Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review (Spoilers)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out and it feels good. The movie is almost as good as the original trilogy with a lot of action and enough for those who went to enjoy the nostalgia to leave the theater happy.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE SO IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE PLEASE COME BACK LATER

Right from the beginning this movie is action packed and all the new characters are to be enjoyed. There is no Jar-Jar in this movie or anything that comes even close to it. There is also a lot of fun to be had as this movie has a lot of laugh lines without ever going into the realm of comedies. Chewbacca and Han Solo have a lot of the best lines and Chewy was definitely the funniest of the bunch.

The new droid BB-8 was amazing and if you do not have the action figure yet, you have like 3 seconds to get it before the prices are too ridiculous. The little fellow steals the scene every time that he is around. He is expressive, funny, fun and all I can say is that if he were around I would give him thumbs-up.

In a rare event, every new character in the franchise is really good and every one of the actor delivers what they need to and more. Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac) is an amazing character and left us wanting a lot more of him. Finn (John Boyega) was fun and brought a lot of energy to the film and Rey (Daisy Ridley) is one of the best female heroes in film history. The villains are a bit more complicated as we do not know much about Snoke and Hux for example and Kylo Ren was the only character to give us mixed feelings.

The older generation was also great, especially Han Solo and Chewbacca. I would have wished a little more of Luke in the movie but I get why we didn’t. Leia was also back and in a position we all imagined she would be after the events of return of the Jedi. I also wished for more R2 and C3PO but I got that this was BB-8’s turn to step into the spotlight.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) started off as an amazing and powerful villain. That scene where he stops the blast from reaching him at the beginning was pretty badass and it was clear that his soldiers feared him; he was shaping up to be a perfect villain, but then once the mask came off all that changed. After that, it felt as if he was just a brat and Hux who at one point had fear in his face started flat out disrespecting him.

The other thing that needs an explanation is how in the Star Wars universe a character like Kylo Ren can lose a fight to two untrained individuals. It is clear that Rey had some experience using the force in the past but she hasn’t since she was a kid so it should have been an easy fight against a guy that had been training since he was a kid. There is not even such benefit of the doubt with Finn though. He was stolen from his family as a kid and it could be that he was force sensitive and that is why he was kidnapped by the First Order but there is no hint of that in the movie. Kylo Ren should have won that fight easily, but he didn’t and that is one of the problems we had with the movie.

The other problem that we had with the movie is that it was a bit predictable. Was there anyone watching that did not know that Han Solo had his future written out the moment that Leia asked him to bring their son back? Even if you did not realize it then, you should have the moment that Han saw Ben on the bridge. We all knew that Poe could not be dead in the crash and we knew R2D2 would come back at the end.

All that said, the movie was very enjoyable and we left the movie theater excited once again for the franchise. It is not the perfect movie and it is not even the best Star Wars movie, but it is up there. We are giving it 4 stars out of a possible 5.

X-Men Apocalypse Trailer Recap/Review

 

Yes, we are going on a mission

So the first wide-release tráiler for X-men: Apocalypse is out and I have a couple of thoughts about it. First of all the trailer does not look bad and it was good to see Cyclops, Beast, Angel and Jean in it. I hope that they have Ice-Man in it so that we can have the entire original team. We also saw Storm, Jubilee, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Magneto, Havok, Quicksilver and a very bald Professor Xavier which made me just say “finally!” I think that will be his look at the end of the movie, and that shot that you see may be the end of it.

Go-go Power Rangers

They also made sure not to give us too many shots of Apocalypse and not a single shot was from an angle like the one in the picture that made him look like a Power Rangers villain. There is also a scene where you see Apocalypse grow in size which is one of his iconic powers, but I am not sure how that will look in the big screen. Officially I am still not down with the look of the character, but that has the potential of being a good thing because it lowers expectations. You can have a bad looking character that is also awesome at the same time. His voice is not menacing, but until I see the movie I cannot tell you if that will matter as much.

The next thing I will bitch about, because that is what I do better, is the fact that they cast Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique. Don’t get me wrong, she is an awesome actress. I think Jennifer Lawrence is the best young actress in Hollywood at this time and that is the problem that I have with the casting. They must feel that because it is such a huge name and an amazing talent that you are dealing with that they have to make her good. I would rather see her being evil and in Apocalypse’s side and I know that Lawrence can pull it off and she would be great at it, but they won’t do it because she HAS TO be a hero.

"And Emo Kid, go write a song"

The one thing that people say about this movie that I am not too concerned about is that there are a ton of characters. As I said before in the list of people that we saw, there are plenty of characters is true, but we don’t know how they will be used. We know that Magneto, Angel, Psylocke and Storm are going to be the 4 horsemen and we know that some of the mutants will go on the mission to stop Apocalypse which is fine because the X-Men are a team. We know that Quicksilver, Jean Grey, Psylocke, Beast, Nightcrawler, Mystique, and Charles are going to be fighting, but we don’t know what role Havok, Jubilee and Wolverine will have.

Now on to the positives, I think the movie looks good for what they are trying to do. I am pretty sure that we will get a great movie because this is the one Fox property that they have started doing right. Fox may have no idea what in the hell they are doing with Fantastic Four, but as long as Bryan Singer is involved with X-Men, they are in safe hands. I like the casting choices for this movie (minus Mystique and Beast), because they seem right for the role. The stakes look really big which I like and the villain despite the look and sound of him, will be the biggest threat that the X-Men have faced on film.

I cannot wait to see this movie. You can bet that we will be there on the day it is out and I do not mind that I will be there probably at 10 AM to the matinee show. The movie looks like it will be great on IMAX too.

That look you get when you are watching someone sleep and they wake up

Star Wars Episode 3 Is Better Than Episode 4

One of the biggest complaints that people have with Star Wars is the Prequels. Most fans think that George Lucas should not have gone back to the series and for the most part they are right. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith however is not the bad movie that you would think it is based on fan reaction. Yes, the movie has its flaws, but at the same time it has several redeeming qualities.

I feel that I am about to commit geek Dom sacrilege by saying this, but Star Wars revenge of the Sith is a better movie than the Original Star Wars, AKA Episode 4: A New Hope. Ok, not put down the middle finger because I cannot see it through your monitor anyway and hear me out. Episode 4 did a great job setting up the hero and an entire universe, but it is full of inconsistencies and bad acting. If you thought Hayden Christensen was annoying when he was bitching throughout episode 2, then why do you not think the same of Luc when he was whining to Uncle Owen?

Think of all the inconsistencies of episode 4 when you look at the canon of the universe and you will find a lot of them. Then you have the fights between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. Are you really going to tell me that two old geezers tapping lightsabers is better than the fight they had at the end of Episode 3 when they were young and full of energy?

Fine, Episode 3 has its faults too. Mainly the problem was with the direction of the movie though. Some of the problems it had were in the writing, I mean dies because she gave up on life? Anakin goes bad and she has no reason to live anymore? She just had a couple of babies, you’d think that they would give her a reason to live, but they were not all that important to her I guess. Say what you will about your parents, but they never died out of sadness and left you unprotected.

In the end, most people get blinded by their love for Star Wars and they do not see a lot of the flaws of Episode 4 which was epic, but not as good a movie as people think it is. There is a difference between having an epic movie and having a good movie.

I am seeing the difference between the two because I recently watched all 6 movies in preparation for episode 7 which I will be seeing on the day it comes out. Maybe it is that Episode 2 was so bad that episode 3 seemed like a masterpiece and my expectations were too low, but if that is the case then why did episode 3 feel better than episode 4?

Episode 3 gets an A-

Episode 4 gets a B+