Avengers: Infinity War - Did It Suck?

     Marvel's biggest movie is here! By biggest, I mean just that as it is the largest cast featuring everyone and their momma who has been a major player in the Marvel cinematic universe ever since it has begun. We've been literally front and center in theaters watching Marvel connect the dots and set everything up for the events in this movie. With all the major Marvel players in this movie, will it truly be the epic superhero movie experience Marvel wants to boast that it is or are we looking at Justice League 2.0? Will Avengers: Infinity War suck?
     So, the whole plot of the movie is Thanos, who's appearance in the Marvel movie have been here and there building up to this moment, is after six power stones which if he does have all six he will destroy half of all life in the universe. It's up to practically everyone who's been in every movie in the MCU to stop them. Epic, right? It was totally epic in every sense. Epic fights, epic heroic moments, and in the case of both Chrises, Evans and Hemsworth, epic beards. So the movie is basically the superhero version of American Graffiti... Wait, some of you may not get that. It's the superhero version of Pulp Fiction in that most of the movie is pretty much everyone breaking off in different group like the second half of a Scooby Doo episode and doing different sub plots in order to stop Thanos.
     Everything is woven beautiful in the sense that it's almost like watching mini movies of each Marvel film. You would not think that Marvel would successfully mix the episodic aspect of movies like Black Panther and Guardians with the continuing drama-ness of Captain America and Thor but they did it well. When the Guardians of the Galaxy show up you get straight up comedy, which matching them up with Thor and Hemsworth's comedic presence was genius. You got the same chemistry Spider-Man and Iron Man had together in Homecoming. And that and the stuff you usually got in your standard Captain America/Avengers movie. Everything melds well together and everyone plays their part well, they had all 10+ years to do that so no shock.
     Along with all the epicness of the movie you get a lot of drama. Oh, boy do you get a ton of it. From Thanos' backstory and his interaction with Gamora. The movie's highlight was the substory of Gamora and Thanos. Not much has backstory has been done to Gamora in the Guardian films but they are brought out in the forefront with her being warlord daddy's little girl. As for Thanos, this film is another continuation of the simpathetic villian, like Killmonger in Black Panther and Vulture in Homecoming to name a few, who is doing some pretty bad things for their version of the greater good. This time killing half the universe to throw things into balance instead of doing all of this to get bf points with Death like in the comics.
     You're gonna need tissues for this movie. From Gamora's backstory and connection to Thanos, the relationship with Scarlet Witch and Vision, and probably the most emotional part of the movie: the ending. The ending had balls. I'm not going to spoil it for you but it's true, some heroes do not make it. It wasn't your standard superhero endings that even though something tragic happened it gives you a message of hope.

Final Verdict
     So, did Avengers: Infinity War suck? NOPE! As Marvel's big superhero movie starring everybody it did not. It was more like a celebration of all the movies that Marvel has done in the past years all blended together smoothly. You have all the custom movie tricks and the cookie cutterness of Marvel movies, but they don't seem so cookie cuttery. You get all the good, and then some. The ending was a big bonus as it gives you a bit of intelligence that was needed. As shocking and sad as it was it was beautiful and genius, leaving you wanting to know how will not only the MCU will deal with all that happened but what Marvel themselves will do to fix it. How do I rate it? It gets 4 infinity stones out of five.

Should We Be Worried About the Spyro Reignited Trilogy?

     Nostalgia has hit us hard like a tsunami this week. We're getting a Spyro game. Not a brand new game, but a remaster anyway. There was an apparent leak that revealed that Toys for Bob was going to give Spyro the remaster treatment, just like Crash Bandicoot and the N. Sane Trilogy, and now everything has been confirmed. We will be getting the new, yet old, Spyro Reignited Trilogy this September, if it doesn't get delayed. It will be published by Activision who published the remastered Crash games and if that doesn't get you running down memory lane like it's an marathon on your childhood, Tom Kenney who voiced a majority of the old Spyro games will reprise his role as Spyro for the entire remaster.

      So for the millennials out there Spyro was platformer that came out during the golden era of 3D platformer games like Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Super Mario 64, and another series that we've gotten the remaster treatment Crash Bandicoot. With this remaster everything should be cool right? Right?

       I'm sure lot of people had their nostalgia goggles as soon as they heard the news and thought back to days playing the game when they were young and how awesome the game was back then. I'm not saying that the series suck, it did everything but suck. I'm saying that maybe the gameplay could come off as a bit dated as in most cases things do not hold up as time passes. Things may not be as awesome as we remembered it and time has a funny way to make us aware of that by showing us how outdated things can be.
     We've seen this with Yooka-Laylee. Yooka-Laylee isn't what you call an old game, but Playtonic, the studio who developed the game, treated as a spiritual sequel to the popular Banjo-Kazooie series and got us all in the nostalgia feels.We were partially disappointed as we were treated to old and dated gameplay that gave the game a stale taste.
     Luckily this wasn't the case when remade Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy where Vicarious Visions did much more than just give the first three Crash games a facelift with updated graphics. They tweaked gameplay mechanics a bit that made it a bit more challenging and felt new. Hopefully that is what Toys for Bob has in mind for remastering the Spyro games as well.

What are your thoughts?

Who May Or May Not Be In The Next Super Smash Bros

     Last week we've got the game teasers to end all game teasers. We were treated to a brand new Smash Bros game coming out for the Switch. Not much was shown by for the people that missed out it first started out as a mock trailer for Splatoon as it started out with two Inklings fighting. On of them looks behind them and gazes in awe of the Smash logo engulfed in flames. We then see silhouettes of Mario, Link, and a few characters. This has led the internet to speculate who will be in the upcoming game with guesses of which characters are shown the silhouettes. There are a few obvious ones like Bowser and and DK, but everyone else is a complete mystery. People are speculating so we're going to speculate as well. Here's who I think will make the cut. Again, this isn't official but merely guess as to who will be and who may not be in the next installment for the Switch, hopefully.

N64 Fighters

     So, if you don't know who they are they are Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Pikachu, Yoshi, Samus, Fox, Luigi, Ness, Captain Falcon, and Jigglypuff. We know that Mario, Link, and Donkey Kong are pretty much confirmed (shockingly) but what about everyone else. So most of the character in this group are from well established titles in Nintendo's history and have been there from the very start so we know that most of them are going to stay, well mostly everybody. Ness was almost cut in Melee in favor of Lucas so could he end up being cut? The same is for Jigglypuff as it was also considered being cut for Melee and Brawl. Unlike Ness, Jigglypuff the case for being on the chopping block makes it more apparent as it has gotten worse over the franchise with it being in lower ranks with each game. Is Jigglypuff on the final chopping block?

Melee Fighters

     Zelda, Sheik, Peach, Ganondorf, Bowser, Marth, Roy, Mewtwo, Falco, Dr. Mario, and Mr. Game and Watch were in the remaining game with Young Link, and Pichu, being cut from Brawl and Ice Climbers being cut from Smash 4. Ice Climbers was cut due to the 3DS limitations and time constraints. Hopefully things have changed as the production team has probably have time to perfect their mechanics? Young Link and Pichu may be still setting this out especially considering Young Link since we already had Toon Link take his place, which also made more sense. As for the fighters who were in the last game, just like the N64 cast most of these characters are long staples of the group and will probably stay, most of them. Dr. Mario seems to have came back to give variety to Mario fans as Dr. Mario plays like old Mario before they changed his fighting style in Brawl. Mewtwo who missed out on Brawl, but came back to Smash 4 can either be cut again or might stay on the roster this time.

Brawl Fighters

     Wario, Toon Link, Lucas, Zero Suit Samus, Pit, R.O.B, Meta Knight, King Dedede, Ike, Olimar, Diddy Kong, Lucario, Charizard, and Sonic were the new fighters added to the mix. A lot of these fighters brought a lot of uniqueness with their mechanics and moveset. However I do feel like they will cut the least unique ones. Who will they be? They basically replaced Pokemon Trainer for just Charizard, but I feel like Charizard might not make it into the final roster and this will be a battle Ike will finally set out in favor of other Fire Emblem and Pokemon characters. They will probably bring back Wolf since fans have asked for him to be included in Smash4. Snake will most likely not return because I feel like he was a one time thing as Konami and Hideo Kojima did want Snake in Melee but it was too late so they included him in Brawl.

Smash 4 Fighters

     Just like the Brawl cast, I do feel like a lot of these fighters are new and have uniqueness in their fighting mechanics that we will be seeing most of them returning. But I do fee like they will be cutting a lot of Pokemon and Fire Emblem characters to make room for new characters from those franchises, so good bye to Robin, Corrin, and Greninja. I do feel like they will cut Rosalina in favor for Ice Climbers returning, using her gameplay mechanics. The question will be whether Mii will return since Nintendo has discontinued Mii recently. It would be nice to see if they stay as a nod. Dark Pit will probably not return as he is a clone of Pit or they might tweak him a bit to make them more different.

Black Panther: Did It Suck

     Black Panther is out! Ever since the debut of the title character, Black Panther, in Captain America: Civil War we have been desperately wanting to see this movie. It has set really high expectations and Marvel has gone all out trying to make sure that this movie does not leave us disappointed. Not only that this will be Marvel's first superhero movie with a predominately black cast, with legendary black actors like Forest Whitaker and Angela Basset, as well as soon to be legends like Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, and Chadwick Boseman so the stakes are even higher. Now that we can finally see it, have they? Does Black Panther suck?
     Black Panther takes place sometime after Civil War and brings T'Challa to the forefront being the new king of Wakanda, a black utopia hidden away, in Africa after his father's death. As the newly crowned king, T'Challa is not only met with how he should govern Wakanda, but how and whether he should help other people in the world with Wakanda's vast resource of Vibranium, one of the hardest metals in the Marvel Universe which is responsible for Wakanda's technology which is vast beyond outside world. With Vibranium being a million times more than its weight in gold, you also have people that try to steal it which T'Challa and the previous king of Wakanda, T'Chaka has to put a stop to as well as keep Wakanda a secret from the outside world which is a big obstacle in the movie and crucial to the plot.
     This is more of an introduction to Wakanda where the movie mostly takes place. The movie's director Ryan Coogler, put in a ton of visuals in this movie. You had a ton of beautiful scenes from the astral plane scenes, to the scene of M'Baku, played by Winston Duke, in his throne room, to the costumes of the characters which were inspired by the beauty of Africa. Black Panther has all of the good qualities of a Marvel film: great fighting scenes and action with a little bit of funny all throughout the film to keep us entertained.
      It had all of that and more. Black Panther was a movie with purpose but it  had a ton of political aspects to it as well. It dealt with a lot of topics ranging from colonialism to afrofuturism, to name a few. The film also invokes a familiar history with MLK's pacifism with Malcolm X's black activism with the two protagonist and antagonist characters, T'Challa, played by Chadwich Boseman, and Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan. The protagonist and antagonist also draw inspiration to X-Men characters Charles Xavier and Magneto which too were based off of King and X. Jordan has even said that the interaction between his character and T'Challa's is reminiscent of not only King's and X's but Charles and Magneto as well while explaining his version of Killmonger for the film. Coogler has woven these topics into the plot so beautifully without it becoming too preachy and a much better job than Anthony and Joe Russo tried in Civil War. Another thing that was done beautifully was the acting.
     The acting was superb. The whole cast brought their A game. Of course you never get a dull moment with veterans like Bassett and Whitaker, but everyone else was what made Black Panther extraordinary. Bosewick was amazing playing T'Challa who was coming to terms with his father's death and into his own as the new king of Wakanda figuring out how he should rule the country. T'Challa while being the main character did take the back seat compared to other characters but that has more to do with how well the other cast did than Bosework's performance. If you can say who was the MVP of the movie, it would be a three-way tie between Michael B. Jordan, Florence Kumba, and Letitia Wright. Florence Kumba was magnificent playing badass woman warrior and T'Challa's right hand man, I mean woman, Okoye who ripped apart in every scene, as well as the bad guys, she was in. Wright was amazing playing the sassy, witty, and intelligent sister to T'Challa and head scientist, Shuri. Jordan did a great job playing ruthless villain Killmonger, who while motivated by hate, militarism, and good old fashion vengeance did have a tragic villain story which made him the monster he was.

Final Verdict
So, how did Black Panther faired? It was amazing! Not bad for Marvel's first black movie in the MCU. It brought us everything we needed. A great story. Amazing and beautifully written characters and it was more daring dealing with political issues more than Civil War attempted to do, and did it so while being two hours of fun! Black Panther has raised the bar on how every Marvel movie should be. It gets four out of five. Wakanda Forever!
   

New Super Mario Bros Movie: Second Time's a Charm?

    It's a go on a new Super Mario Movie. Earlier this year we have heard rumors that Nintendo is considering venturing back into Hollywood and giving us a brand new Mario Movie. They have officially announced that the rumors are true. They will be partnering will Illumination Studios, the same studios that gave us the Minions franchise.
      This time around they will be fronting the movie as they will be in charge of supervising the whole thing and gaming god Shigeru Miyamoto will be directing the movie himself. Nintendo is really taking charge to make sure that this thing goes off without a hitch, and they should.

     We all remember or better yet would like to forget the live action Super Mario Movie that came out years ago. How was it? Bob Hoskins who played Mario described his experience making the movie as "a fucking nightmare" He was spot on. It was a good idea on paper but the execution was hellish. The directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel were reportedly nightmarish and shooting was a big mess. It wasn't until the studios actually got in and removed the directors that they were to salvage what ever they could but it was all for nigh as the movie did horribly at the box office and gotten even worse reviews. The Super Mario Bros movie is infamously one of the worst video game movies of all time and that says a lot with the damage Uve Boll did. After the Mario Bross movie Bob-ombed, Nintendo has been very selective in what they can make movies and shows out of. Can Nintendo do better?
     Well, a promised by Tatsumi Kimishima, Nintendo would think of ideas outside of the box and think of ideas  to expand the company. Reconsidering opening up to making films out of their beloved franchises could be thinking outside the box and a good way to expand things.
      As far as the studio, Illumination being that they've made a hit franchise with Despicable Me and  Minions would mean that potential Mario movie would most likely be in good, if not great hands, and Nintendo is dead set on supervising on what direction the movie can go. They have learned the lessons in the past, like maybe not casting John Leguizamo a Luigi and are wiser when it comes to who they let play around with source material. However this raises a few problems. We know that Nintendo and Miyamoto can make great games. Movies are however a different fire-breathing bull turtle dinosaur(?) beast. Whether or not they can make a good movie will depend on them and it's all up in the air at this point.

New Boss New DCEU

     According to Variety we have a new DC Films president in charge of supervising the DCEU, Walter Hamada. Hamada will be replacing Jon Berg and Geoff Johns. It's not a big loss for Johns as he will be the new creative officer for DC Entertainment and help Hamada. Hamada will not only observe films in the DCEU continuity, but all comic book films as well.
       It is apparent that Hamada being in charge of the DC films is a response to how the entire DCEU is doing right now. It's not doing so well right now. Justice League is a box office failure, as of now, only raked in $652 million worldwide with a budget of $300 million compared to Marvel's Avengers who made $1.5 billion at the box office. And unless your movie was Wonder Woman it has been met with dissatisfaction from critics and fans alike. So what do you do when your cinematic universe is sinking faster than the Titanic? You try to keep it afloat. And making Hamada being the captain in charge of seeing the whole thing steer in the right direction might be a good idea.
      One of the problems with the films is that there isn't a clear and concise vision with most of the films. As evidence with how all over the place Batman v Superman was with its plot and how it was setting up the cinematic universe and how discombobulated Justice League was with how things were poorly fitting together, was the vision wasn't clear or at least wasn't executed properly under Berg and Johns. Hamada could be a better visionary or at least steer things in a good direction as he was responsible for the successes of It and The Conjuring franchise. Whether he can fix the DCEU is a big question and it will be hard work, but at this point it wouldn't hurt.

Is There an X-Men Reboot Coming?

     So if you haven't heard Disney has just struck a deal with Fox and is now the proud owners of most of their entertainment divisions. As of now Disney are the proud owners of Fox Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and other studios. But we're not here for that. We here for superheroes. If you are a Marvel fan this should excite as this means that Marvel has legal rights to the Fantastic Four and X-Men again. Since Marvel can use the properties again that means that we might be seeing the X-Men and Fantastic Four in the MCU, most importantly the X-Men.

Disney and Marvel have two options to bring the X-Men into the MCU. Marvel can keep things the way they are as the recent films, First Class all the way until Dark Phoenix, already serve as a soft reboot to the many X-men films that have came out in almost a couple of decades. The characters can somehow be shoehorned into later films in the MCU. But alas this will cause some problems. 

     There's a lot going on in the current X-Men movie continuity that can make the current franchise hard to fit. Even with Days of Future Past which was Fox's attempt to start anew and get rid of some of these continuity issues some are still a problem. I'm looking at you two Archangels, two Deadpools, and pretty much rest of the mess that wasn't fixed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It would be much better and simpler just start things over. There are still some big problems with continuity.
     The other issue and reason for a reboot will be the actors themselves. You have some actors that have or are considering moving on from the franchise and retiring from their roles. Logan was Hugh Jackman's final swan song from the franchise with him playing Wolverine one last time after going back and forward on stating on whether he'll quit the role for years. With Logan being Jackman's exit, it might be hard to explain a new actor as Wolverine when we had Jackman digging his claws in the role for 11+ years. Jackman is not the only one as other actors in the franchise have or are deciding to leave after the filming is done as Jennifer Lawrence is another actor who has said that she is pretty much done playing Mystique or has until Dark Phoenix where she only came back to give her Mystique character a proper sendoff.
     So yeah, a reboot would seem to be the move that makes sense. It made much sense when Marvel made a deal with Sony and borrowed and gave us a brand new Spider-Man for Civil War and Spider-Man Homecoming instead of having Andrew Garfield put on the Spidey suit. Whatever the case they be hopefully it'll be a smooth choice that'll make X-fans happy, unlike Last Stand.