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X-Men: Dark Phoenix – The Last Stand (Really This Time)

  • Title: X-Men: Dark Phoenix
  • IMDb: link

X-Men: Dark Phoenix movie reviewAbandoning any further attempts to reconnect with the original timeline in Bryan Singer’s X-Men, Dark Phoenix offers Sony a second chance at the “Dark Phoenix Saga,” so thoroughly botched in X-Men: The Last Stand. Set in the early 1990s where the X-Men have gone from outcasts to national heroes, the film centers around Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner as X-Man Jean Grey struggling to deal with new powers after exposure to a cosmic entity that overwhelms her personality and breaks down walls in her mind meant to hide traumatic events.

Dark Phoenix clears the lowest bar fairly easily, it’s better than X-Men: The Last Stand. Then again, so is a lukewarm Diet Coke. While Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, and James McAvoy are all holdovers from X-Men: First Class, the film primarily focuses on Jean Grey who was only introduced in (the mostly forgettable) X-Men: Apocalypse forcing fans to think back to Famke Janssen‘s performance to have any real connection to the character. It doesn’t help that Jean’s main relationships in the film are with the bland Tye Sheridan as the boyfriend with which she shares no on-screen chemistry or Professor X (McAvoy) in full-on asshole mode for most of the film.

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Supergirl – The Quest for Peace

  • Title: Supergirl – The Quest for Peace
  • wiki: link

“Try not to quote Hitler in public, dear. It will hurt the brand.”

Supergirl - The Quest for Peace television review

Supergirl ends its Fourth Season with a solid, although not quite super, episode as Kara (Melissa Benoist) strives to undo all of Lex Luthor‘s (Jon Cryer) evil machinations that have set him up as America’s new hero. “The Quest for Peace” (taking its name from one of the best forgotten Superman sequels – which is still isn’t the worst Superman movie ever made) makes good use of flashbacks to fill in the events from Lex’s point-of-view (which cover quite a bit of ground while Supergirl was occupied with Red Daughter). From there Lex struts his stuff turning aliens into human batteries Matrix-style to fuel a space laser he plans to use to kill Superman. Ah, yes, there’s the mad-scientist with Superman-envy (and hair envy) we know and love. Cryer continues to entertain as Lex Luthor, although it’s unclear how much we may get of the character going forward.

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John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

  • Title: John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
  • IMDb: link

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum movie reviewJohn Wick was simple revenge story stylized with a flourish of memorable action scenes (and an absurd amount of killshots to the head). John Wick: Chapter 2 brought back Keanu Reeves as the notorious hitman featuring a more convoluted story that was designed to help expand John Wick’s world. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum returns, at least initially, to the clear focus of the original by offering a set-up of Wick declared excommunicado and on the run from the very organization he has worked for, with an ever-increasing price on his head, numerous assassins looking to cash in, and all the usual help and support once available now denied.

For the first-half of the film, Chapter 3 works quite well as our protagonist runs for his life and calls on the few remaining debts owed to him. However, about halfway through the film the story shifts and, despite several impressive action scenes, never works quite as well as the writers once again over-complicate what should be a relatively straight action tale while instead focusing on more world building and setting up the next inevitable sequel. Parabellum doesn’t so much as come to a close as run out of time with the story left unfinished (and me left unfulfilled).

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1982 – Conan the Barbarian

  • Title: Conan the Barbarian
  • IMDb: link

Conan the Barbarian reviewToday’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to harsh lands of Cimmeria, the days of high adventure, and a barbarian known as Conan. On or around this date 37 years ago Arnold Schwarzenegger hit the big screen in the first of several iconic roles which would transform the former body builder into a movie star. Based on the character and stories created by Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian offers an origin story for a barbarian thief raised in slavery and his quest to avenge the death of his parents by the wizard Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones).

More one-dimensional than his comic counterpart, this Conan lacks the wit found on the printed page as he stumbles through the various obstacles put in front of him. From his journey of slave, to gladiator, to wandering barbarian, Conan picks up companions in the beautiful Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), the wizard Akiro (Mako), and the archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez). The film is hardly the stuff of great cinema, and some of its elements and effects have aged better than others, but more than three decades later it still retains its charm (including Jones’ reptilian villain turn, some enjoyable action sequences, and the memorable score by Basil Poledouris).

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Supergirl – Red Dawn

  • Title: Supergirl – Red Dawn
  • wiki: link

Supergirl - Red Dawn television review

Along with bringing Kara (Melissa Benoist) face-to-face with Red Daughter for the first time, the penultimate episode of the season also softens her defeat against her doppelganger, and the victory of Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer), with the return of her sister. It seems the aborted adoption has loosened the memory blocks J’onn (David Harewood) put in place in Alex‘s (Chyler Leigh) mind with old memories resurfacing in dreams. Watching her sister nearly beat to death by a shadow version finally returns Alex to normal, and just in time as it seems Supergirl is going to need all the help that she can get now that Lex Luthor is a hero by single-handedly stopping the Kaznian invasion and “killing” Supergirl. Although it’s not confirmed that Red Daughter is truly dead (this wouldn’t be the first time Lex has pulled a fast one), either way it certainly appears that Red Daughter was this season’s red herring as simply another pawn in Lex Luthor’s rise to power.

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