Fantasy

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
  • IMDb: link

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald movie reviewThe sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them spends most of the first half-hour getting the previous film’s major characters together once again. Mixing in a younger Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) and introducing, but failing to develop, Johnny Depp as the villain Grindelwald, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald then attempts to steal a bit of the magic from the Harry Potter films.

While it provides more imaginative creatures and amusing awkwardness from Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the film is littered with problems including an awkwardly-structured plot, a ponderous opening act, a disinterest to do anything more than hint at the core relationship that fuels the plot, and a lack of any sort of conclusion.

Much like the previous film, The Crimes of Grindelwald offers fun, but mostly forgettable, entertainment. There are some nice additions here, including Law as the younger Dumbledore and Zoë Kravitz as a woman with feelings for both the Scamander brothers, but the script fails to make the best use of the talent at hand.

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The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
  • IMDb: link

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms movie reviewAdapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann‘s short story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” The Nutcracker and the Four Realms offers big budget Disney family entertainment filled to the brim with special effects and lessons about believing in yourself and sticking by family in tough times. While it incorporates much of the ballet’s music into its score (and adds a couple of notable ballet sequence as well), The Nutcracker and the Four Realms goes for a more straightforward Wizard of Oz-style tale with a young female protagonist lost in a magical world.

Mackenzie Foy stars as Clara Stahlbaum. Still grieving over her mother’s (Anna Madeley) recent death, and struggling to get along with her father (Matthew Macfadyen) and siblings (Tom Sweet and Ellie Bamber), Clara discovers a magical world her mother created which is divided into Four Realms (Flower, Snowflake, Sweet, and a rebelling realm which is no longer mentioned). Traveling to the new world by way of her godfather (Morgan Freeman), Clara goes in search of a key which has the power to change the world and literally open the last secret left to Clara by her mother.

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Lucifer – The Complete Third Season

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Lucifer – Season Three
  • wiki: link

Lucifer - The Complete Third Season Blu-ray reviewLucifer‘s Third Season was the show’s longest of its three-year run on FOX (including a couple of episodes originally intended for Season Two). Despite the network cancelling the show, it turns out Season Three won’t be the end of Lucifer which will be showing up on Netflix in 2019 with 10 new episodes that will allow the characters to deal with the fallout of this season finale’s cliffhanger ending.

The major addition to the cast in Season Three was the introduction of Tom Welling as both a police captain (and a potential love interest for Chloe) and an immortal unable to die who inserts himself into the lives of Lucifer (Tom Ellis) and Chloe (Lauren German) in order to achieve his own agenda (and screw with Lucifer). We also got the return of Charlotte Richards (Tricia Helfer) struggling to deal with her time in Hell (when her body was possessed by Lucifer’s mother) and the knowledge of where she is headed if she doesn’t change her ways and make some major changes to her life.

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He-Man and the Masters of the Universe – The Cosmic Comet

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe – The Cosmic Comet
  • wiki: link

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe - The Cosmic Comet TV review

Our Throwback Tuesday post takes us back to Eternia and the sword-wielding protector of Castle Greyskull. Created for the sole purpose of selling more He-Man toys, the first episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is bizarre. The core characters all get introduced here as Skeletor (Alan Oppenheimer) attempts to seize control of an evil comet to give him the power to break into Castle Greyskull and rule all of Eternia. To stop him, He-Man (John Erwin) and his friends Man-At-Arms (Oppenheimer), Orko (Lou Scheimer), and Teela (Linda Gary) will enlist the help of a washed-up wizard named Zagraz (Erwin) who helps create a twin for the comet filled with peace and love to help balance out its malicious nature. (Did I mention the plot to this one was pretty damn odd?)

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The Dragon Prince – Book One: Moon

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Dragon Prince – Book One: Moon
  • wiki: link

The Dragon Prince - Book One: Moon TV review

The First Season of Netflix’s anime series The Dragon Prince, known as “Book One: Moon,” follows the adventures of two young princes and and Elvish assassin with an aversion to killing anyone, in the middle of a generational blood feud between humans and Elves that the trio hope to end by returning a stolen dragon egg back to the realm of magic. Although the opening episode “Echoes of Thunder” is pretty heavy in opening narration and exposition to set the stage for the events which will follow, the series builds momentum over its nine-episode “Book One” by focusing on the young protagonists of Callum (Jack De Sena), Ezran (Sasha Rojen), and Rayla (Paula Burrows) who push through initial distrust to work together and begin their journey.

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