I enjoyed the first Venom movie and appreciate the character in the current superhero landscape. Venom is a smart-alecky, violent, antihero, portrayed well by Tom Hardy. With my thorough disappointment in recent movies and television shows presented in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I was glad to have a change of pace with this movie. Although I generally liked this movie, it didn’t quite measure up to the first one. Venom was still Venom, but part of the novelty of the character was gone. There were still funny lines and good action, but Carnage was overacted by Woody Harrelson. It was of an over the top portrayal of the character. Also, there was no explanation of Frances Barrison, the other villain in the movie, of who she was and how she got her superpowers and how it fit in with these two characters.
It’s hard to pinpoint where this movie fell short of the original yet still felt enjoyable. For one thing, it wasn’t always easy to tell who was who when Venom and Carnage were fighting each other. There were things that I enjoyed about the movie. One of my favorite parts was after Venom separated from Eddie Brock, he went to a rave party and was the hit of the party and was able to conceal his identity since everyone there just thought he was wearing a costume. I also like the character of Dr. Dan Lewis, who brought some comic relief with his interactions with Venom. I would recommend this movie as a fun two hours, even if it doesn’t quite live up to the original.
Oathbringer is yet another good book in the Stormlight Archive series. The story and characters continue to evolve. I have enjoyed each of the first three novels, but this seemed to be a bit better than book two in the series. It suffers from some of the same flaws. It’s a very long novel that drags in places and could use some trimming, but it’s hard to complain too much because the novel holds a lot of intrigue and drama. What I thought was better in Oathbringer was that the stakes and tension were ratcheted up a notch. The deck was further stacked against the protagonist, and there were times when I wasn’t sure how they were going to get out of these difficult situations.
I also thought the author made better use of flashbacks in this novel. There seemed to be more of a purpose to these flashbacks, especially as it pertained to Dalinar Kholin’s journey. It also served to answer many of the questions that to this point had gone unanswered, whereas some of the past ones seemed to only exist to fill space and for character development. Although there were definitely parts of the novel that dragged, it built to a strong conclusion, and then set up the finale of the series quite well. I look forward to reading the next novel in the series, and if you liked the first two novels, this will not disappoint you.
Blood of Empire wraps up what was really an enjoyable, entertaining, and compelling trilogy. Even though the novel was quite long, there wasn’t much fluff to it. There was a strong buildup, both in this third entry and the series as a whole. For the first time, the trilogy goes to Dynize, which I thought was an interesting change, since the reader was able to see not just the Dynize invaders but also their homeland. It gave these invaders a more human aspect.
This novel and series has a little bit of everything. There was lots of fighting, magic, spycraft, treachery, and the threat of a formation of a new god. I think one are where this story suffers is that there is a very large cast of characters, and although most of the main characters are well done, some of the secondary characters are far less well developed. The novel builds well to a climax, but the finish and the actions described were a bit confusing. I didn’t really quite follow what happened toward the end. The last part could have been improved, but overall I was pleased with not just this novel, but the trilogy as a whole. I especially liked the setting and the whole powder mage thing, which was quite different. I would recommend this trilogy to anyone who enjoys fantasy. You can purchase a copy on Amazon.
The Tomorrow War first intrigued me because of its premise—that time travelers come from the future to recruit people to fight in a future war against aliens. I’m not entirely sure that the movie lived up to my expectations. It had some good things going for it. There was action galore with lots of good fighting scenes and some cool special effects. The cast was strong led by Chris Pratt. The movie did a good job of getting you to care about the characters beyond just the overall fight of humanity against the aliens.
Where it went wrong was some parts of the movie stretched the believability aspect too far and the movie didn’t always do a good job of explaining what was going on. The military sent ordinary people out to fight these nearly invulnerable aliens with no training and just carrying a powerful weapon, as if this would somehow be an effective tactic. It’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t set up a proper training program. They only sent the people for a week, as if they could accomplish very much in a week. It wasn’t often easy to figure out what was going on in the movie because they did a poor job of conveying information. And the finale was a stretch, when they figure out a way to kill off the aliens and a group of civilians had to do it on their own because none of the governments were willing to do anything to help.
In summary, this was an entertaining movie with some flaws but enjoyable all the same.
I had such high hopes for Black Widow but in retrospect, I should have known that it would be disappointing, after the disaster that has been Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki. It is very clear to me that the Marvel franchise in steep decline and is working its way into extinction (at least as far as my interest goes). If you were looking for a movie with pure entertainment va;ie filled with lots of action, special effects, and explosions, than this movie will work for you. If you are looking for a compelling story that makes sense, than you will leave disappointed.
Spoilers ahead so be warned. First off, I am supposed to believe that in a world with crazy advanced technology including alien technology, that the big, bad Russian villain couldn’t be detected in his space station in the clouds. Give me a break. Second, in a world that has Shield, Hydra, and superheroes like Hulk and Thor that could turn the widows into dust in a blink of an eye, I am supposed to believe that because this Russian has a group of highly skilled female fighters, that he control all of the world’s leaders, can cause the stock market to drop in half in a day, and starve a quarter of the world’s population. It’s not like these widows have superpowers. At best, they are the equivalent of Navy SEALS and even that’s a stretch. These are just two examples of the sheer ridiculousness of this movie. Not to mention that Black Widow used to be a really cool character. Sure, she didn’t have super powers, but she had great moves and a captivating personality. She lost her mojo in this movie. In fact, she was the least compelling of the main characters. Her sister, Yelena, was far more interesting. The star of the movie was David Harbour, who played the Red Guardian. He stole the show whenever he was on the screen, but unfortunately he had such little screen time.
Save your money. This movie is not worth paying for.
