Astro City: That Was Then…

Kicking off Astro City‘s new run at Image Comics (where the comic originally started), Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson return with this one-shot special looking in on the teen heroes on the verge of adulthood on a camping trip in the summer of 1969. Set only weeks after burying the Jayhawks, another teen hero team who fought the good fight in Kansas City for years before eventually falling to a bigoted villain fueled by hatred, the comic features the team coming to terms with the loss and the sudden brutal understanding of how dangerous their profession can be.

As a kick-off point, Astro City: That Was Then… feels a bit odd. It’s really more of a teaser of things to come. Along with the introduction of several new heroes we do see some familiar faces as well and are teased that although the Jayhawks may be dead that doesn’t necessarily mean they are gone. 

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Fantastic Beasts: The Politics of Dumbledore

  • Title: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
  • IMDb: link

I’m not the biggest fan of the Fantastic Beasts series. The Harry Potter spin-off has offered the opportunity to explore other corners of the wizarding world outside of Hogwarts, but the results have been mixed. While I still enjoyed both Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Crimes of Grindelwald, I’d rate them as the least engaging of the Wizarding World films.

So what does Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore offer us? Secrets into the life of Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law)? New spells and magical artifacts? Strange new creatures? Instead we get… politics. I think given all the possibilities what fans would least expect is wizard politics, but that’s where Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Dumbledore, and their various allies journey into trying to protect a wizarding world election from being stolen by Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen replacing Johnny Depp).

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Sonic the Hedgehog 2

  • Title: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
  • IMDb: link

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 offers your typical sequel with the return of all the core characters, a larger budget, more special effects, and the addition of new characters. The results are largely the same. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is likely to keep the attention of younger audiences, although the biggest audible pop in the screening I attended came during the mid-credit sequence, but other than the pretty visuals and the occasional fun action sequence there’s not much here for the rest of us for a film that clocks in at over two hours.

Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) returns seeking vengeance and power. With him this time is Knuckles (Idris Elba) in search of an ancient power known as the Master Emerald hidden by Sonic’s mentor Longclaw (Donna Jay Fulks). Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) return to help Sonic who also gets a new friend in Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) who arrives to help Sonic save the emerald.

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Legacies – Was This the Monster You Saw?

  • Title: Legacies – Was This the Monster You Saw?
  • wiki: link

“Was This the Monster You Saw?” offers the return of both Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) and Alaric (Matthew Davis) to the Salvatore School as well as the arrival of a creepy clown for the monster of the week. Hope’s return isn’t a happy occasion and she attempts to force her old friends into becoming her new army against the Gods. While she doesn’t get exactly what she wanted, a shaky truce is created while we also see the beginning of Hope’s humanity returning. The other storyline continues to follow Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) and Aurora de Martel (Rebecca Breeds) who discover they have more than a little in common while doing their own God hunting, although we’ll have to wait at least a week to understand just what they’ve found.

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