4 Razors

Titans – Aqualad

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Titans – Aqualad
  • wiki: link

Titans - Aqualad television review

Disconnected from current events, “Aqualad” offers a flashback episode that introduces another former member of the team in Aqualad (Drew Van Acker) who will meet a tragic end at the hands of Deathstroke (Esai Morales). What’s almost immediately obvious about the episode is the show’s creators chose the wrong actor and character to kill off as Van Acker infuses the Second Season with energy and charm missing from the current state of the more sullen members of the team. The flashback also helps build out Donna Troy‘s (Conor Leslie) backstory a bit more as well while offering the key moment that changed the Titans forever. The episode also offers the first run-in the team had with Dr. Light (Michael Mosley) and gives fans a look at the full roster of the original Titans team in full costume for the first time.

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Abominable

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Abominable
  • IMDb: link

Abominable movie reviewWhen it chooses to lead with its heart, DreamWorks can create a moving movie experience. More than a bit reminiscent of How to Train Your Dragon, the latest animated feature from the studio centers around a Chinese teenager named Yi (Chloe Bennet) who encounters an Abominable Snowman (Joseph Izzo) on the rooftop of her apartment building and decides to help her new friend find his way back home to the Himalayas. Along for the ride are brothers Peng (Albert Tsai) and Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) who find themselves reluctant traveling companions on a quest to stay three steps ahead of a wealthy billionaire (Eddie Izzard) and his private security army hoping to recapture the creature and return it to the lab it broke out at the beginning of the film.

“Everest,” as Yi names him, offers the same mix of cute and dangerous that Toothless provided in How to Train Your Dragon. Yi’s backstory, including her distance from her mother and grandmother and a recent family loss, help ground the emotional story while Everest provides the magic. As with Toothless, Everest is revealed to be more than he seems leading to an emotional whammy as Everest’s journey offers Yi an unexpected gift.

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NCIS – Out of the Darkness

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: NCIS – Out of the Darkness
  • wiki: link

NCIS - Out of the Darkness television review

Picking up the thread of last season’s cliffhanger ending, Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) returns from the dead in “Out of the Darkness” with a warning for Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Without going into detail about where Ziva has been, the season premiere at least explains the reason for her fake death by rewriting a bit of NCIS history and having the bomb that supposedly killed Ziva be the actions of a mysterious terrorist. Together the pair go on the run in search of the mysterious woman Sahar (Mouzam Makkar) while first Bishop, and then later other members of NCIS begin to understand just what his going on. Ziva is less than forthcoming about her time away, other than her single mindedness about killing Sahar and making it back to her daughter.

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Black Cat #4

/ / Comics

Black Cat #4 comic reviewAfter making it out of Doctor Strange‘s home with her prize, Felicia Hardy pushes her luck as the next address on the list of targets turns out to be the home of the Fantastic Four. My favorite moments in Black Cat #4 are Black Cat’s inner monologues involving the top two reasons no one in their right mind would ever break into 4 Yancy Street (while, of course, doing just that).

It helps that Felicia manages to sweet-talk an invitation from Johnny Storm, hoping to make out with one of Reed Richard’s books without the Human Torch noticing (and before the Invisible Woman returns). What doesn’t help is, for the second job in a row, all hell breaking loose as first Sonny Ocampo shows up and then Blastaar opens a door from the Negative Zone into the FF’s living room. Oh boy.

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Ad Astra

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Ad Astra
  • IMDb: link

Ad Astra movie reviewAd Astra is a slow, thoughtful film at least as interested in the character study of an astronaut as the dangers lurking in outer space. Set in the “near future,” Brad Pitt stars as astronaut Roy McBride sent to Mars on a top secret mission to end the power surges that are affecting the planet (and nearly killing Roy in the opening scene). The surges are coming from the edge of the solar system where Roy’s father H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) and his expedition disappeared decades ago.

While not as engaging as The Martian or as ambitious as Gravity or Contact, Ad Astra does provide a fine performance by Pitt to center its story. The always reliable, but not remarkable, McBride is put through the paces in the latest mission that gets personal far too easily for the stoic astronaut who has made a career by ignoring his feelings.

Sci-fi fans will no doubt enjoy various space obstacles that Roy will struggle to work through in order to reach Neptune, although there’s no much we haven’t seen done better before (and the space monkeys are best forgotten altogether).

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