J.K. Simmons

The Next Terminator Film

Peter Germany Movies, Sci-Fi , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The second trailer for the next Terminator film, Terminator:Dark Fate, has gone online over the last couple of days. I had a look at it today during my lunch break and i still have some major reservations, but I’m not quite as anxious as I was.

A little background. Terminator 2: Judgement Day is my favourite movie of all time. I saw it at just the right time for it to embed itself into my DNA. It blew me away! After seeing The Terminator I found I loved that one as well. Terminator 2 is still my favourite movie, but The Terminator is a fantastic movie. Then Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines came out. If I was listed top to bottom my favourite Terminator films this would be second from bottom. I love the concept, showing how Judgement Day went down should have been a wet dream for me. It wasn’t. It tried to be too funny, I think the casting was off and I’d have liked to have seen it having a bigger scope to it. This was the film that should have sown the rise of Skynet. It should have detailed it and given us an epic movie showing this all happening. It didn’t though.

After Terminator 3 we had Terminator:Salvation. Now I like Salvation a lot. I was super excited with the thought of a movie showing us what we’d only seen in flashbacks before. I’ll admit I was worried about McG directing it. I’m also not the biggest Christian Bale fan, but I do enjoy it. I didn’t really care for the Marcus Wright storyline, and I’d have liked to of seen the piles of bones you saw in the flashbacks from the first two films. I didn’t like how Connor became the leader of the resistance. It felt lazy and has been done repeatedly on screen. It did have strong points though. Anton Yelchin was fantastic as a young Kyle Reese. I loved the fact that so much of it took place during the day. So many films nowadays have to have all the action at night. The visuals of the film, and the score, were really good.

Ugh, I suppose I ought to address Terminator: Genisys. Okay. I like Emilia Clarke a lot, but I’m not sure this was the role for her at this time in her career. I’ve a lot of respect for her for giving it a go though. Jai Courtney is a good actor, but he isn’t a leading man in my opinion. Just look at how good he is in Suicide Squad. Jason Clarke didn’t sell me if I’m honest. Arnold Schwarzenegger was good, but he was born to play this role. I wish they wouldn’t keep trying to make him comedic in these films though. What they did with him in Terminator 2 worked for that film. It hasn’t in any of the rest of these films. The storyline wasn’t great and had some huge plot holes in. What I really hate about this film though is it erases the first two films from the existence. That and the fact they waste Byung-Hun Lee, J.K. Simmons, and Matt Smith. You just have to watch Matt Smith in his few scenes in the film to see the quality he has. Why wasn’t he Kyle Reese? But that wouldn’t solve the plot problems. Something that also annoyed me was the big reveal about one of the main characters in the trailer! Like really? Don’t you think that would have been better to reveal when people are in the cinema!?!

Terminator: Genisys feels like a slap in the face of the fans who love this world. They tried to take away the two best films in the series, and I still don’t understand why?

Right, I’m going to (try to) stop ranting.

On to Terminator: Dark Fate. I’m comforted by Linda Hamilton returning. I’m a little anxious about Schwarzenegger though. Is he playing another old terminator? Will he be the comic relief? I’m 50/50 on James Cameron’s involvement. I seem to recall him praising Terminator: Genisys. I like that Tim Miller is helming the film. I liked what he did with Deadpool and I hope he pulls this off. I like the look of Gabriel Luna, he was really good as Ghost Rider in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and I like that Mackenzie Davis is in this. I’ve only seen her in The Martian and Blade Runner 2049 but thought she was good in both, especially Blade Runner 2049. I’m looking forward to seeing what they both do in this movie.

There was what I think of as a reveal in the trailer. I’m not sure it’s a big one but why not keep it vague so people learn it when they see the film for the first time? This isn’t jut a problem with Terminator films, its something that needs to be made extinct.

I am anxious about this movie. I want to go into the cinema and have all my sweet spots hit with it, but I’ve been burned before (damn you Genisys), so I’m not going to let myself get too excited about Terminator: Dark Fate.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Peter Germany Comic Books, Movies , , , , , , , , ,

This is a post that I have been trying to figure out how to write for about a week, maybe ten days now and each time I’ve come to approach it I can’t quite figure out how to get my thoughts down clearly. Normally I’d put in a little synopsis of the story but there are a few different plot lines that the film focuses around, and it’s hard not to stray into spoiler territory. We have Peter Parker’s relationship with Gwen Stacey, his friendship with Harry Osborn and his Aunt May. Now lets throw in the mystery surrounding his parents death and the difficulties that Harry Osborn is facing as he takes charge at his now dead Dad’s business, OsCorp. Norman Osborn dying isn’t a spoiler as he dies very early on, which is a waste of Colin Cooper if you ask me.

Let’s not forget Max Dillon who soon becomes Electro, Jamie Foxx looks like he had fun here, and his first of all idealisation of Spider-Man and then his pure hatred. Then we have the emergence of the Green Goblin and the Rhino, who looks kick-ass in a mech suit as opposed to a rubber one.

There is also minor plotlines with Aunt May and Gwen Stacey that I noticed, oh and another one for Harry Osborn.

So we have a lot going on in this movie and that is one thing that I’ve found I’m a little annoyed about. In my, humble, opinion we have three, maybe even four movies worth of story here. It almost feels like, as a movie goer, I’ve been mugged off a little. I’ve spoken on my blog before about how I was a little bored by the first film, but after watching it again I’ve got a lot more appreciation for it. So I was looking forward to seeing what the writers, director and producers did with this second movie. The first was used to re-establish the character and the world Spider-Man/Peter Parker exist in. My natural assumption was that they would have more freedom to give us a film where they are not establishing characters and relationships, but instead we get a film which is loaded up with at least four major story lines.

The acting is good, the direction is good. The action and special effects are breath taking and its a very easy film to watch and the story is easily followed. Its all very compact though, we get a small snippet of story and then BOOM huge leaps take the movie forward to a conclusion. I’ll speak more of that in the spoilers at the end of the post.

There are a fair few little Easter Eggs throughout the film to watch out for 😉

It was really good to see Spider-Man in action as he never kept his mouth shut. Throughout the opening action scene he is constantly mouthing off and almost being too casual in his crime fighting, its a lot of fun to watch 😀

Overall I did like this movie, it just feels like they’ve rushed over a lot of good story to build for future movies.

 

*****Spoilers Ahead*****

 

 

*****I’m Not Joking*****

 

 

*****Last Chance******

 

 

*****Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You*****

 

As I said in the first part of the post there is a lot of story lines in this movie, I can understand the Green Goblin one being rushed through and altered (The storyline was a staple of Raimi’s trilogy) but I would have loved to have seen Colin Cooper as The Green Goblin, although a part of me kind of hopes that although we’re told Norman Osborn is dead I can’t recall seeing him dead. Even if we did that doesn’t mean anything, but I think that’s more wishful thinking because, as I said, I would have loved to have seen Cooper’s Green Goblin.

Speaking of Cooper’s Norman Osborn, we see him dying of an illness when he could be, I dunno maybe in his fifties and he tells Harry that it’s hereditary and it’ll start showing in Harry soon, which it does. He goes from looking pretty well to quite sick very quickly. When he injects himself with something he thinks will cure him it goes bad very quickly and he just so happens to crawl to the weapons and armour that make him the Green Goblin. Earlier on in the film he is trying to get Spider-Man’s blood as he thinks it’ll cure him. There’s more to this miracle cure but my mind is a little foggy with those details.

The Rhino is in the film for all of about a minute. Most of what you see in the trailer is in the movie, but how it is set up in the film it works well. As Spider-Man is about to fight the Rhino the film ends. This bit works really well but why did we not get to see Aleksei Sytsevich becoming the Rhino? Paul Giamatti looks awesome, if his accent makes it all but impossible to understand what he’s saying. But we get him before the Rhino suit at the start of the film and then in the suit at the end.

Electro get’s a fair bit of screen time and I think is pretty well handled, although the Max Dillon part of the story did remind me a little of Edward Nygma from Batman Forever.

I mentioned that I thought Colin Cooper was a little wasted, so was Sally Field. She is one of the most talented actors we’ve had the pleasure of seeing, give her more time to explore her relationship with Peter.

There is a reference to Peter Parker selling pictures to the Daily Bugle, which annoyed me as I love that part of the Spider-Man universe. I really want to see J. Jonah Jameson again, but only if J.K. Simmons is recast. he was born to play Jameson!

Peter and Gwen. Early on in the film Gwen dumps him, because he is guilt ridden because he broke a promise to her Dad. This wasn’t needed in my opinion. It was there just to add a little more conflict to Parker’s life, just have them being happy and maybe dealing with Gwen having a chance to go Oxford (I think it was Oxford). That would have worked better for me as a storyline then them trying to remain friends, there’s a cute conversation they have about being friends but I’d rather see Peter Parker in a steady relationship and not moping about. After she dies I can accept him moping (I did warn you about the spoilers).

I stick by what I said earlier, there’s a lot of story here that is rushed through. I do think they are trying to build a franchise with the legs similar to what Marvel are doing with their movies. They can do it with the right people, but don’t short change us next time. The way that Green Goblin is handled in this film is a great example. Dane DeHaan is really good here and I would have liked to have seen more of his Harry Osborn as a friend to Peter Parker and not as an enemy.

This is a good film but it’s one that is there to move the series along and build up to the Sinister Six. We don’t need so many plot lines in the next film, give us some decent focus on exploring individual characters and relationships as well as Spider-Man saving the day.