Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

I'm not gonna spend much time on discussing Jared Leto's absence in this movie, but I find it super hilarious that this movie seemed to actively crop out Jared Leto, as if they not only didn't want him in this movie, they didn't even want to pay for his likeness. That is the funniest thing to happen in 2020 yet. 

A disclaimer up front, I'm going to call this movie Birds of Prey. The long title doesn't bother me as much as I think it bothered other people, it would just be long to even abbreviate and the extra title seems gratuitous like certain parts of this movie. 

Birds of Prey picks up where Suicide Squad left off... (sorta) with the character of Harley Quinn

(played by Margot Robbie) free from the max prison she was in and roaming Gotham. However, it is quickly explained that her and the Joker have broken up and she's on her own now.

But she quickly addresses the fact that the Joker was very much a shield for her and now that she's not with him anymore, some people see this as an opportunity to take some vengeance on her for some of the grievances they have against her. Most namely, a crime boss by the name of Roman Sionis AKA Black Mask (played by Ewan Mcgregor).

Birds of Prey follows Harley Quinn navigating this new world without the Joker and gaining some unlikely allies as she avoids falling prey to Black Mask's sadistic criminal plots. While it is called Harley Quinn in other countries, the movie is called Birds of Prey and Harley's unlikely allies are a team of women that eventually become known as the Birds of Prey. This includes a mysterious cross-bow wielding assassin named The Huntress (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an underappreciated cop named Renee Montoya (played by Rosie Perez), and a singer/driver named Black Canary (played by Jurnee Smollett-Belll).

The four team up for a mcguffin related romp surrounding a young orphan scamp (I feel like of old using the word scamp) by the name of Cassandra Cain (played by Ella Jay Basco) and Black Mask's play for power in Gotham.

And there is a lot to like about this movie.

Obviously, Margot Robbie continues to play the character of Harley Quinn very well. She clearly has a love for the character and I think Warner Brothers in letting her produce movies like this is allowing her to kind of go buck wild with it and I'm all for it. I think one of the more interesting elements of the movie was when she was just roaming around Gotham as an integrated part of the city. Gotham in this movie is not really that distinct from any other city like New York, but one thing that I think worked really well was that she wasn't the random clown girl freak as if nobody had ever seen her before, she felt like a piece of the world and we got to see kind of the day to day of what a wacky character like her would have and I didn't know I would enjoy that aspect of the film as much as I actually did. I don't even think that was something that was overly thought about in this film, but something DC hasn't really been able to do just by virtue of not having as many movies in their franchise as Marvel does, is make their characters feel like they actually live in the world they're in. This movie got pretty close to that and I enjoyed it.

Something worth mentioning is that they do try and make her a little bit of a Deadpool-like character and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Before going on, I should note that I am not the biggest Harley Quinn fan. I already mentioned that I didn't watch much of Batman: The Animated Series but the episodes I did watch never made Harley out to be a self aware character, breaking the fourth wall, and doing the Deadpool shtick.

I'm not saying its bad, it just felt like they were really trying to make Harley Quinn DC's Deadpool and I don't think it always landed because it never went as far as Deadpool would go. Harley is narrating a lot of the film the same way Deadpool does in his film, but its more commentary on whats going on, not really a lot of meta humor. To be clear, I don't want her be a character who knows she's a comic book character, but if you're going to make her Deadpool, go all the way with it but make it your own. Don't half ass it. 

The next best thing about this movie is clearly the villain.

Maybe its my bias of never having anything bad to say about Ewan McGregor ever, but outside of Margot Robbie, he seems to be the only person who knows the movie he's in from back to front. He knows he has to be a symbol of misogyny, and the foil to girl power and I'll get to that element of the film later. But he also knows that at the end of the day he's a Batman villain and he's gotta be that special kind of Batman villains despite Batman being nowhere near this movie.

And he's able to do both!

Despite any thoughts on the over messaging of the film which you can love or hate, doesn't matter. Ewan Mcgregor proves that you can both be a symbol of how shitty men can be, and be an entertaining villain that you love to hate. While a lot of this movie deals in either black or white, Black Mask, despite being a clear villain, deals in some really fascinating nuances that make his character both disgusting and fascinating in the way people are interested in serial killers.

Although I will say, it is becoming a stereotype in comic book movies/TV shows to cast the main male villain/foil to the female protagonist with a flamboyant beloved Scottish actor. They did it in Jessica Jones with David Tenant as Killgrave and now they're doing it with Ewan Mcgregor as Black Mask and its a weird trend that kind of really works. They even kind of did it in Captain Marvel but Jude Law is English and that movie isn't as good, coincidence? Maybe!

The rest of the cast is alright. Everyone has a moment and if you're going to do a girl power comic book movie, this isn't a bad cast to do it with.

The little girl in this movie is probably the weakest part of the film, but I won't dig too much into her as she's 13 and paired up with some pretty talented actresses.

Compared to Suicide Squad, this movie does two things better... sorta,. It spends more time developing characters in the team, especially the ones we're meeting for the first time, and it doesn't make us believe that this is a team that is built out of more than a common goal. Rosie Perez does not come out of this film thinking Harley Quinn is her sister from another mister whereas in Suicide Squad (and even the first Guardians of the Galaxy) the team came together so quickly and were ready to lay down their lives for each other in a matter of minutes. In this movie, there is still a level of mistrust, and it does feel like its more a team up out of convenience rather than starting a new family.

My problem with this team comes from the fact that the banter and writing between these four kind of sucks because its way too friendly once they finally get together. I get that this is girl power Deadpool and they're trying to promote a team of women that support one another rather than tear each other down. And to be clear, I'm not saying they should be super catty or get into mud fights, but once they become a team any tension that might have been between these characters is gone. Luckily, it doesn't fully happen until the third act, but it just becomes cheesy and I'm sorry, the minute Heart's Barracuda started playing while all the women were kicking ass, it felt very produced rather than a real story. It also didn't help that they're doing this on a stage that actually looked and was utilized the same a stage from a Joel Schumacher Batman movie would look and be used like.

There's a balance to be had when you're making a movie that is both a comic book movie with a unique narrative as well as a platform to promote themes related to women and women issues. Ideally, you're themes should flow with the narrative that they're poignant but not overt. And this goes for any kind of theme or social message in any movie.

I think one of the better aspects of this film is how it points out that Harley and the female super heroes susceptible to sexism. It addresses that reality head on in pretty overt ways without glorifying it. Again, it goes into that idea that this feels like a lived in world where Female Clown Mercenaries and superheroes exist.

But there were times in this movie where the messages of anti-sexism (which I should note that I agree with) were pretty overt and didn't strike that balance as well as I think it could have.

The last thing I'll mention is just some larger about the character, and where DC seems to be going without a huge long rant. I've thought about doing something like that for a while but we'll see if I ever get there.

Something I've thought about after this film and doing a little bit of reflection on Suicide Squad and what a weird year 2016 was for DC (and pretty much everything else if we're being honest). I've come to the realization that we will probably never see Harley Quinn as a bonafide villain in a DC film.

I get that part of the point of this movie is to show her growth into a character that isn't defined by the Joker, but I think one aspect of this portrayal of the character is that we never really got to see Margot Robbie in that Harley Quinn role. Its alluded to in this film and show... kind of in Suicide Squad, but in both films Harley Quinn is shown as a troubled anti-hero who ends up doing the right thing when the time comes.

With how splintered the DC cinematic universe is, its hard to think of an opportunity that so many variables need to come together to see some of these classic super hero moments come together on the big screen. And while I think this movie introduces some ideas of the character that are interesting, we now have an interpretation of Harley Quinn that for the time being is just an anti-hero trying to recreate the magic of Deadpool.

And now, how I imagine the conversation between Cathy Yan and Warner Brothers executives when this movie was pitched on the topic of Jared Leto being involved in this movie.

Yan: So I have this idea for a Margot Robbie Harley Quinn. I hope its okay but I had the idea that this movie would focus on Harley Quinn and not include the Joker.
Exec: Oh Cathy, yes we are totally okay with that idea.
Yan: Okay great, I mean the story is about how the Joker and Harley break up so if we needed to we do a seen with Jared Leto if you wanted to, I know how these movies sometimes need to be connected.
Exec: Oh no, we don't think that's necessary. No need to bother Jared for photography. Thanks though.
Yan: Are you sure? I mean it might be helpful to have archive footage from Suicide Squad to show their relationship prior to the break up.
Exec: (getting visibly annoyed) I suppose we could show some archive footage, but we'd really actually prefer not to see Jared's face... this is Harley's movie amirite?
Yan: (Very confused) I... I suppose... I mean what if we conveyed some of that background information via animated cartoons.
Exec: FINE! But if those cartoons look like Jared Leto we're shutting down production, I swear to god.
Yan: ... Do you not want to pay Jared Leto?
Exec: No we do not...

Overall, Birds of Prey was better than Suicide Squad...

The movie has a lot of good elements like Margot Robbie and Ewan Mcgregor. And despite the fact that DC is trying to make Harley Quinn their Deadpool, the movie feels like its trying to its own thing and not fall into the stereotypical DC superhero film which I am all for.

There are some issues I had with the social commentary of the film stick out from the mix of the story and feeling overt, but I would say its a fun installment in the DC cinematic universe. I can't say I completely recommend checking it out as soon as you can, but I think you won't feel your time was wasted if you see it.

But what did you think of Birds of Prey? Are you a Harley Quinn fan? What do you think of the direction Margot Robbie is taking the character? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me 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.

Thanks for reading!

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

So right at the moment when I thought I was done with Call of Duty games, they find some way to draw me back in with their BS. First it was the mech suits and Kevin Spacey, before he was creepy, then there was a short period where it didn't impress me, but that was quickly remedied with a return to form with Call of Duty World War 2 (which I never finished, but that's on me), and now its a further return to form with Modern Warfare.

And to be fair, its not like these games fooled me. Despite the stigma behind these games that they're only played by middle schoolers who wanna be hardcore, there is a creative team behind the campaigns that do manage to knock out some interesting stories and while there have been some disappointing ones like Ghost, Infinite Warfare, and even the one that had no story just multiplayer, there is still enough to make things interesting and Modern Warfare does a pretty decent job at making the franchise somewhat relevant. But there is plenty to talk about.

I'll mainly be talking about the campaign. I'm not an expert when it comes to commenting on Gameplay, and the Multiplayer from my account is very much the same as its been in the past. Spec Ops I haven't played through, but as far as I'm concerned, the story is in the campaign and that's what I'm going to talk about.

Modern Warfare takes place in 2019. In the first mission you play as a CIA officer named Alex (voiced and mo capped by Chad Michael Collins) in a covert mission in Russia to capture dangerous chemical weapons. However, the gas is intercepted by a group of terrorists and suddenly the number one priority of Alex and his handler Kate Laswell (voiced and mo capped by Rya Kihlstedt) is to recapture the gas before it is used against Western targets.

To do this, they recruit the help of a familiar face, Captain Price of the SAS (voiced and mo capped Barry Sloane). Price ends up recruiting SAS Sergeant Kyle Garrick (voiced and mo capped by Elliot Knight) and they along with Alex go on an international campaign fighting terrorists, Russians, and other hostile forces in a pretty typical but entertaining campaign. The campaign is largely divided between Price and Garrick hunting down leads of a terrorist group in Europe, while Alex teams up with an insurgent freedom fighter group in the fictional country of Urzikstan and their leader Farah Karim (voiced and mo capped by Claudia Doumit). Eventually the four of them come together and make up the elite force that stars in this campaign.

The way this Call of Duty distinguishes itself is its recreation of historic/modern battles and events cleverly integrated into its story. The attack on the US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi Libya, the Bin Laden raid, and recreations of the civil war in Syria all make appearances in the campaign and its kind of chilling how realistic and well done they are.

I had a thought while I was playing that if you compare this game with Jack Ryan, you see very similar tactics of integrating real events with fictional stories. The way in which Modern Warfare is better at this is that it recreates events instead of basing their entire story on current events. The Bin Laden raid is going to resonate more in five years than a flash point crisis in Venezuela and Call of Duty isn't making their whole story surround that event, they just recreate it for their own purposes.

Furthermore, the old Modern Warfare games used to take inspiration from old action films like The Rock, Black Hawk Down, etc. I think at a certain point those movies started to run out of movies to snag scenes from and instead would just up the ante and eventually that ante went too high. Modern Warfare is able to take things to a more realistic level and build from there with that gritty realism.

One problem I would note with the realism is that it makes these encounters so realistic that they're done within minutes and it really shortens the game as a whole. It blends into a larger point of how brief this game is. I probably knocked it out in a regular weekend and while the levels were good, it seems like a lot was put into very few levels instead of a drawn out game. Again, its not the worst note to have, especially since the levels feel very real. But I just wish there had been more.

Another point of praise for this game is just how gorgeous it looks. The motion capture in the cut scenes are gorgeous. The transition from cut scenes to gameplay visuals, while noticeable is still pretty well done, and the realism is done very well to make you feel like you're in a war zone instead of just feeling like you're in a Call of Duty game.

The acting is pretty good too so I do have to hand it to the actors involved along with the writing. It's not the most ground breaking story Call of Duty has done, but its entertaining enough to keep me invested for a couple of play throughs.

But as it pertains to the story, I do have a little bit of a bone to pick with this game.

When this game came out, I don't think it was really clear if this was a continuation of the Modern Warfare franchise started in 2007, at least to me. But without going into the specifics of the end of the game, its made pretty clear that this is instead a reboot of the franchise but not in the way you'd expect.

The end of the game builds up for a sequel but in a way that seems to be a re-imagining of the Modern Warfare franchise instead of a full on reboot and that is a little disappointing.

While I can appreciate the unique approach of re-imagining familiar characters and events but doing them in a different way and how it utilizes both nostalgia and new ideas, I do think its a little bit of an excuse not to force writers and developers to create new ideas. I get that maintaining a brand can be profitable but there's a side of this approach that feels lazy to me. The difficult thing would be to make new characters and scenarios that garner the same feelings we had towards characters like Captain Price, Soap MacTavish, and others from the original trilogy, but instead they're just taking out the same toys from the toy chest and just making them do different things set to modern scenarios and responses. Seems lazy to me.

 Now to be fair, I haven't played Spec Ops and I don't know how much re-imagining of the original trilogy is happening in that rather than what would happen in a potential sequel down the road. If you've played through Spec Ops, feel free to comment, I'm just noting the unsettled feeling I had when the ending scenes of the game felt more like a wink and a nod rather than a definitive ending. And at the end of the day, I think that's when the popularity of Call of Duty ends for me. When they aren't trying and instead just fall back on the fact that people will spend money on a Call of Duty game just because the brand has been going strong for so long regardless of the quality, that's when I start to lose interest. I think effort was put into this game and its story, I just hope they're not creating a path where they can fall back on convenience and just reinvent the wheel rather than crank out something new.

But overall, I had a really fun time with Modern Warfare. I've played through the campaign twice now and its still a fun game to come back to every once in a while for Spec Ops, replaying the campaign, and yes, even that fabled multiplayer that I won't pretend to have an educated opinion on. If you liked the original Modern Warfare trilogy, you'll like this return to form and hopefully we can all see this franchise continue to do new things. Is it a perfect game? No. But it does seem like its trying at least a little bit.

But those are my thoughts. What did you think of Modern Warfare? Are you already sick of the Call of Duty train? What do you look for in a Call of Duty game or any game for that matter when the franchise has gone on this long? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for video games, movies, and TV shows I should review on this blog. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out in the future.

Thanks for Reading!

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Season 2)

Look, its not like Amazon Prime wasn't going to make a second season of this show. The first season did well enough with people, despite in my opinion being a mixed bag, John Krasinski is a hot ticket item these days, and a streaming service isn't going to turn down the opportunity to have their own Homeland series. I just wish it was done better.

Jack Ryan by itself is a hard property to adapt. There hasn't really been a good movie adaptation since the Harrison Ford movies in the 90s, and I think there's a reason for that. I mentioned in my first season review that we've just had so many other characters like Jason Bourne, Daniel Craig's Bond, Jack Bauer, even Carrie Mathison in different way, that have taken the spy character and made them intriguing that the character of Jack Ryan feels more like he's being shaped by them, even though some of those characters were probably shaped by him in a way. So like most things being adapted for today, the cycle has come full circle.

The first episode of this season is actually pretty good because it picks up on this character not long after the first season but maintains the same story. Even at its height in the Ford movies, the Jack Ryan stories have always felt very compartmentalized with not a whole lot of continuity. Even the books feel like standalone one offs of this character that its hard to get really invested.

This season changes that and sees Ryan has taken a job with an old Marine friend who is now a Senator (played by Benito Martinez). He has become more interested in Venezuela and he and the Senator Moreno have started to notice unusual activity in the increasingly unstable country. So they decide to go to Venezuela to meet with President Nicholas Reyes (played by Jordi Molla) who is in the middle of an election, in order to hopefully get a read on him and his potentially problematic dealings.

Meanwhile, the other main character from the first season Jim Greer (played again by Wendell Pierce) starts seeing similar unusual activity related to Venezuela and in the midst of dealing with heart troubles, he is able to transfer to Venezuela to investigate more and happens to run into Ryan and Senator Moreno.

And this is a return of something that did work in Season 1, the relationship between Greer and Ryan.

 Despite any problems I will bring up in this review, something that has been consistent is the dynamic between Pierce and Krasinski and I'm really glad that's the case and it has only evolved. In the first season, Ryan was the new kid on the block paired with Greer's world weary jadedness. Now, Ryan has been around a little bit and they're becoming more of peers, just from different generations.

So in the first episode or two, there are some good things that were set up in this season. The political situation in Venezuela with Reyes running against a woman named Gloria Bonalde (played by Cristina Umana) with grassroots support for her bid for Presidency and the seedy "Game of Thrones"-ish politics happening there have a great set up in the first two episodes.

The first two episodes introduce Michael Kelly as the Station Chief at Venezuela, Mike November, and despite any misgivings I have of his character, I will never turn down Michael Kelly. It also introduces a deadly assassin in Max Schenkel played by the Man with no face Jaqen H'ghar himself from Game of Thrones, Tom Wlashiha. Both characters that I liked despite some issues that I will get to later.

One thing that wasn't really consistent from the first season was Jack starting up a romantic fling with a German spy by the name of Harriet Baumann (played by Noomi Rapace) with absolutely no mention of Abbie Cornish's Cathy Muller from the previous season.

The thing is, I don't think this was a bad choice. Noomi Rapace actually does a really good job regardless of a romantic relationship with her and Ryan and there actually is a lot more chemistry between the two. I mentioned in my first review that the chemistry wasn't really there between Krasinski and Cornish. Furthermore, they establish a sexual attraction between Harriet and Jack so quickly that its just established and they move on with it. The weird part is that for a season that had actually been pretty good at picking up a character where they left off, to have no mention of Cathy at all just felt weird because she was such a big part of the first season. Furthermore, she's usually a big part of the Jack Ryan mythos that it seems like a big departure to just cast her aside.

So the first two episodes have a really great set up. Jack and Greer are involved in esiponage-infused conspiracy involving the President of Venezuela. Harriet Baumann plays a mysterious role, especially related to the assassin, and there are politics going on with a country on the edge of revolution. All good stuff right?

And I won't say it goes down hill fast, it just doesn't stick the landing whatsoever. And that's mainly due to the fact that everyone in this show is bad at their job.

In the first season, I think my issue was more with the suspension of disbelief. And while that's for sure here in this season, some of the biggest issues are when have to be bad at their job in order for the conflict to draw out for 8 episodes.

I get that if these people did the right thing all the time, there would be no conflict. But people from Ryan, to the Special Forces Commander Matice from the first season (played by John Hoogenakker), to Mike November just do things that are just stupid and would get them fired so quickly. In all reality, there should not be a third season and if there is, it should be Jack Ryan in government hearings for all the illegal and stupid shit he does in this season.

But this also brings up the issue that I don't really think this Jack Ryan encapsulates what makes the character of Jack Ryan interesting. I think they did a better job of it in Season 1, but this season took it to a whole new level by making him a full on action star instead of an analyst.

It's been a minute since I've seen the Harrison Ford films, but one thing I do remember is that despite Ryan being played by one of the greatest action hero movie stars of all time, Harrison Ford never played him as a Special Forces Operator. He always solved things with his investigative and analysis skills and the special ops stuff was left to the people who were actually trained in that. The times that he was forced to fight, he was clunky and usually got the shit kicked out of him.

I get it, John Krasinski looks operator AF. Furthermore, they play up the fact that he was a Marine to explain this operator look. But when you just throw him into operator mode you just make him Jack Bauer and he loses the unique nature of Jack Ryan as an analyst who is thrown into the wolves den and has to solve his way out with his intelligence.

And while we're on John Krasinski's Jack Ryan, I would say they really half assed any kind of character development this time around. In the first season he was taking his knowledge to the real world and learning that the world was harsher from behind the desk. (That's honestly being generous because I don't think the first season was that deep).

If I'm being as generous to this season, it could take that harsh reality that Ryan discovered in the first season and start to push him to the limits, especially when the people he cares about are at risk.

The problem is, any lines that traditionally would speculated to be crossed but never ultimately would be by a character like Ryan are crossed and then some to a point where you're not sure what this character is really all about.

Furthermore, his backstory continues to be that of a video game character. Very basic, only sort of touched on in the first episode, then disregarded in order for him to be the new Jack Bauer.

I like John Krasinski. I think having him play Ryan was a great choice because I think that likability gives people a familiar face to like watching. But the character doesn't make any sense if you put any logic to it. And what's more, while that character was flimsy in the first season, he was at least good at his job. This Ryan is really bad at his job and should be fired after this season.

One thing that had been a constant in this show is the use of current events in international news to update the material and make it applicable. The first season was about the Syrian refugee crisis, this season was almost a one for one comparison with the crisis in Venezuela that occurred during the summer of last year.

I've already mentioned what works. The political element of the show is interesting and Gloria Bonalde might be one of the only characters in this season that is somewhat competent at her purpose in this season. While I think giving it the background of the Venezuelan crisis might feel dated in a couple years, I'll give them credit for taking the current events of the time and making it an interesting setting. 

The problem comes with the main bad guy, President Reyes. Put aside the fact that the CIA is ultimately bad at any kind of influence or espionage into his inner circle, he's just portrayed as a generic bad guy with no real depth, even though I think they were trying to make him somewhat sympathetic.

In the first season, I mentioned that the main bad guy was given a tragic backstory and it was effective to a certain extent. Well in this season, they allude to a tragic backstory and there are inklings that he's gone mad with power, but there is no progression. It's not like he starts off as a good guy overwhelmed by instability and corruption and he progresses into madness, he's just a bastard from front to end. So any kind of sympathies we're supposed to have with him and his second in command (played by Francisco Denis) is really lost.

But here's the other issue. For as evil as this guy is, Venezuela is still a sovereign nation that people in the show explicitly say that the CIA doesn't have much authority in. In comparison with the first season where the villains were non-state actors, this season has Jack Ryan facing up against members of the Venezuelan state and a lot of the things done in the show would be considered an act of war, or extreme aggression on the part of the US. Yeah they allude to the fact that everyone is corrupt and such, but some of the nameless people Jack Ryan and his Special force teams are gunning down were probably just regular Venezuelans doing their job. For as evil as Reyes is, it's not like he's Hitler and its not like the US is at war with Venezuela. So there are a couple of parts in this, especially when the CIA is bad at their job, that make the US look like assholes interfering in a sovereign nation that poses no immediate threat to the US.

I know that's of a poli-sci nerd cut (like the poli-sci nerd I am) and most people aren't looking into the geo-political implications of Jack Ryan, but it does show the direction this show has ultimately decided to go down.

In the first season, the show was on the fence of whether or not it wanted to be Homeland or 24. Over the top, or realistic. This season firmly plants its feet on the side of over the top and is positioning itself to be the new 24. The problem is, 24 came out right after 9/11 and Jack Bauer was the action hero we needed at a time where we were angry and just wanted to see someone go kick the asses of terrorists. I think the success of Homeland shows that we're interested in a little more nuance and while Jack Ryan had the opportunity to show a little more subtlety in its execution, it's decided to go with an approach that's a little more pop corn flick.

And I'm not saying that's a bad choice. It just needs to full commit to that now. If it's gonna be the new 24, it's gotta clip along the way 24 did. This show still has a bit of a pacing issue and it harkens back to the Amazon Prime shows of its early days with interesting concepts but uneven pacing.

Is Jack Ryan what I want it to be? No. Does it know what it is now? I think so. I will probably watch the third season that has been ordered already and I've heard it has a new show runner so maybe that show runner will take ownership of what the show is and polish some of the rough edges it has.

Overall, I think Season 2 while Season 2 ups the ante from Season 1 and improves some of the issues I had with the first season (no random drone pilot who randomly goes to Vegas for some reason that goes no where) there are still a lot of writing and pacing issues that cause my initial instinct to say that I liked the first season more. But the point is, both are pretty mixed bags.

If you're a fan of spy thrillers and you can suspend the disbelief that Jack Ryan doesn't start a war with Venezuela after this season, I think you'll like it. Otherwise, you're in for a little bit of a rough uneven time with Jack Ryan Season 2.

But have you seen Jack Ryan Season 2? What do you think? What can they improve for Season 3? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review on this blog. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Toy Story 4

So I didn't see Toy Story 4 in theaters for a couple of reasons. The first was, I didn't have anybody to go with at the time and I don't care how how universally loved Toy Story 4 is, a single guy going to a kids movie still feels weird to me. But one of the main reasons was just that I was worried it wasn't going to live up to the legacy that Toy Story has held in my mind from childhood. This franchise has consistently had movies that are just above the fold and I was honestly worried that that legacy wouldn't be held up in a post Toy Story 3 world, especially since that movie closed up the franchise so beautifully. I was like a lot of people that the idea of of a Toy Story 4 seemed weird and unnecessary to me that I wasn't ready for it to disappoint.

But then it came on Disney Plus and I had somebody to watch it with.

Toy Story 4 takes place not long after the events of Toy Story 3. The familiar cast of toys are with Bonnie and Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) is not the favorite toy any more of Bonnie, being left in the closet with the other forgotten toys. Woody, still idealistic as ever is still interested in making sure Bonnie is happy that he sneaks with her on her first day of kindergarten where he facilitates in her creation of a new toy, a spork named Forky (voiced by Tony Hale).

However, Forky does not understand his role as a toy and continuously tries to go back to what he knows, the trash bin. So Woody makes it his goal to make sure Forky stays with Bonnie. This is put to the test when Bonnie and her family go on a road trip and Woody has to make sure that Forky stays with Bonnie the entire time. The main conflict occurs when Forky jumps out the RV window and Woody takes it upon himself to go after Forky and bring him back to Bonnie.

In this journey, he comes across an old friend (can toys be more than friends?) in Bo Peep (voiced by Annie Potts) who has embraced the life of a lost toy with others who travel the world getting played with in random places like playground sandboxes. But Woody also comes across an antique store with a diabolical (and frankly the creepiest thing Pixar has ever created) antique doll (voiced by Christina Hendricks) looking to create the perfect moment to get noticed by a child by any means necessary. With the help of his old pal Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen), old friends, and some new friends, including a Canadian stunt toy named Duke Caboom (voiced by Keanu Reeves), Woody strives to get Forky back to Bonnie and make it safely home.

Now I maintain that Toy Story 3 concluded the Toy Story story masterfully. I don't think I ever did a review of it because it predated the time that I started this blog, but it is well known that the people, like myself, who grew up with Toy Story, seemed to grow up with the character of Andy and therefore felt a sense of ownership and familiarity with that trilogy that is very hard to recreate, not only over three movies, but over a decade.

Toy Story 4, while not a necessary addition to that story, is a fantastic epilogue to that story that feels right at home in the trilogy as a great add-on.

At the end of the day, Toy Story 4 is Woody's story. It's his journey to finally ride into that sunset and everything about the movie feels earned. You could justifiably end your Toy Story viewing experience at 3 and be totally satisfied, but nothing about 4 is going to ruin that experience and I think it'll only give a satisfying conclusion to a really beloved character that perhaps might have been missing from Toy Story 3.

I think the one criticism that I can think of with this approach is that the movie focuses a lot more on Woody and a lot less on the toys we came to know really well from the last films. Buzz feels very much like he's going on a meaningless, and frankly dumbing down of the character, side quest until he's roped back into the main story, and the other characters barely have any screen time at all and honestly could have been written out and it wouldn't have made much of a difference. That being said, I think I understand why this was the case and I don't fault them for this, especially since the focus on Woody in particular is carried out really well.

I would guess that a lot of these actors thought that Toy Story was done and therefore when a fourth one was announced, they probably signed on out of loyalty, but didn't want to do too much. A lot of those actors are getting old and did that role for years, they probably thought it was time to move on. Furthermore, I would guess that due to the fact that this feels like a succinct story and not a cash grab, I would say the story didn't really call for the other characters to have a big role. I appreciate the way its written, I think I would have just liked to get a little more from the characters I grew up with.

I also appreciated the utilization of new characters. Toy Story continues to utilize unique kinds of toys, not just the fad of the moment. Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele playing two stuffed animals carnival animals, Keanu Reeves playing an 80s stunt action figure, and Christina Hendricks playing an antique doll all feel like new applications of what could be a really tired idea at this point and the world of toys continues to be interesting in this installment I don't think anybody really thought was going to work more than just being a cash grab.

Another really positive note is how beautiful this movie looks. I think it can feel like Disney or Pixar always wins Best Animated Picture, but I did have a couple of moments when I saw the animation for this movie and was really impressed with how much they have continued to make these characters move and animate beautifully while maintaining the same charm and nostalgia we've had for them since 1995.

At the end of the day, Toy Story 4 feels like how capitalizing on nostalgia should be. Of course money was involved in the decision, but at no point while watching this movie did I feel like this wasn't the world I grew up with, or that it wasn't honoring that really great legacy. Toy Story 4 feels like a continuation with a purpose and I'm really happy that it managed to stick a landing that so many remakes and continuations fail to do for the sake of just reminding you that these properties exist and not giving a solid story to back it up. Toy Story 4 obviously reminds you that Toy Story is a thing you loved, but it does that through its existence alone. It doesn't do unnecessary call backs to the previous movies, and it just feels like it has something to say. The characters still have the same heart they did in 1995, and it really does feel like there is no more to say here. I think Pixar did it right and I have confidence they won't try to get lightning to strike twice.

I could definitely find myself eating those words, but my advice from a fan only, stop while you're WAY ahead. Four movies is one more than I think people thought we were going to get from good Toy Story movies, now its time to push that great art that Pixar clearly has towards new things and not just go back to the well. It was full now, it might not be full next time.

But those are my thoughts on Toy Story 4. What do you think? Do you think they should continue to make these movies? Is there a Toy Story 5 on the horizon that I don't know about? 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.

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