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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)”
Picking up from the cliff hanger of last week, Shishio prepares to knock Senku unconscious. He remains that he, Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha would have been friends if they met before the petrification. However, due to Senku’s obsession with bringing civilization back, Shishio believes he needs to kill him.
Stone World The Beginning
Senku had been regularly cracking his neck and drawing attention to its stiffness. This prompted Shishio to suggest blunt force trauma as the cause of death.
Taiju did not make it in time to stop the blow to Senku’s head, but he and Yuzuriha were able to cause a distraction allowing them to run away with Senku’s limp body.
Taiju would not accept Senku’s death and soon realized that Senku had to have a plan because his main goal was to keep everyone alive. After trying CPR, Yuzuriha and Taiju discovered that Senku still had a stone fragment in the back of his neck.
Using the revival serum, they hoped to heal the damage to Senku’s neck and spine as a result of the stone being removed. This calls back to Yuzuriha getting the leftover stone removed from her foot.
As Yuzuriha and Taiju wait patiently hoping that Senku will regain consciousness, we are shown a flashback of Senku’s preservation through his stone period.
We see Senku will himself awake, examine his stone shell, attempt to create fire, and create a hatchet all while being observed by monkeys. At the end of his preliminary actions, he decides that he is going to help reform civilization.
I’m assuming we’re going to see Senku awakening in the next episode.
Previously on Dr. Stone, Senku and Taiju faced a ravaging pack of lions during their attempt to revive Yuzuriha. In a panic, they revived the strongest human from their school named Shishio.
He proved to be helpful with necessary tasks like hunting and protecting. However, Senku soon realized that Shishio’s motives were skewed from the goal of reviving all of civilization.
Shishio’s main goal was to resurrect a purified society. His answer to making sure only young people were resurrected included crushing the stones of all of the adults so that they can not corrupt society again.
Spoilers ahead
Senku is playing it cool for the most part around Shishio despite knowing his actual goals to kill every adult so that they can not revive.
Operation: Save Every Last Human Being
In the meantime, Taiju is gathering the resources needed to create the revival serum. Senku plans to keep the ingredients of the serum a secret from Shishio, however, Taiju is very oblivious and blurts out that he’s acquired everything.
Shishio is instantly intrigued, and Senku knowns that if he finds out the recipe, he’ll dispose of them. So to continue Operation: Let’s save every last human being, Senku sends Shishio to get the nitric acid (one of the ingredients).
While Shishio went to look for the nitric acid, Senku and Taiju revived Yuzuriha. Senku reveals to them that Shishio is a straight murderer and they could either run away and live life together or fight with him against the murders.
Yuzuriha is down to stay with the group and fight with them right away, which is great. I like that about her.
“Advance civilization and make better weapons of science.” – Senku
When Shishio gets back, a standoff occurs between the two groups. Shishio knocks Taiju out after he threats to kill Yuzuriha and tells them to stay out of his way or get killed.
Senku decides they need to create weapons of science to take Shishio down. They reach a Buddha statue where Senku harvests bronze and then they go to Mount Fuji to get resources to make gun powder.
Shishio is smart as well as athletic because he figures this out right away. As a result, he plans to stop them before Senku can create gun powder and stop him for good.
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.
I am really intrigued by The Promised Neverland series. It took me a while to sit down and watch it. Initially, I was disappointed in myself because I was instantly hooked and knew that I should have watched it sooner. But, I quickly got over it because I was able to binge seven episodes to catch up. So that was a plus!
Story:
The Promised Neverland revolves around a group of orphaned children who live carefree in an orphanage being loved, fed, and educated by their house mother, Isabella. Emma, Norman, and Ray are some of the oldest children at the orphanage and they are also the smartest. All of the children dream of getting adopted into loving families. And their house mother assumingly makes that happen for them.
All is well until it is time for the adoption of a six-year-old girl, Conny. Conny always carries a bunny. When that bunny is left behind, it sparks concern for Emma and Norman. They run after Isabella and Conny to return the forgotten bunny. However, they find out that Conny has been murdered and put on ice to be sold to monsters. Monsters who want human flesh and brains to eat. What’s worse is that Isabella is involved with this horror. She is raising them like cattle to be harvested and eaten by monsters.
Terrified at what they’ve found out, Emma and Norman hatch a plan to escape from the orphanage and bring the rest of the children with them to an unknown world that is full of unknown horrors.
Using the help of Ray and two other children, Don and Gilda, they plan an escape. But, they are thwarted by Isabella from the shadows as she bides her time until the next big harvest of children to offer up to ‘The One’.
Why you should watch this:
This anime is insane. In the first three episodes, I was so uneasy. As if selling children isn’t bad enough, we meet a character named Krone who clearly has some sort of personality disorder. She wants to be a “mother” on the farm orphanage and is willing to do anything to get it, including selling these children after using them as allies. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve referred to her as nuts while watching this anime.
The coolest thing about this anime is the main characters ability to strategize and plan their escape while gathering information. Norman is the most level headed protagonist I’ve encountered while watching anime. He constantly finds out negative information and is able to use it to his advantage for the betterment of the escape plan.
Emma is so naive, poor girl. She wants to save every child. I sympathize with her the most. I really do not want to see her soul get crushed if they can’t save everyone.
Ray disappointed me the most. I won’t spoil it, but I haven’t been able to trust him. Even though Norman is still able to make the most out of the situation, Ray is still the wildest card they need to deal with.
Expectations:
I honestly don’t know what to expect. There is still so much information that hasn’t been explained. And this is a 12 episode season and even though season 2 has been announced, I’m going to need some resolution! I suspect we will find out actual information about ‘The One’. The only thing I gathered so far is he/she/it runs the children harvest operation.
I also would like to see how Krone’s help, if she is able to help, comes in to play while Emma, Ray, and Norman attempt to escape. But for some reason, I get the feeling this isn’t a happy ending kind of anime. Then again, there is time for everything to work out.
It’s available on Crunchy Roll, Hulu, Funimatio, and Toonami (weekly) if you want catch up on this show and share your opinion with me.