
After they escape the swamp, Susie tells Abby that the Swamp Things name is Holland.
Oh, snap. Here’s more information for the town not to believe.
We also have a bit of story progression for Maria Sunderland. It turns out that she has been dabbling in voodoo and having a witch doctor communicate with her dead daughter (Shawna) for the last 14 years.
As a result, we see that Shawna has not been able to rest in peace and is stuck in a realm between the living and the dead. The witch doctor tells Maria to let her rest because the balance with the living and the dead is shifting. The witch doctor felt that bad things are happening in the swamp.
Here’s the thing. After this weeks episode, I need to understand if Swamp Thing is a sci-fi horror thriller or a supernatural horror thriller. The characteristics of Holland as the Swamp Thing remain horrific. He’s killing people and groaning in pain. Normal stuff.
However, with the addition of Maria’s seance in the swamp, I got confused. How does this play into the swamp? Was the swamp haunted before the accelerant was dumped into it? The first episode never shows Holland and Susie speaking, so how is Susie connected to the Swamp Thing? When did the connection start?
This episode may have muffled the identity of the show a bit. But, it was still interesting. There are so many questions that need to be answered. I’m hoping as I keep watching, the show can clear up some of the confusion.