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Mission: Impossible – Fallout

  • Title: Mission: Impossible – Fallout
  • IMDb: link

Mission: Impossible - Fallout movie review

Very much a sequel to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible – Fallout brings back both heroes and villains from the previous film. As we saw in Rogue Nation, the various other government agencies are still struggling to work with the IMF. This isn’t helped when three nuclear warheads slip through Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) hands in the opening action sequence and are about to be sold on the black market to a terrorist with delusions of grandeur.

Forced to work with CIA thug August Walker (Henry Cavill), Hunt and his team (Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg both return) accept their assignment, but, as usually happens, things don’t go according to plan. Rebecca Ferguson and Sean Harris both return to reprise their roles from the last film as a potential love interest for Ethan and a villain harboring and even bigger boner for the spy who put him behind bars.

Although Jeremy Renner isn’t present here, the latest in the franchise includes callbacks to several of the earlier films and in some ways feels like a final chapter to the series (while still leaving the door open if Cruise and company wish to return).

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Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

  • Title: Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
  • wiki: link

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies movie reviewSince the show’s introduction back in 2013, Teen Titans Go! has met with mixed reaction from fans. Some love the madcap feel of the short adventures while other felt DC strayed too far from the earlier (more serious take) found on the first Teen Titans animated series. Even if the show’s writing has been somewhat inconsistent, I’ve enjoyed my share of Teen Titans Go! and my only real question was whether or not its slapstick style could work stretched out over a feature film? You bet your ass it can.

Full of DC fan references and inside jokes (such as Nicolas Cage playing Superman), the film is a nerdtastic delight.

The movie throws us into a world (not unlike our own) full of super-hero movies. Robin (Scott Menville), the selfish leader of the Teen Titans, desperately wants to join the ranks of Batman, Aquaman, Superman, and the rest of DC’s top heroes who have all earned their own movies. Alas, no one takes the sidekick or his misfit team seriously. The solution? Find an arch-nemesis and convince a studio exec (Kristen Bell) that the Titans are worthy of a movie.

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Samurai Jack – Episode XI: Jack and the Scotsman

  • Title: Samurai Jack – Episode XI: Jack and the Scotsman
  • wiki: link

Samurai Jack - Episode XI: Jack and the Scotsman television review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to the adventures of the time-displaced samurai and his quest to make his way home. On the world’s longest rope bridge, Jack‘s (Phil LaMarr) journey is stalled when he comes face-to-face with the Scotsman (John DiMaggio). Having both spent days on the rickety bridge, neither is prepared to back-up and let the other by. The Scotsman’s bagpipes and verbal jabs at Jack only flame tempers further leading to sword fighting lasting all day, all night, and well into the next day. Only the arrival of Aku‘s (Mako) bounty hunters forces the two warriors to put their petty squabble aside and work together.

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Ant-Man and the Wasp

  • Title: Ant-Man and the Wasp
  • IMDb: link

Ant-Man and the Wasp movie review

2015’s Ant-Man was a fun and lighthearted entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe that, while mostly enjoyable, would certainly rank among the weaker (and more forgettable) entries to the MCU. Ant-Man and the Wasp brings back former thief turned super-hero Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), the original Ant-Man Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), and most of the supporting cast and characters from the first film including Scott’s former prison buddies and family. As in Ant-Man, several people are after Pym and his work. And given Scott’s improbable return from the Quantum Realm at the end of the first movie, Hank Pym plans of his own.

Although the plot of the film is a bit too convoluted for its own good as it continues to juggle multiple plots and characters (many of whom get far more screentime than necessary), I found the sequel more enjoyable than the original playing off established relationships and concepts introduced in Ant-Man. Following Avengers: Infinity War, smaller stakes (both literally and figuratively) also prove to be a nice change of pace from the universe threatening death dealer.

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Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay

  • Title: Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
  • IMDb: link

Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay DVD reviewObviously inspired by the “Unhinged” story arc from Gail Simone‘s Secret Six, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay offers us the Suicide Squad after a mystical artifact in a grunge house style animated straight-to-video movie. Lacking the broader personalities of the Secret Six, the film does offer appearances of half their number with Deadshot (Christian Slater) working for the Suicide Squad and both Scandal Savage (Dania Ramirez) and Knockout (Cissy Jones) working for a competing interest that wants a mystical Get Out of Hell Free Card which will offer one lucky villain a trip to Heaven.

Opening with an unrelated mission featuring team members turning on each other, strippers, and a bloody body count, the tone for the film is set early on. Vandal Savage (Jim Pirri) and the Reverse-Flash (C. Thomas Howell) both seems an odd choices to be interested in the card, and I’m guessing they were used more as villains of convenience (which ties in the previous films and also allowed for Scandal’s inclusion). Taking it on its own, it works as a sleazy B-movie. But comparing it to Simone’s original tale, it’s hard not to be disappointed.

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