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X-Men: Apocalypse

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: X-Men: Apocalypse
  • IMDb: link

X-Men: ApocalypseX-Men: Apocalypse is a bloated film that wants more than anything to be epic in scale. Stuck with a ponderous first 45 minutes resetting up the world of the X-Men one decade after the events of X-Men: First Class (where apparently only some of our characters have actually aged) the movie has to spend far too much time catching us up on current events. With the script hamstrung by the need to properly introduce not only the movie’s villain Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), which means flashbacks to ancient Egypt, but also several new characters who will make up both Apocalypse’s Four Horseman (Olivia Munn, Ben Hardy, Alexandra Shipp) and the new version of the X-Men (Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Lana Condor) it takes quite some time before director Bryan Singer‘s movie gets on track.

With the resurrection of Apocalypse, who begins recruiting new mutants for his army, the movie begins in earnest with Mystique‘s (Jennifer Lawrence) return to the mansion and Professor X‘s (James McAvoy) abduction. After an appearance by Stryker (Josh Helman), used only to shoehorn in a cameo of Singer’s favorite mutant, Mystique will gather a few mutants together to reform the X-Men.

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Captain America: Civil War

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Captain America: Civil War
  • IMDb: link

Captain America: Civil War

The most ambitious Marvel Studios’ movie to date, Captain America: Civil War attempts to merge aspects of Marvel’s two best movies (The Avengers and Captain America: Winter Soldier) into a cohesive whole while telling a very streamlined version of the comic event of the same name. You know what? It’s pretty damn good. It may not be the best of the Marvel movies, but it’s certainly more successful than Avengers: Age of Ultron and halts the backslide we’ve been witnessing in the quality of the Marvel films since Winter Soldier.

Beginning with tragedy in Africa, the Avengers are called to task by the governments of the world who believe a group of powerful super-heroes must be made to answer to someone other than themselves. While Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) are in favor of putting the group under the oversight of the United Nations, Captain America (Chris Evans) opposes any such move. As the Avengers choose sides things take an even more dramatic turn with the return of the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) only further dividing the group with his latest actions.

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Supergirl – Better Angels

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Supergirl – Better Angels
  • wiki: link

Supergirl - Better Angels

Quickly wrapping up both the threats of a Krptonite-wielding brainwashed Alex (Chyler Leigh) and the mind-controlled populace of National City by having our hero offer a little hope and appealing to the people’s better angels, Supergirl‘s First Season finale delivers a more insidious threat when Indigo (Laura Vandervoort) convinces Non (Chris Vance) that if he can’t control humanity he should wipe them out.

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Criminal

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

CriminalThe premise behind screenwriters Douglas Cook and David Weisberg‘s Criminal is fairly ridiculous, even for B-movie action flick. Sadly, it’s not nearly as entertaining as the pair’s 20 year-old collaboration – The Rock. Set in present day, the death of Agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds), who alone has vital information to keep backdoor access into the missile command of the United States out of the hands of a terrorist (Jordi Mollà), causes the CIA to attempt an experimental procedure to implant Pope’s memories into a brain-damaged convict named Jericho (Kevin Costner).

Costner is an interesting choice for a remorseless cold-blooded killer forced to deal with unexpected feelings for a wife (Gal Gadot) and child (Lara Decaro) who are not his own and a mission he never signed-up for. His casting looks to be a huge misstep in the early scenes before Jericho’s operation, but the more conflicted the character becomes over the course of the film Costner’s performance begins to become one of the movie’s biggest strengths.

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Supergirl – Myriad

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Supergirl – Myriad
  • wiki: link

Supergirl - Myriad

“Myriad” is a messy episode, especially given it’s the culmination of Non‘s (Chris Vance) big plans for the planet and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). With all of National City under Kryptonian mind-control, Supergirl offers not one but two reasons for Superman not to be around to help. The first, that the Man of Steel is off-world dealing with a crisis may be cheap but it at least makes sense. The second, that he shows up and falls under the mind-control because he was raised on Earth, is just goofy. The only ones not effected are Kara (who was a Kryptonian the machine was designed to effect, let’s not forget), Non’s soldiers (also Kryptonians), the prisoners from Fort Roz, J’onn Jonzz‘s (David Harewood), and the unlikely duo of Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli) and Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart).

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