Deadpool 2: Did It Suck?

     It's been awhile since the last Deadpool movie and everyone's favorite foul mouth mercenary is back! The first Deadpool movie, being a union between Marvel and movie darling with abs of gold Ryan Reynolds was a match made in heaven. Seriously, it was like the comic book movie gods created it and had Stan Lee present it to us like Moses giving us the ten commandments. Anyway, Deadpool went on to make a killing in the box office and was so successful Marvel already greenlit the second movie the same weekend it came out. Now with most sequels, especially comedic ones, there is worry that things may become stale or writers will try so hard to outdo the previous film or try to regurgite the same jokes that it ruins things, I'm looking at you Zoolander 2. With not only Ryan Reynolds back in the tight and very form-fitting red spandex, but co-penning the sequel with previous Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, there is hope. Will it be a step up from the first film or will it leave a big eh on our faces. Will Deadpool 2 suck? Some minor spoilers ahead.

      So Deadpool 2 takes place some time after the first movie so it's good that you don't have to worry about watching the first film. Our favorite contract killer is on a journey of self discovery after his love interest from the first movie, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) dies. That journey eventually becomes an adventure to put his heart in the right place, find a family, and save a kid who is being targeted by time jumping mutant Cable. If you though the first Deadpool was funny then the second film is a treat because they've made sure to give you a ton of comedy in this one. Watching comedic scenes in Deadpool 2 is like looking at Oprah's buffet plate: there's a lot of it. The jokes are not bigger nor did the writers try to outdo what made Deadpool 1 funny instead they give you plenty of jokes. This time around they've gone full comic version of Deadpool than the first film. You get a ton of fourth wall breaking Deadpool is known for. There are a ton of Easter eggs where Ryan jokes about the other X-Men movies, Marvel movies, and even takes a knock at the DC universe along with running gags that were from the first are so fresh you can put a febreeze logo on it. If you're a fan of the Deadpool comics you are gonna be very excited more about this than the first Deadpool film.

      You get the standard Ryan Reynolds-isms you normally get in most of his comedic films. The witty lines and adorable dreamy eyes. It's not a bad thing at all. He's at home in these kind of roles and they work well with him. You do see a bit of his range in the more emotional scenes and it adds to the fact of isn't there anything this man can't do, other than make us want to see him in a green CGI suit. They did well showing off Domino and her powers which is literally luck, by having the most funny and fortunate circumstances happening to her compared to other characters seeing her in action.
 
Final Verdict
So, does Deadpool suck? Not at all! It is a perfect comic book comedy film if there is one. There wasn't that much plot to the movie but it pretty much said fuck that and just gave all the Deadpooly goodness we all love from the comics and that was a pretty good tradeoff. They didn't up the ante or go bigger than the previous movie, at least not that much. They just gave us more which is the sure fire way to keep comic book fans and everyone else happy. It gets four really bad dubstep songs out of five. Now kiss me like you miss me!

Ghostbusters: Did It Suck?

The original Ghostbusters is one of the classic comedy movies of all time. It harbored famous comedians Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd. It has won fans alike who still to this day quote lines from the movie. When the movie came out it was a hit. We've gotten a sequel, a cartoon, and let's not forget the Ecto Hi-C. There have been trouble getting a third Ghostbuster movie started ranging from script troubles to cast fighting. We wouldn't have anything Ghostbusters for years until now. Is the franchise back from the dead or is it time to put it to rest?
      Ghostbusters, just like the original movie its rebooting, is a comedy. It was a bit different than the original as it kinda went for less of the dry humor and went for a bit more slapstick and the stuff you'd usually find in Paul Feig, the director, movies. It is full of jokes. The beginning did start off slow with some witty writing, but as the movie progresses, things build and things do get outrageously funny. Despite it having some funny moments, I felt the jokes were kinda tame compared to Feig's previous movies. There were a lot of funnier moments and the movie could've gone out with certain moments. Feig brought the funny, but it wasn't necessarily his A game.
     The story was pretty much your standard Ghostbusters story. It's up to the Ghostbusters to save New York, and maybe the world but mainly New York, from a spiritual catastrophe. the only difference this time is that the antagonist is not some powerful ghost, but a human. Neil Casey plays the villain and like the Ghostbusters he is doing some ghost hunting as well for some really bad reasons.
    Watching Ghostbuster was almost like remix of the original in that it seems like a completely original movie and it had some moments that were inspired by the original movie. The first encounter in the mansion was the library scene. The rock concert was the hotel scene where they caught Slimer. And the subway scene was from Ghostbusters 2 even with one of the ghost brothers that was electrocuted. Also their are a ton of cameos. The movie is almost one big Ghostbuster reunion as it featured almost the whole cast in different roles except for Rick Moranis and Harold Ramis you know because he's dead. You even got one from the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man.
     As for the female Ghostbusters, everyone did their job well. Melissa McCarthy was classic Melissa McCarthy is almost every role she's mainly been whether you like that or not shame on you if you don't. Kristen Wiig is in full comedy prime quirky Erin Gilbert. They were the Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd of the reboot. Kate McKinnon was great playing the pretty much out there "Egon" of the group, Jillian Holtzmann  The highlight of the movie clearly was Chris Hemsworth. He played a ditzy male receptionist well. He has amazing comedic timing. It was shocking to see him able to have a comedic side and him doing it so well. Also cred to due to Lesie Jones. She was amazing and despite some claims that her character was too "stereotypical" (and like they even care?) it wasn't nor did she come across that way. She was a sassy and witty New Yorker who wasn't just sitting back on the side lines to say something witty compared to the other girls' characters. And to boot Jones' was funny as hell delivering her lines.
     Overall the movie was fantastic. Is it better than the original? No. Definitely not. But it's not trying to be. It was made to show love for the original Ghostbuster movies and bring it to a new generation, with a modern twist. It's a great popcorn movie. It was fun. The audience I was with had a good time dancing when the original Ghostbusters theme played as well as during the ending credits. The people who are spending all their time hating this movie and crying over their "tarnished childhoods" are seriously missing out. I'd give it 4 out of five stars.

Who You Gonna Call When You Hate the New Ghostbusters?

     The Ghostbusters reboot just around the corner. We haven't had anything Ghostbusters related in a while with the last movie, a sequel, made in 1989, a couple of failed projects to get a third movie made, and a video game made almost 6 years ago in 2009. With the smell of nostalgia in the air, you can can feel the excitement or better yet the hate.
      The new Ghostbusters has been the subject of internet hate. Fanboys have taken to repeatedly  down vote trailers and have even gone as far as to harass director Paul Feig and cast members. It's has gone pretty much downhill ever since it was announced that who was directing it and that the reboot would feature a mostly female cast. The most recent of the negativity has come from YouTuber cinemasscre. Cinemasscre, real name James Rolfe, has pretty much made a 6 and a half "non review" discussing about how much he is not going to see and review the Ghostbusters movie. I could talk about how absurd, childish and the lack of professionalism that a supposed amateur movie reviewer on YouTube would go to make a 6 minute rant about how much they're not going to see a movie, but that's another day and another topic. This inspired me to finally talk about the movie and address the hate that the movie has brewed.
     Some opponents of the movie claim that the movie is just another cash grab for the studios to make money off a popular franchise. Hollywood has been the culprit of doing this for the past years and this could spark a debate on truly if Hollywood should should stop the trend of making remakes or reboots just to make quick cash instead of coming up with new innovative ideas and concepts and that is a actual problem. Whether that is the case for this particular movie or not is up to debate. One thing is for sure is that issue will not be resolved with giving the director and cast death threats and harassment.
      Bottom line it's just a movie. It's no need to get this worked up over a movie. No movie is worth this much hate. No movie is worth sending the cast and director harassment and death threats. For the people citing nostalgia and claiming that the movie will ruin the franchise, if one reboot is capable of doing that, then your childhood nostalgia and the franchise itself had nothing to stand on. If this is truly bad then I think the franchise is be just fine, it survived Ghostbusters 2. You can still watch the original Ghostbusters movie and enjoy that. You can even watch Ghostbusters 2 which wasn't as charming and funny as the first one. The new reboot doesn't take anything away from those movies. The new Ghostbusters reboot might be fine after all, then again you wouldn't know that if you're too busy downvoting trailers and making "non review" videos.

P.S. Harold Ramis probably wouldn't be upset over the new reboot. We tried contacting his ghost but reportedly its held in storage in a firehouse in downtown Los Angeles.

What are your thoughts on the negative wave of hate on the new Ghostbusters reboot. Is it justified?

Goosebumps: Does It Suck?

I haven't done a review in a while, so over the weekend, I went out to see Goosebumps. For those who are new to Goosebumps or who wasn't born in the 90s, Goosebumps was children's horror book series penned by R.L. Stine. The books were scary. Really scary. The books launched a ton of spin-off book series like the Give Yourself Goosebumps books, which were almost as scary since you choose how the story goes, and a TV series, which was just as scary as the books. The books generated a ton or sales and money for R.L Stine and has stuck with a lot of people either as nostalgia or as we're still getting nightmares about evil lawn gnomes. Which is more than an apparent reason why there is finally a movie based off of the books and series, right? At first hearing that there would be a movie, I had two things run into my head. First excitement. I loved reading the books and watching the TV series growing up as a child so it's no shocker I would be stoked for this. Another thing was the notion of whether they would do justice to the series. To many of us, Goosebumps is in a part of of childhood memories. We grew up on this. We would like to see if things were done in a faithful way. Was it? Was it cool, of did it suck?

Story

Let's start off with story. The whole premise of the Goosebumps movie was that all of the monsters in R.L Stine's books are real due to him creating them with his super imagination.They are all unleashed on the town and it's up to him and a bunch of teenagers, who let the monsters out in the first place, to put them back before they ruin the town. The whole plot of the movie is almost like Jumanji for the millennials or better yet a nice little spin on the intro of the TV series. The pacing of the movie is a bit odd. The first half which introduces characters and set up their traits is a bit slow and it does lag on a bit. When the exciting stuff happens in the second half when the monsters are out and the protagonists have to go after them it's quick. I mean really quick. The first half felt longer than the second half. Also, what bummed me out were that there were some famous Goosebumps monsters that reduced to just cameo appearances, some that were used for promo. As many books Stine made you would've figured out that they would featured more than the ones they chose. One example was that they could've shown more of the monsters going on a rampage on the town and one of my favorites, the Haunted Mask, could've been that character making mischief attack people as the run from the chaos kinda like Gremlins. On a positive side there are some Easter eggs in the film. See if you can find them.

Comedy

As I stated earlier, Goosebumps stories were scary. People had nightmares about them. So what do you do when you have some of the scariest books of kid literature ever? You make a comedy out of them. I think you can say that the Goosebumps movie is a form of satire on the series. It pokes of its self. The monsters were portrayed in a sort of comical form as you would think they would be in the books. Overall, there were some jokes that worked and some that didn't and were forced. An example was all the scenes with the main protagonist's (Zach Cooper played by Dylan Minnette) mom played by Amy Ryan. They did try to do the cool mom thing but they couldn't. Perhaps they should watch Amy Poeler in Mean Girls and see how it's done. Jack Black is standard Jack Black, weird fat guy that does something funny once in a while, like in almost every film he's in. Take that as you may. The highlight of the film's comedy was Ryan Lee. He basically stole every scene he was in and was gold.


Final Verdict

Goosebumps was alright for what it was overall, a kids movie. It was good, but it could've been great. Some jokes were great, some could've been better. They had a lot of material to work with and utilized than the stuff they used. Despite that it was sorta enjoyable. Audience beware, you're in for a okay scare. It gets a 3 out of 5.