The Last of Us

Up until this year, I have always been an Xbox guy. I don't know if it was the controller or the games that came out when I was younger, but Playstation never really appealed to me. So for a long time I went with the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One. However, as time has gone by there have been a lot of games I have heard about that have come out on the Playstation that have gotten a lot of hype. It's the reason why I reviewed the first Uncharted game (hopefully more to come) and it's why I'm reviewing The Last of Us right now.

This game in particular was pretty high on my list of games to check out because it was not only a highly praised game but I had a lot of friends who played it and absolutely loved it. Sometimes your friends have more say than actual game reviewers.

And because this game is very cinematic, I want to review the game for both its story and its gameplay. As you will figure out, they do connect.

The Last of Us takes place in a post apocalyptic United States, 20 years after the initial outbreak of a bacterial disease that makes people lose their mind and turn rabid. They're not exactly zombies because they're not dead, but for the sake of this review I'm just going to call them zombies.

The interesting part about this world is, not only is it 20 years later which is quite a good amount of time, but it also seems as though there is still some semblance of government control. While governments have crumbled, they have not been totally dissolved and there is some kind of law and order, even if it very limited. You still have your waring bands of scavengers and like most zombie stories that come out these days the focus of the gameplay is just as much you fighting other people as it is fighting zombies.

The story mainly focuses on two characters, Joel and Ellie. There are other characters that these two run across along the way but these two are the main focus. Each one of them has their own backstory, some of which I will go into but some of which I will not because it definitely goes into spoiler territory. I got lucky enough to play this game four years later and not get anything spoiled for me and it made a great experience, I want the same to be for you all.

These two are great. Something about the last five years have made stories about older men and young women having father-daughter-like stories very popular (Logan, parts of Stranger Things season 2) and while I'm not sure it stems from this game, this game definitely sets the standards for that dynamic because these two are great.

You mainly play as Joel. Even without knowing his backstory, you can tell Joel has been through some shit in this game. He's worked as a smuggler in this post apocalyptic world and he has closed off himself to any kind of relationship that would bring him close to anybody.

As far as gameplay goes, Joel is this drunken brawler type in that he is able to grab his enemies, use them as human shields, beat the living crap out of them. And the great thing about the game is the fact that when he does something like that or he's choking someone out, not only can you sense it from the way he handles as a character but also in the interactions you get from those enemies being choked out. It's a very visceral experience because it feels very real.

Like I said, Joel is a very complicated character and he's also very much an anti-hero. Like any of the zombie stories of today, you don't live through the apocalypse unless you're willing to do some shady things and you definitely do that in this game. That becomes an appeal of the entire game because it feels like you are watching a miniseries or a very long movie, even when you're just playing the game, not in a cutscene. I will talk about the cutscenes but first I want to talk about how the gameplay is almost apart of the story too.

The Last of Us is somehow able to create incredible interactive storytelling in the gameplay. As much as you want to pop in the Last of Us movie and just watch all the cutscenes, the gameplay is almost as much a part of the story as the phenomenal cutscenes. Watching the cutscenes from this game stitched together is possible on YouTube and if you don't have a Playstation and never plan on playing this game all the way through, it wouldn't be a bad substitute. However, I feel like if the gameplay was gone, you'd miss a very immersive and personal touch to the story where you would fail to understand some of the motivations for what happens in the cutscenes. The gameplay is not only very adaptable and easy to control, but it plays a part in the experience while not really feeling like you're solving puzzles or doing combat. Everything feels like it is part of this cinematic experience and boy is it fun. 

But back to characters, then you have Ellie.

I don't know if I have the emotional attachment to Ellie that I think a lot of people developed after playing this game. I think she's a great character and I will delve into that for sure, but I get the feeling people loved this character a lot more than I did.

That being said, Ellie is great. For a lot of the game she serves as someone that Joel, being controlled by the player has to escort through their United States cross country journey. And yeah if you're a gamer, you know that escort missions are never usually fun. But Ellie is a great companion for your journey. Speaking on a gameplay level, I was actually really interested by the level of interaction she has. If I'm in a gunfight and somebody tries to flank me, I actually had Ellie yell, "Joel behind you!". It's stuff like that that I really liked when it came to gameplay.

Later on in the game you actually play as Ellie and her gameplay is a whole lot different from Joel's. It took a little bit to really get used to. Because she's smaller, she can't take people as human shields and her melee attacks aren't as strong. But when you use stealth it actually works better and she's like a spider-monkey when she jumps on people and just shivs them to death with her little knife.

The interesting part about Ellie is the fact that she was born in this post apocalyptic world. As opposed to Joel who lived through the initial outbreak, she only knows this world and yet somehow remains super positive through most of the game.

She's also a really well written kid. She curses, she's loud, and she's still naive to what is going on and how the world works, but man does she figure out. It's very much a coming of age story set in a post apocalyptic future and the truth is, if that's done right, it can be a very interesting story and it is.

And when you get these two together, tied on top with great gameplay interactions and a well written and well shot cinematic like game, get ready to have some tissues nearby because the tears are gonna come.

While I tend to prefer open world games, The Last of Us is a linear experience that is perfect in providing a cinematic experience. Whenever I put the game in, I felt like I was watching a movie or a miniseries and it was great. I actually bought the game earlier this year but only wanted to play it when I knew I had a lot of free time on my hands. I knew that I was gonna want to binge play this game like a series and it was really worth it.

While the gameplay is definitely a part of the experience, the main appeal of this game is the story. Without getting into too many spoilers, The Last of Us is this road trip journey with these two characters and throughout the journey that takes about a year's time, you get a lot of well earned drama, post apocalyptic settings and story points, and some great character interaction.

At no point did the different tasks you're given as a character feel unnecessary or irrelevant to the plot of the story and that's saying something because often times the story can get interrupted in games because there's a side quest you need to complete or something, but everything felt necessary and relevant.

The people you come across in this story are great. Nobody is really good or evil, they all fall into that shade of grey that is so fascinating. Even the characters who turn out to be your friends don't always do it for the right reasons or they may have done something sketchy in the past.

All of this with these two at the center makes for a compelling story that really rivals the storytelling of blockbuster films. I'm not sure why this game has not become a movie yet, but the honest truth is, I almost don't want it to be.

Video game movies are already given the stigma of failure from the get go. As much as I want to see this story portrayed as a movie, it almost undervalues the experience from the game and the movie becomes unnecessary.

Yes that means that not everyone is going to experience this great story which is a shame, but I don't know if a movie can match the perfection that already occurs in this game and the experience of being apart of it.

Of course I would buy the ticket for this movie if it came out, I just don't know how it could compare.

I really don't know any criticisms that I can talk about from this game. The story telling is better than a lot of films these days, the gameplay is easy and almost essential to the entire experience, and the game is visually beautiful.

I don't know if I'm going to do a spoilers review of this game. I think if I was going to it wouldn't be until I play through the game again. Hopefully I can nit pick some things I didn't like with the game but where it stands, any issues I have with it are very minute and not really worth mentioning.

If you have any criticisms of this game, please let me know. I want to hear your thoughts on The Last of Us. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films, TV, and video games I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So I'm including a link to the Last of Us 2 trailer that came out a while ago. I know there's a new one that came out today but I wasn't really a fan of it besides how good it looks. I'll add a link to both. Apparently Maisie Williams who you might know from Game of Thrones has expressed interest in playing Ellie in a live action movie of this game. Slightly related, there's a new movie coming out in 2018 from the X-men Universe called New Mutants that stars Williams. Enjoy!

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

I don't like the Guardian of the Galaxy movies as much as other people. I have come to realize that something that contributes to that feeling is the fact that when Suicide Squad came out, I tried to make the argument that Guardians of the Galaxy did basically the same thing Suicide Squad was trying to do and one movie is regarded as one of the greatest Marvel films and the other was regarded as one one of the worst films of 2016. I have since backed off that when I came to the realization that Suicide Squad was not a very good movie, but some of my feelings of Guardians of the Galaxy remained. Since, I have re-watched the first movie and I will admit that it is a fun movie. HOWEVER, I do believe the hype of the first film is incredibly overblown and while it is a good movie, it is far from the best of the MCU standalone films.

GOTG Vol 2 picks up not long after the first film as the Guardians are mercenaries for hire who help people fight giant monsters, etc, basic hero stuff.

After a deal goes wrong, the Guardians are on the run from people trying to kill them and they find themselves stranded on a planet with their ship disabled. This doesn't last long because soon they are greeted by a mysterious Kurt Russell who introduces himself as Ego and says that he is Peter Quill aka Starlord's (played by Chris Pratt) long lost father.

Quill who has been searching for his father for years is at first skeptical of Ego but he goes with Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana) and Drax (played by Dave Bautista) to Ego's planet while Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) stay behind to fix the ship. For some reason there is some real animosity between Starlord and Rocket in this movie that I don't totally understand... sometimes it just felt mean spirited and counter intuitive when we know what this team went through in the first film.

So there's a good amount of subplots in this movie, the race of aliens that were chasing after the Guardians is still chasing after them, Yondu (played by Michael Rooker) gets thrown into the mix as the Ravagers start to question his metal, Sylvester Stallone is in this movie for some reason I still have yet to really figure out. But the main story is Peter and Ego having father and son moments trying to figure out one another. And it's... okay. I mean Kurt Russel is great in the film. I am convinced Chris Pratt has transcended this franchise as an actor and is a little bit too good for a simple movie like this. The father son moments between these two are good but they just have a couple of conversations. They're good ones, but I would have liked to see these two fight along side one another. It is revealed that Peter has celestial heritage and he starts to harness his power as a celestial. It would have been cool to see Ego and Peter team up and get to know each other more.

But as it is, it's a decently fun romp with A LOT of comedy. Where Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was your typical Marvel blend of action and comedy, Volume 2 feels more like a comedy than anything else, almost to the point where it's hard for me to really take it seriously at times.

And yeah the comedy is good. But a lot of the time it's not nearly as funny as the characters think it is. I'll mention it here, Drax laughs at a lot of things in this movie. Especially in the first act they have Dave Bautista do this belly laugh. You probably saw it in the trailers and yeah it's funny... the first two times. Then it just gets obnoxious and  a little bit forced.

Also while we're on Drax, he didn't need to be in this movie. I hate to say it because I like his character and I like Dave Bautista, but he served absolutely no purpose in this film. He could have been written totally out and the story would not have changed.

In the first film he was seeking revenge for the death of his family and his humor was more unintentionally funny because he didn't understand sarcasm. In this he goes full comedic sidekick and is really only there for comedy. Yes, some of it is good, but a lot of it is sex jokes. Again, good the first few times but it gets old after a while.

I think after watching The Mummy, I've seen the Marvel comedy effect at its worst. The Mummy did not know how to correctly implement comedy the way Marvel does in this films. Again, I think Volume 2 implements comedy well, but you can see the cracks in the armor. Furthermore, they go so far overboard with the comedy that you're almost not prepared for the parts where this movie gets legitimately sad or it ruins a legitimately sad moment for the audience. If I do a spoilers review I'll talk more about this, just know this movie had the opportunity to create some very serious moments and they are a little bit undercut by the comedy that was laid on heavy.

On the Guardians themselves, the team expands a little bit in this film. You've obviously got Starlord, Rocket Racoon, Drax, Baby Groot (who I will talk about in length in a little bit) and Gamora.

But then you add on Yondu and Nebula (played by Karen Gillan). You also add Mantis (played by Pom Klementieff), an alien with psychic-ish abilities. Overall, I think they're pretty decent additions. I think I like the core team more but I did have fun with these characters and you get to know them a little bit more, especially Yondu and Nebula.

Yondu's character is a little bit retconned in this movie to serve a father son role with Starlord. It is a little bit rushed and doesn't exactly fit with some of the stuff that happened in the first movie. It's not really bad, it just provides an example of Marvel seemingly starting to regret the handcuffs they put their directors in and you can see it in their most recent films. Spider-man Homecoming, Doctor Strange, and I've even heard rumors about this with Thor Ragnorak. All of these movies, including Guardians seem to take a little bit of a new direction. I think in a certain way they still follow the Marvel formula that I'm getting a little tired of, but they all have elements about them that kind of buck what has been built up and we're forced to accept a little bit of a retcon of what we've known as fans. It's not a huge thing, just an interesting theory I might talk more about in my Thor review, a movie I am legitimately excited for.

Something worth mentioning is the relationship between Gamora and Nebula. While I felt it was a little bit tacked on, it actually builds these characters really well and you learn more about them.

Gamora's character is a little bit watered down from her deadly assassin role in the first film. She's still cool, I just think they wanted to make her more tangible and relatable as a core member of the Guardians so they could bring in Nebula and knock our socks off with this new character development they put her through. It is really great and these two together really do bring a new element to the story. Well done James Gunn... well done.

Oh... and I need to talk about Baby Groot.

While this movie has flaws, while Baby Groot has the possibility of being just a gimicky character like the Minions, only brought in to make the audience go AWWWW. They did everything right with this character.

Something that I didn't really expect was that Baby Groot is literally a baby. While he was never a very smart character, he is still developing in this film. The team can't depend on him the way they used to and they more have to take care of him like a baby. And that may sound annoying but it's actually really adorable. While they have to take care of him, he still does do stuff for the team and while many times it fails miserably for comedic effect, Baby Groots comedic moments were absolutely perfectly timed and placed throughout the film. And then you have the Awww factor. It's there but it doesn't feel like a gimick. I actually thought he was going to talk more and make everyone annoyingly swoon with his baby "I am Groot"'s. But he actually speaks less than I originally thought he would. I wanted him to speak more in fact cause he was adorable. They didn't overplay their hand, they used this character masterfully. So thank you Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, the way you used Baby Groot was phenomenal and now I want a Baby Groot toy.

I cannot deny that this film was visually stunning. It almost looked too good to the point where the good CGI seemed so glossy that it almost seemed fake and like it was a video game.

And that kind of blends into another criticism I have of the movie, this movie feels like a bunch of really good video game cutscenes. A couple of the action sequences feel like video games that I can't play. Overall this entire movie feels like a video game. A video game I would like to play but couldn't and therefore I'm left wanting more out of this movie. This seems like it's own little adventure not connected to anything, which is good, but not quite the epic that I think we got from the first film and therefore it feels small.

Video game cutscenes can be really good, and these ones are. But have you ever watched a youtube video of all the cutscenes from a video game stitched together to make a little movie? As good as that movie can be, it's not the full experience and I kind of felt that with this film. Throughout the film there is your mini bosses that they fight until you get to the main one. And because there's so many character they're jumping back and forth between characters. Again, you either feel like you're watching other characters in a cutscene or your character fighting out of your control.

I want to get my Last of Us review up so I can talk more about that interactive storytelling and when it's done right, but Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 needed that interactive story telling and I just didn't feel it.

Of course you're going to have Starlord and his music which is another big and pretty good element of the story. I do think the Awesome playlist Vol 2 had pretty big shoes to fill because the first playlist was phenomenal. In my opinion it's not quite as good but it's still got some classic tunes and it educated me on some 70s music.

Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is a pretty underwhelming movie. I am trying to be as objective as I can because I have had a bias against these movies in the past. It took me a while to actually see this movie due to a couple of things. I heard mediocre reviews and I just haven't been very psyched for this movie. If there was ever a movie from the MCU that you could straight up skip without any repercussions with future movies, besides Iron Man 2, this could probably be that movie. However, if you're just looking for a fun time, you'll get it with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, its a fun movie, just not the best.

It's not horrible and I think there have been worse Marvel sequels, but it definitely doesn't rank very high among the billions of Marvel movies we have out right now.

But those are my thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. What do you think? Where does it rank among the other MCU movies? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me you requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I feel like I might have been a little too rough on this movie and on the Guardians of the Galaxy in general. This video kind of showed me that. I think James Gunn and this entire team is just trying to make something entertaining and they do succeed at that. I won't take back the criticisms I've made, especially since I need to look at this superhero movie the same way I do every other one I review, but it is worth giving credit that this cast and director just like to have fun with some wacky characters and make an entertaining experience, and that they do. Enjoy!

Poltergeist (1982)

First and foremost I think this movie is lost some of its impact because a lot of the scares and the plot points of the story were parodied in a really good episode of Family Guy. In that episode they basically parody the entire movie point for point. I never realized that they were parodying so much of the film until I watched it and the similarities were a little jarring. However, there are still a lot of points to mention about this film and just because I watched the parody episode first, doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the film.

Poltergeist is a self-contained horror film that takes place in the house of the Freeling family. The father Steven (played by Craig T Nelson) is a sales representative of the housing company that populated the newly developed neighborhood that they live in. He, his wife Diane (played by JoBeth Williams), his oldest daughter Dana (played by Dominique Dunne), his son Robbie (played by Oliver Robbins) and his youngest daughter Carol Anne (played by Heather O’Rourke) live happily in the suburban lifestyle. However, one night Carol Anne starts acting strange and talking to the TV when the broadcast finished and there is only static. That starts a series of unexplainable events that the Freelings start to witness in their house. At first they see the paranormal experiences as harmless and almost fun. But then the house starts to become a creepy place and Carol Anne is sucked into a portal leading to a bright light and just like that she vanishes.

Desperate to find their daughter, the Freelings hire a team of paranormal ghost hunters led by Dr. Lesh (played by Beatrice Straight). They start to record and try to study the ghostly apparitions in an attempt to find Carol Anne and bring her back to the land of the living.

There are a lot of things in this movie that explain the reason why the movie is considered a classic and why some of the scenes and effects are celebrated by the horror film community. And yeah, the scene where the little girl looks at her parents and creepily says, “They’re here!” is incredibly spooky and iconic. It's stuff like that scene that makes me really enjoy this film. And the truth is, there is a lot to really enjoy about this film. 

However, there are a lot of story elements and effects that definitely do not hold up. In comparison with the horror films of today (not saying this is a good or bad thing out right), Poltergeist is a pretty tame horror movie. If you’re worried about jump scares, you really don’t need to. Yes a lot of scenes are a little spooky and there is a reason why the film continues to be a classic ghost story, but the fact that it was released in 1982 does bring some drawbacks to the film.

First off the effects do not totally hold up. I’m sure for the time the effects, especially the ones where the ghost is animated and floating around the house, looked cool. But thirty-five years later, special effects have made leaps and bounds and make some of the effects look really cheap.

Now that being said, there are a couple of scenes where things or even people are being thrown around different parts of the room. While there are clearly strings throwing them around, it still looks awesome. There’s a part near the end that a woman is in a room that totally defies gravity for about 2 minutes. She’s being tossed up a wall, crawling around on the ceiling, and tossed to the ground. This had to have been one of the best practical movie effects I’ve seen in recent history for a while. Thirty-five years later and there are parts that definitely still hold up. Furthermore, I think Poltergeist set an example that we’re even seeing today. The budget for this film was actually pretty low compared to the normal budgets of major motion pictures but it was still able to not only provide a creepy atmosphere and scare audiences, but it also made a good deal of money at the box office when it was released.

As far as story goes, Poltergeist is a little bit more of a cautionary experience rather than a story. The main characters are pretty thin in their motivations and especially in the beginning it focuses more on the creepy factors of the house rather than discovering who these characters are.

The other aspect about the film that is kind of strange is the character’s reactions to creepy stuff happening in the house. That iconic line, “They’re here!” is the last line from that scene. The little girl freaks the audience out and we don’t really see the parents react or how they respond to this weird experience unfolding in front of them.

The movie seems a little bit more concerned with showing the creepy stuff in the house rather than how this stuff is affecting the family. I mean it’s obvious that they are freaked out by it, but they don’t show how they deal with that fear. One scene something will happen, they’ll scream, the next scene some time has passed and they’re just dealing with the paranormal being in the house like its normal.

Now not every movie needs to be Schindler’s list in showing the emotions and thoughts that go into these characters, but I don’t think people recognize this movie for the storytelling as much as they recognize it for the creepy haunting that the house presents. This movie is almost like spending a week in a haunted house. Weird effects are happening around you and eventually you figure out why, but I never felt really invested with the characters. I couldn’t really tell you much about Craig T Nelson’s character besides the fact that he’s a father and he wants to keep his family safe from whatever is haunting his house. Now that’s not a bad motivation and it works for the film, but it’s not exactly strong or compelling.

The movie also is a product of the times and you can tell by the cautionary message it’s trying to convey. The television set was not a new phenomenon in the 80s but it was becoming more and more popular throughout the 70s and people started to think it was melting our brains. So it made sense that the television was at the focal point of where this ghost was coming from to haunt the Freeling family.

Overall, from a technical and historical standpoint, I do understand why this movie was such a classic from the get go. When you have Steven Spielberg as a writer and producer in the 80s, a lot of good stuff is going to come out of it. But I will say that the film does not hold up story-wise as much as I think I expected it to be. I think the film has been heralded as a classic for good reasons. There is a lot to love about it and thinking about it now, I do understand why Family Guy would dedicate almost an entire episode to recreating it with the Griffin Family. It’s a movie I think might be a little bit overhyped, but I understand it and can appreciate the work done on it and the love people have for it.

But what do you think? I know there are greater horror fans out there than I am so I want to hear from them what this movie means to them and how I’m probably wrong. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So apparently this movie spawned two sequels. I am not going to watch those. There also was a remake back in 2015. I don't think it was very good but hey maybe I'll be checking it out soon, personally the trailer actually doesn't look that bad, any recommendations? Enjoy!

The Mummy (2017)

I'm going to run you through the timeline of my experience with The Mummy. I only saw the first Brendan Fraiser film and that was only after this film was announced. I saw the trailers for this film and I was actually a little bit excited for it. When it came time for the movie to come out I got busy and I wasn't hearing great things about it. When I heard about this whole Dark Universe, I figured I would give this movie a little bit of time before actually watching it to see if this Dark Universe was actually going to happen. Recently I've heard some rumors about the Dark Universe being cancelled and I thought, regardless, I need to figure out what the deal was with this film.

The Mummy overall is a frustrating film because the honest truth was, I wanted this movie to be good. While a classic monster universe sounds weird and just Universal's attempt to get in on the franchise building market that Marvel is swimming in right now, I actually think a connected universe where not only classic movie monsters exist in the same universe, but they're played by some really talented actors. The Mummy attached one of my favorite actors Tom Cruise and seemed to be an action film with a supernatural twist. This could have been interesting.

As confusing as the whole thing is, this picture actually got me a little bit excited. I enjoy all of these actors and I wouldn't mind watching something surrounding the classic movie monsters involving them.

But the whole Dark Universe concept just comes off as very forced and not inspired. I would love to believe that someone at Universal has an idea for this universe that makes sense, but nothing about it seems that way. It just seems like a studio that doesn't have the rights to any superheroes trying to create their own shared universe only to make a profit. I mean the next film that was scheduled for this universe was The Bride of Frankenstein... Why?!? I mean sure if the rumors are true and they got Angelina Jolie for it that's kind of cool but I still have to ask, Why?!? How does the bride of Frankenstein fit into a larger universe that, from the Mummy trailers seems like an action franchise?

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm going to talk about The Mummy, how it stands as an individual movie, and what it means for an apparent larger universe.

The Mummy stars Tom Cruise as Sergeant Nick Morton. And I'm sorry, right off the bat, Tom Cruise is a very confusing character in this film. I could go into a whole rant about how he looks like he's at best in his forties and way too old for his particular rank. I know there are Soldiers in their forties who are Sergeants in the Army but for this particular character it doesn't make sense. But I'm going to push that aside because that's more of a nitpick for me personally.

But Nick Morton is supposedly a dishonest thief. This is kind of established in the beginning but I'm sorry, nothing about Tom Cruise says dishonest, slight of hand thief. I have no doubt that he could play that kind of role because I think Cruise is a better actor than people give him credit for. But everything about him in this film portrays Cruise as the typical cocky but good hearted action hero he's played a billion times over. There's a part where of course he has his shirt off and he looks like an action figure. I mean good for him, age is obviously not taking Tom Cruise down easily, but again it doesn't totally make a lot of sense.

But I'll get back to this cause this is just the start.

Morton and an Archeologist named Jenny Halsey (played by Annabelle Wallis) find a buried Egyptian sarcophagus buried in Iraq and start to bring it back for study.

However, Morton starts seeing and feeling an uneasy feeling which he soon figures out is a curse the resident of the sarcophagus, the Egyptian Princess Ahmanet (played by Sophia Boutella) casts on him.

As explained in a flashback in the beginning... and also half way through the film... Ahmanet was a princess destined to rule Egypt until she made a deal with the devil for power and killed her family. Part of her deal with the devil was to foster the devil's spirit into a human male vessel and the two would rule the entire world with their evil power. That plan was foiled in the past and now Ahmanet has chosen Nick Morton to be her new vessel.

The movie for the most part is Nick running from the cursed Mummy and with the help of Jenny and a secret organization, that I'm sure wasn't planned to be the secret SHIELD-like organization throughout the Dark Universe, he must find a way to rid himself of the curse and vanquish the cursed mummy.

Now, I told you the plot of the movie and reading that, I realize that that doesn't sound that crazy of a story. It's not that different from the successful Brendan Fraiser movie but it has enough differences so that it can be shaped and molded to be something new and exciting. And I'm gonna try and limit my mentions of the Brendan Fraiser movie for a couple reasons but mainly because I want this movie to try and stand on its own... and it's been a hot minute since I've seen that version so the comparisons wouldn't be fair. The only thing I will mention is that Fraiser's Mummy felt like an adventure horror film. It felt like a scary Indiana Jones and that worked really well.

Now this version chose not to be an Indiana Jones style adventure film, and that's okay. I didn't feel at the end of this I was going to see Tom Cruise looking for treasure in other exotic places of the world but for the most part it's a pretty simple straight forward plot. It provides for a movie that could potentially be pretty dark, have some good action in it, and potentially, without over doing it, could lead to a larger universe and I'll be honest, at the start of this movie, I was on board. There were a lot of things that seemed cool and the story was simple enough that I could enjoy it.

Now there are a couple of things that they add onto that plot that I really need to talk about but first I want to talk about the things in that pretty simple plot that they messed up and the first is Nick Morton's love interest, Jenny.

She adds absolutely nothing to this film. ABSOLUTELY nothing. She is the damsel in distress and nothing else. She barely has any kind of personality, she does nothing but be in danger so Tom Cruise has to save her. She contributes nothing.

And this does add into the whole complaint I had with Tom Cruise from the beginning. Their relationship, while not essential to the movie's success does put the spotlight on Nick Morton's evolution (or lack thereof of his character). She says at the beginning that she could never fall for a guy like Nick because he's a thief. Well if he's not a thief, not really dishonest, and is nothing but an action hero the whole time, it's really hard to believe he's had much of a change.

Everything she does that even resembles contribution could be done by somebody else in the Prodigium, the secret organization that I'm sure wasn't intended to be the SHIELD of the Dark Universe.

Enter Dr. Jekyll (played by Russell Crowe). Now this is actually a really interesting idea. The Prodigium is a secret organization bent on fighting evil in the world. The ironic part is that it is lead by Dr. Jekyll, a man who literally has an evil side that he constantly has to keep at bay.

Now I'm sure they were planning a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde movie and I'll be honest, if that movie comes out starring Russell Crowe, I'm on board. That sounds awesome still. But notice how that has absolutely nothing to do with The Mummy?

I get it, they're trying to create a shared universe. It's fine if you want to start early and have little Easter Eggs alluding to future movies. That is totally fine. And at first that's all it was. Half way through the movie, Nick is brought to the Prodigium and he sees a find from the creature of the black lagoon, and Dr. Jekyll almost turns into Mr. Hyde but he is able to fight it off. If that's where they would have left it, that would have been a great teaser for future films to wet the appetite. It keeps the plot going and serves as an in-movie advertisement.

But then they literally stop the movie dead in its tracks to have this.

And no this was not a spoiler because it was in the trailer. Mr. Hyde shows up out of the blue and they have a gratuitous fight scene.

And the worst part is, at the end of the day that is the only thing Russell Crowe did. Sure they allude to how he could potentially help and he gives some exposition for the people who maybe came into the theaters late and didn't catch the opening exposition that was the same thing, but he literally was in this movie to turn into Mr. Hyde and get knocked the fuck out.

Everything he did in this film, minus Mr. Hyde could have been done by Jenny and it probably would have made her character more interesting. But instead they might as well paused the movie and had that Dark Universe logo swing around the Universal globe for 5 minutes.

Remember in Ant-man when that movie was trucking along just fine and suddenly there was this random and totally pointless fight between Ant-man and Falcon that was meaningless and didn't lead to anything? This is exactly what The Mummy did and it's the reason Marvel movies are starting to get a little bit old as of late.

Easter Eggs are fine. Hell even an end credit scene is out of the way of the story enough to point towards the next movie in a franchise. But when you stop halfway through the movie to promote your franchise, that just isn't good storytelling.

And that's not the only thing that this movie stole from the Marvel franchise.

You know those moments where something serious, or sad, or creepy is happening in a Marvel movie? Probably the best example is at the end when Ronan is threatening to destroy the world and Starlord stops his pretty serious moment to challenge him to a dance off? Yeah, The Mummy does that. But while the Marvel movies only sometimes do those humorous moments in the wrong place, The Mummy didn't get any of them right.

I'll give Sophia Boutella probably the most credit in the film. This was kind of a creepy Mummy. She creeps around very ghoulish, she sucks the souls out of people. While there's no need to turn this into a horror film, you can still use that creepiness to your advantage.

But at an essential part where the Mummy is trying to perform a sacrificial ritual on Tom Cruise for the first time, they go with the direction of having Nick be ticklish and other humorous choices. Not only is it not really that funny, but it takes the air out of these genuinely creepy scenes set in dark alleyways and empty churches.

Yes Tony Stark is a goof ball and is snarky, but when he's at the mercy of Obadiah Stane in the first movie and about to die, there isn't any quippy remarks or mood killing jokes. They hold off on appropriate timing for jokes and let the sad, serious, and creepy moments be just that, sad, serious and creepy. The Mummy doesn't do that so I can't really take it seriously.

And probably the worst culprit of ruining the entire mood of the movie is Jake Johnson.

HOLY CRAP I hated every single scene that Jake Johnson was in. Every single one of them. And I like Jake Johnson! I think he's a funny actor. I love him in New Girl. I actually liked him in Jurassic World believe it or not! I hope he gets more work in mainstream movies but please make his future characters written better because nothing about his character was right in this movie.

Without getting too much into spoilers, his role is supposed to be a little bit creepy and part of the curse that haunts Nick Morton. But he does this really half baked comedy routine every time he shows up all while saying that Nick is doomed to eternal damnation. I think I get what they were trying to do with this character but man did they fail. He was so unfunny and so annoying and so inconsistent. There was a good portion of the movie where he just doesn't show up, so I forgot about him. And then he pops up again and I vocally complained because I thought he was gone.

Like Jenny, he adds nothing to the film and only brings it down. His role could have been consolidated in and eliminated, and I think the film would have been better because of it.

I think this movie's main problem is the fact that it just doesn't have it's own identity. It's trying to be a serious action film with some light hearted comedic tones like Marvel, but it throws in way too many comedy moments while dealing with a subject matter that doesn't really lend itself to being an action film.

The Mummy is an immortal being who at no point is matched. This was something the original Mummy understood. There was no way to take down this monster so while it was an adventure film, taking us to exotic locations like Indiana Jones, there was no way to defeat this monster through action sequences alone.

Maybe it's because I just watched Alien but I thought for a while at the beginning that it was going to play out like an Alien film. They go to a hidden burial site but pick up a monster that terrorizes them until they defeat her within an inch of her winning.

But instead we get this very odd, confusing, and rather frustrating film with a lot of unnecessary scenes, humor, and performances. Which is a bummer because whether I've made it clear in this review or not, I do think there is some hidden potential in this film and a larger universe surrounding these classic movie monsters.

When I see Tom Cruise in this movie, whether it's there or not, I see a regular guy (maybe a little better than regular) being exposed to a larger darker world. As Russell Crowe says, "Welcome to the new World of Gods and Monsters", I actually get a little bit excited about a supernatural series giving a new take on these classic monsters. While I don't think they're executing it correctly, I also don't think whoever had the idea of creating a larger universe like this is totally out of their mind. There is some creative stuff here, they just need to allow for creative writing and not focus solely on a studio's agenda.

I think the best comparison for this movie would be Suicide Squad and the DC cinematic universe. Suicide Squad is not a good movie. I've come to admit that. I think there's a lot of potential there. I wouldn't mind seeing some of those characters in another movie, but overall, too much actual story is thrown out for world building.

The unfortunate truth for Universal is, DC can afford flops like Suicide Squad and they still have other movies that did well and an established universe to go back to and mold into something that works better, hence how Wonder Woman put DC back in the shared universe conversation. The other difference is that Suicide Squad felt different enough that it didn't feel like DC was just trying to desperately copy Marvel.

 The Mummy feels like a bad Marvel rip off all the way up to the end credits when they are playing this triumphant but generic music you would hear at the end of an Avengers movie.

If The Mummy felt like it was trying to create its own tone and just had a couple of misteps, I would give the movie more credit. If it had some firm plans for a follow up that I was excited for and not the Bride of Frankenstein, I would give the movie more credit. If it had performances and writing that maybe wasn't that good but held promise for future movies and wasn't just confused, I would give this movie more credit. But unfortunately, this movie just had too many missteps and overall was just not good.

The jury is still out in regard to whether or not the Dark Universe is officially dead. The Bride of Frankenstein is postponed and there hasn't been any mention of when the next installment in this franchise is coming out. While I won't be surprised if another film comes out in 2019 with the Dark Universe logo at the front end, I also won't be surprised if Universal abandons ship for something more profitable.

But hey who knows, it didn't not make money so I could be full of crap. Those are my thoughts on The Mummy, what did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I'll give Universal credit, they seemed pretty confident with the release of this film. They put the logo out in the front of the film and released this promo. Enjoy!

The Goonies

The Goonies is a perfect example of the power of nostalgia and the internet. Nostalgia is not a new thing. I think it's in human nature to remember fondly the things that we saw, did, and experienced as children and try to recreate those experiences. Now the way we act on nostalgia has changed and in recent history nostalgia has taken form in movies and people have tried to recreate the experiences they had as kids watching movies. With the internet that is very, VERY easy. If you watched The Goonies as a kid, you can easily go on the internet and re-watch it with the same enthusiasm as you did as a kid and you can connect with people who also had that experience. By doing that you can empathize with other people and take a break from the realities of growing up. This nostalgia feeling is so easy to recreate that it almost has become addictive for people and studios are realizing that addictive feeling is profitable. So profitable that that nostalgia is showing up in the form of remakes and used as inspiration for writing TV shows and movies nowadays.

However, The Goonies is also an example of people watching a film with the same lens they had watching it as a kid and being blinded by that lens to the real problems with a film. That's where I come in.

The Goonies follows the story of a group of kids who call themselves The Goonies. It's made up of Mikey, the asthmatic leader (played by Sean Astin), Clark, or "Mouth", the cool skeptic (played by Corey Feldman), Data, the tech wizard token minority (played by Jonathan Ke Huy Quan, or as

everyone knows him, Short Round from Indiana Jones), and Chunk, the fat kid stereotype (played by Jeff Cohen). They are the best of friends who at the end of their summer are facing the hard reality that the house that Mikey and his brother Brandon (played by Josh Brolin) live in with their parents, the place they always play at is being sold. Now this is sad but the truth is, I think there's an unmentioned reality that Mikey's dad was just bad with his money and he wasn't paying the bills. But whatever.

But then the boys find a treasure map from the legendary One Eyed Willie (har. har. har.) and realize that the treasure can't be far. They go on a swashbuckling adventure to find One Eyed Willies gold and help pay to save the house.

Along for the ride is Brandon and two high school girls. I know that Stranger Things kind of stole the basic character for these two girls from Goonies, especially Barb, but the reality is, Stranger Things did those characters better (I'll talk about that in a little bit) so I'm just going to call them Nancy and Barb even though those aren't their names. (played by Keri Green, and Martha Plimpton).

All together, the Goonies make their way through harrowing traps and dangerous caves in order to find the treasure. But on their tail is a family trio of criminals bent on finding the treasure first and skipping town (played by Anne Ramsey, Joe Pantoliano, and Robert Davi).

I'll talk about the good things first. Despite some of the things I'm going to say about the cast, especially the kids, it is a solid cast. Despite some of the flaws, they still manage to create a classic feeling to them and there is a reason why they've been recreated in other movies, not just Stranger Things. They kind of set the bar for a group of down to earth kids in cinema leading to movies like Stand By Me and more down the road. Movies like this understand that being a kid isn't innocent and clean. They use swear words, they're kind of nasty to one another but it still has that feeling of friendship and authenticity. Now I'd argue they set the bar low considering what we got later on but again we'll get to that in a little bit.

The other thing that I appreciate about this film is that it is a straight up adventure film. There are very few films that really exemplify adventure in it's purest form. Indiana Jones is one of them, The Goonies is one too. Now I don't think Goonies comes anywhere near Indiana Jones in quality, but it is good to get a movie that is a straight up adventure. For the people who grew up with this film, I totally understand why this film appealed to people when they were kids. If you were around the same age as these kids, this was a great dream that you and your friends would get together and have an adventure. Believe me, I still dream of that today.

But I'm going to be straight up with you, The Goonies is not that great of a film. Whatever magic it had for you when you watched it as a kid, that no longer exists today in 2017.

First off, this movie is for kids. That's not the reason its bad, I'm just saying if you say The Goonies is going to be good to your friend who is 25 and never saw it as a kid, it's not going to be for them. As much as these kids swear and do things kids would do, they are horribly written kids.

Everything is spelled out in the simplest of terms and even that I think is a little hard to comprehend because while these kids are being kids, they're not getting across important story points in the midst of them barely getting the dialogue out as they're talking over on another and screaming. It was actually kind of infuriating trying to grasp a lot of talking points in this movie because someone would be talking and the other would be screaming over them.

The Sandlot had kids that would be hyper and energetic, but when important plot points were happening or exposition was happening, Squince Palledorous would tell them all to "SHHH QUIET, IT JUST WENT TO BED".

I like Sean Astin, I think he's had a great career after this film and continues to have one moving forward, but man did he suck at reading lines when he played this role.

Also they really made Sean Astin obsessed with a dead pirate named One Eyed Willie. Believe me, I thought it was funny at first but it gets a little creepy the more Sean Astin fawns over how much he wants One Eyed Willie's gold... Ew.

The rest of the characters are very much the same and while they create pretty easy to grasp stereotypes, there's not a lot to know about them besides Sean Astin has asthma, Mouth is your bad boy, Data likes machines and is Asian, and Chunk is fat.

Also while we're on the subject of Chunk... the truffle shuffle isn't really funny.

I'm not gonna sit here and talk about fat shaming a 10 year old kid, that's not really the point. While that is something that would never happen in a movie today without it being portrayed as a horrible bullying scene, I chalk it up to a product of the times. Not necessarily the right thing, but also I don't think they were trying to be malicious with the scene. I don't think it works in 2017, but it's mostly done with good-ish intentions.

My critique is that this movie is well known for the truffle shuffle scene and it happens one time. Once and it is never brought up again. Why is it so iconic if it doesn't even play into the character for the rest of the movie? I guess i just don't really understand why people think this is so funny.

But back onto the characters, I thought Josh Brolin's character felt out of place and the two female characters felt very tacked on. Like I said, they are the inspiration for Nancy and Barb in Stranger Things but like I said, that trope has been done better.

I do realize I am referencing Stranger Things a lot in this review and I should be talking about this movie instead of that, but it's to make a point that this movie does not stand up because while it provided inspiration for pieces of art later on doesn't exactly mean it's a great film, especially when the things that it inspired are a lot better.

I haven't even mentioned the cartoon-y villains because the truth is, they're not that great. In all the years that people were telling me to watch The Goonies, nobody said you need to watch it for the villains because they're not that distinct. There is a woman and she's the mother to two Italian guys. That's it. They're not very threatening and actually feel a little bit out of place in the grand scheme of things.

I guess I feel bad for shitting on this movie. At the end of the day it is a mostly harmless film from a classic director like Richard Donner and a producer like Steven Spielberg and you can see their finger prints all over.

In my opinion, the 80s was a strange decade for Steven Spielberg. While he directed great films like Indiana Jones, he produced a couple of movies that were pretty odd. At the time I'm sure they were odd as well. And while some were hits like Back to the Future, others were odd choices even today like Gremlins and this film.

I didn't even mention Sloth because I'll be honest...

I don't know what they were going for with Sloth. Besides being a Deus Ex Machina at the end to save the children, the only other thing he provides to the film is a more than hilarious but ultimately depressing sounding epilogue where we look in to see Chunk's parent's reaction when he brings home a developmentally challenged adult who they immediately would have to put in the hospital.

I don't know, maybe my childhood wonder died out a long time ago and maybe I'm just a stick in the mud but I can't say this movie is very good. I'd be interested in hearing other people's opinions. What did you think of The Goonies? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Regardless of my thoughts on this film, it's still fun seeing people's reactions and nostalgia to this film. This was actually Josh Brolin's first film and this is him talking about filming it. Enjoy!