The Arrowverse Part 1: Arrow Season 2

February continues to be the month of 2 for ones on my site. Starting with Kill Bill, and now two seasons of TV, Arrow Season 2 and The Flash.

Now you may ask why I would combine these two shows, and the answer is pretty simple.

These two shows are the beginning of a really cool thing that DC has started on the CW. I have said a lot of bad things about the CW and I still don’t think it’s the right network for DC to really make a dent in the superhero world, however, I do have to respect what DC has created with their shows on the CW and it started with these two seasons.

These two seasons have created a world where Oliver Queen and Barry Allen can show up on each other’s shows more than Thor can show up in an Iron Man movie, or anybody from the movies can show up in Agents of SHIELD.

When they announced that The Flash was coming to the CW, I questioned whether or not this world was going to be connected to the DC cinematic universe being started by Batman v Superman. Since then, I have figured out that these world are totally different and they have casted a new Flash to be the Flash of the movie universe and Grant Gustin would be the Flash of the TV universe.

At first I thought this wasn’t a great choice, but now I think its one of the best choices that DC could have ever made and I will explain in the review.

So how this is going to work is I will do a brief overview of both seasons, tell you what I liked and disliked about both, and then I’m going to talk about the world building they are doing between these shows and others like it, and then I’ll talk about some theories and implications that could happen because of what these shows started.

I will actually do these posts in a series of parts. Stay tuned each one will come up soon enough. 

Even though I watched The Flash first, I will start chronologically and that starts with Arrow Season 2.

Arrow Season 2

Now, I was not a big fan of Arrow Season 1. You can go back and see why, but something that I don’t think I mentioned enough was the fact that it didn’t feel like a superhero show, it instead felt like a CW soap opera that just so happened to focus on a vigilante who shoots arrows.

Season 2 did a lot of the same thing.

Season 2 starts a little bit after the events of Season 1 and The Glades of Starling City have been decimated by the actions of Malcolm Merlyn in the first season. Oliver Queen (played once again by Stephen Amell) and the hooded vigilante have disappeared (coincidence?) and there have been a number of copy cat vigilantes in his wake.

Moira Queen is in prison for her involvement in the undertaking of the Glades from the first season. A new alderman named Sebastian Blood has risen to popularity in the high crime and low infrastructure of the Glades since the undertaking.

Probably the only person doing well is Thea Queen who has taken over Oliver’s club and has a good relationship with her boyfriend Roy.

Laurel Lance is still grieving the loss of Tommy from the first season and her father is now a patrol officer after losing his detective badge from events of the first season I had forgotten at this point.

Obviously Oliver comes back from his disappearance and he finds his family’s business at risk of being taken over by a new sexy business woman.

Now that I’ve caught you up with what has happened since the first season, its pretty obvious what happens.

Oliver returns as the vigilante but he has decided to honor the memory of Tommy and not kill the criminals he goes after. He is once again joined by Felicity Smoak and Diggle.

Throughout the season there are flashbacks to Oliver’s time on the island and his journey with Slade Wilson and the others he met on the island in the first season.

The first thing to say about this season is that it is a drastic improvement.

One of the biggest problems of the first season was I felt like there were a lot of filler episodes and a lot of them were populated by dumb soap opera bullshit that I was not interested in. I didn’t care that Thea was on drugs and all the drama between Moira and her new husband, I wanted to see how it connected to the larger story.

Season 2 is a lot more streamlined.

It however is not totally immune to the CW stink that still permeates in this show pretty badly. The show still feels like a CW show that just happens to center around a guy who shoots arrows… but it does do a little bit better of a job, and a lot of that comes with the comic book feeling this show has over its CW drama feel. They bring in superhumans in this season. They some out of the ordinary elements and it begins to feel a little bit more like a comic book show as opposed to a CW show.

The characters once again are navigated by whatever is profitable for CW audiences and the performances follow in suite, that being if the actor is attractive, there is a strange belief that because of that they can act too. However, there were a couple twists and turns that despite not being surprised by them, I did end up enjoying their pay out.

Instead of the flashbacks hurting the continuity created by the earlier season which I’ve seen a lot in Once Upon a Time, Arrow has created a good amount of time to play around with and while they’ve breach on breaking  that continuity, they have done a decent job at using flashbacks and introducing new characters because of it.

The heroes of this show are pretty good and they have been really forming into a good team. Stephen Amell still hasn’t impressed me as an actor but he continues to be a serviceable hero for this show. Other characters like Felicity, continue to annoy me because they only got the job because they were attractive, however some have begun to grow on me, like Felicity. One thing I will say about this season is that Oliver and his loved ones are always the subject of attack. It always seems like Laurel is being held hostage, or is in danger in this season and it gets a tad ridiculous and over the top.

Speaking of which, Laurel was actually kind of an interesting character in this. The show takes her to a pretty dark place, and while she’s not that great of an actress and is probably only there because of her looks, she does a decent job at it.

The romantic drama between Oliver and his girlfriends continue and they really bring out the dumb in people, however its not the worst I’ve seen. Can be dumb still, but not horrible.

Before I move onto the villains, I do want to talk about a character that they brought back that at first I was really skeptical about but ended up really liking and that is Sarah.

An essential part about Oliver’s redemption and journey was the fact that he cheated on Laurel with Sarah and Sarah paid with her life on the Queens Gambit. It was such a huge blow for the Lance family that it really defined the struggle and their eventual forgiveness of Oliver as they see he’s a changed person.

Then suddenly, Sarah turns up totally alive.

Now I actually figured this out not by watching the 2^nd season of Arrow, but by watching the first episode of Legend of Tomorrow (we’ll get to that later). I originally saw this as kind of a cheap ploy to add a character. I’m sure she existed in the comics but I thought it would have been better to keep her dead.

And to a certain extent, I still do think that. I think that having Sarah die because of Oliver’s choices was great choice and adds to the number of reasons why the Lance’s hate him and eventually get over that hatred.

But Sarah proves herself to be a really great character by the end of the 2^nd season. There’s so much in her backstory that I’m sure they will jump into in the third season, but her involvement makes things interesting. I still don’t think it was great to have her come back, but the way they use her after they poorly explain why she’s alive is done very well that I’m able to forgive it for the most part.

But I do want to talk about the villains of this season because it takes a good long while for the main villain of this show to eventually show up. This was the case for the first season and I think the show suffered because of this but the second season made things pretty interesting from the get go

And unlike the first season, everything seems to eventually connect and be apart of a larger story. And that story all centers around the plot of Slade Wilson.

Now I go back and forth my thoughts on Slade Wilson because on one hand, he looks like a badass. He looks like the Slade Wilson you see in pictures and different mediums he has been in. But on the other hand, he’s not the greatest actor in the world. I can’t say I’ve seen Manu Bennett in a lot of things and I understand why. Unfortunately he really falls into the categories of a lot of CW villains in that they look intimidating and there’s a certain level of attractiveness to them, but they’re horrible actors and that is the case with Slade Wilson.

I think at the end of the day, Deathstroke is more of an intimidating figure than he is a great villain. I thought the scheme he hatches throughout the show is really well done and it really is the crux of why the second season is done very well. Deathstroke is just an example of when good writing overrides a performance. It doesn’t matter how bad of an actor the guy is, as long as his actions affect the people who range from mediocre to good in this show, I actually don’t mind it at all. I’ve been reading things recently that have said that Deathstroke is involved with other DC projects and probably won’t be returning to Arrow for quite a while and that is a shame. But if they put the good writing into a villain that actually has a quality actor behind it, I think the future of Arrow is in good hands (however I have heard that the 3^rd season is not that good so I’m not holding my breath.

The big take away from Arrow Season 2 is that this season is done well. The writing got a lot better and it makes up for the crummy acting and the cheap budget of a CW show. But I still go back to the fact that haunts this show for me in that it still has that CW stink about it.

There’s still the family drama, there’s still the characters that are not relatable due to their social standing and their rich white people problems. There’s still the dumb situations that nobody in their right mind would get into, like Sarah bringing Oliver to a family dinner trying to keep the secret that they are sleeping together, because we all know that that’s going to get out. These dumb situations just lower the bar for me and again, it doesn’t matter how many cool pull ups or arrows Oliver Queen fires, there’s still a CW stink about this show and it hinders me from taking it seriously.

To be continued... (The Flash)

The Last Five Years

So this is a pretty big departure from the other movies that I have reviewed recently (Deadpool, Kill Bill, etc) , but I did feel like I needed to review something of a love story as it is Valentines Day.

I had heard about The Last Five Years when it came out in theaters and I actually really wanted to see it. I don't know exactly when it was but I think I had the memory of Into The Woods in my mind and when I heard it was a independent musical film... starring Anna Kendrick, I was in.

However I did not see it in theaters and kind of forgot about it until last night when I saw it on Netflix. Again, its Valentines Day, let's review a love story.

The Last Five Years is based on a musical of the same name. It follows the story of Cathy (played by Anna Kendrick) and Jamie (played by Jeremie Jordan), Cathy is a struggling actress in New York and Jamie is an up and coming writer.

If you're a fan of theater, you know that this is a textbook set up for any thespian. Every writer or actor sees themselves in this set up, hell I know people in this situation. I'm not saying anything against it, its just funny how manufactured this situation seems and how off-broadway this narrative is.

The thing that makes this story different is the format in which it is done.

The story takes place over a 5 year relationship between these two. It is taken from both the perspectives of Jamie and Cathy but from different ends of the relationship. Cathy's perspective starts at the end of the relationship while Jamie's starts from the beginning.

And of course, 98% of it is sung.

Now I don't claim to have a huge background in musical theater, however, I do feel like I know a little bit about it and because of that, the entire plot being sung is not a huge deal for me.

But if people had a problem with a big budget film like Les Mis being 100% sung, they're going to have an issue with The Last Five Years being 98% sung.

The other interesting part about the format is that the movie really only focuses on the two main characters. There are a few other characters in the film but they barely talk and they have very limited contribution to the story. This is a movie mainly focused on these two and the construction and demolishing of a relationship all at the same time.

And the performances are good. The interesting part about this movie is that its a lot of one on one conversations and its almost always one person singing while the other person listens and responds by just speaking.

Its a really interesting and different kind of movie and it makes sense to do this particular musical as an independent film in its adaptation.

Honestly, the story isn't that grandiose or epic, its just a very personal story between these two so it wasn't going to garner any huge crowds to see it so it made sense it had a small release and was a cheap independent film.

However, that doesn't really put aside the fact that the story is a little bit contrived. While Jordan and Kendrick do a good job with the characters they are provided, there's not much of a balance between these two characters. I don't think the movie was intending this but there is a clear good guy and bad guy in this relationship and you see it from the very beginning.

It does do a good job at creating a real-ish relationship between these two, especially with the kinds of struggles they go through and their ambition and dreams on the line, but at the end of the day, you're going to like one of them and kind of really hate the other one and I don't think it was as balanced as it could have been.

I suppose another thing worth mentioning is that at a certain point these stories collide and they are on the same time.

Not only do things get a little bit confusing for a hot minute, but I don't feel like the second half of the movie was as clear and concise as the first half way. This is mainly because these two don't sing together until that middle section and it takes a little bit to tear them apart again.

I'm sure that's just me not being as smart as other people might but I can imagine the middle section taking a little bit for people to understand what is going on and get them back on track with the format of the show.

The last thing worth really mentioning is of course, the music.

The music is... good.

Its not gonna blow your mind, its not awful, its just kind of forgettable. I definitely enjoyed the songs while they were playing but there's nothing that is going to stick in your head or make you want to come back for more.

Its a pretty standard musical and I will say Anna Kendrick and Jeremie Jordan are both very talented singers, they just aren't anything that you're going to want to rush out and buy the soundtrack to this movie for.

Probably the most memorable song is "Summer in Ohio" and my god is Anna Kendrick cute in that song, I just don't think she has the voice for a big show stopper which I kind of feel like that song was suppose to be.

Now I'm not saying she's bad, far from it. But even in a movie like Pitch Perfect, she's more likely to sing a song like the Cup Song, very personal, more quiet, not so much the huge songs. And it actually works for her in this musical because that's what a lot of these songs are.

Overall, The Last Five Years is a pretty standard love story musical. Its the kind of movie you'd watch if you wanted something a little bit different than your standard Nicholas Sparks novel, but were in a mood for music and had just watched Memento.

The format and the performances are good, but the story and the music are all pretty standard. You're not gonna have a worm in your ear for weeks after you see this movie but you might be entertained at least, and while it is pretty standard all around, its just different enough to be a good date movie. Happy Valentines Day.

Have you seen The Last Five Years? What did you think about it? Comment and Discuss below. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews as well as live tweets (sometimes) of movies I'm watching live.

I'll leave you with this. I have no idea why Anna Kendrick and Kristen Chenowith did a performance of "For Good" from Wicked... but its on the internet. Might as well put it up! Enjoy!

Deadpool

So up until about two weeks ago, I was only kind of excited for Deadpool. It was a comic book movie yes, but I wasn't overly excited for it. I thought Deadpool was a fun character but I didn't really pay that much attention to it.

And then the marketing team struck. The marketing for this movie was probably the most perfect marketing that could ever happen.

But still I was just ready for a comedic romp, nothing over the moon.

And then the reviews started hitting. I was hearing nothing but good things about this movie. I was hearing that the only people who didn't like this movie are the people that just didn't get it. It just made me so excited.

And I may have oversold this movie to myself.

Little bit of a background.

This is not the first go around for Deadpool. Wade Wilson did appear in X-men Origins Wolverine and was turned into "Deadpool"

Now honestly, at the time, I really didn't have much of a connection to the character and didn't really know the implication of the actions that happen in Origins. In essence, the character who is known as "The Merc With the Mouth" has his mouth sewn shut.

At the time I just saw Ryan Reynolds turned into a creepy mutant bastard monster but I realize now, that really messed with the continuity of the character in a way that fans were not willing to forgive.

So X-men Origins just kind of fails and everything that was supposed to sprout from that movie was brushed aside, including Ryan Reynold's performance as Deadpool.

But then this showed up online... a quick test footage reel of a pretty cgi deadpool fighting a group of bad guys in an SUV voiced by Ryan Reynolds.

And after a long time of speculation on whether or not this movie was actually going to happen, they announced it, Deadpool was going to have his own single feature starring Ryan Reynolds again as "The Merc with the Mouth".

Now again, I don't really know the backstory of Deadpool, I don't know the comics that well and I'm not a die hard fan. But I did like the test footage and I was at least a little bit excited for this movie to come out.

Deadpool follows the story of Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds) who is a former special forces operative who is now a mercenary.

Right off the bat, Wade Wilson is not a good guy. He's basically the bad guy who is not as bad as other bad guys and kills and intimidates the actual bad guys. I would say anti-hero but that's not always the correct term and can be used in the wrong way a lot these days.

Wade meets Vanessa Carlysle (played by Morena Baccarin) and the two begin just a down right adorable relationship.

I won't say its as adorable as Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey in The Amazing Spider-man movies, but its just different. At first it seems these two are really into sex but you see their friendship and love for one another grow and grow and its just down right adorable...

And then sad when Wade is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

This is all stuff you can see in the trailer but in short, he is offered an opportunity to cure his cancer and become a super hero but is instead tricked to be turned into a super slave by an evil mutant named Ajax (played by Ed Skrien) and his muscle Angel (played by Gina Carano).

Wade survives the torture and comes out with super human abilities but he also looks like an avocado had sex with another avocado...

The rest of the story is a raunchy, hilarious revenge tale of Wade Wilson tracking down Ajax and looking to find a cure for his ugliness before he kills him.

Along the way he is periodically joined by two X-men, Colossus (played by Stefan Kapicic) and Mega Sonic Teenage Warhead (played by Brianna Hildebrand).

And my god, this movie is just fun.

Its not trying to be anything its not, yes it has some tie ins to X-men but its not trying to force its way into some kind of expanded universe or cross over.

The movie has a lot of raunchy humor but at lot of it is pretty meta as well. Which is exactly what Deadpool is, he's a hero who knows that he's in a comic book, or he knows he's in a movie. This makes him just down right hilarious when he's breaking the 4th wall, making jokes about the movie while its going on, and just being a different superhero.

And that's what is refreshing about this movie.

I'm not at all fatigued by the number of superhero films out there.

And yes, I am going to watch all of these movies. Every single one of them.

But they're all going for a similar point, a hero is born, he fights the bad guy and he sometimes broods watching over the city.

With Deadpool though, there's just something different about the way he does thing and the way he's not a hero at all.

This movie is a hard R, its got a lot of gore, its got a lot of nudity, its got a lot of gross imagery, and dick jokes, and masturbation jokes, and the list goes on and on.

This is not a movie for the kids.

But you like Wade Wilson, you like his journey, you like his jokes, and this movie is just all around fun.

Now, I do have to see it again because I'm sure I missed a lot of jokes I should have picked up on and I'm sure its gonna be funny a second time. Honestly, I think the only thing that I didn't like about this movie was that it felt short.

The story, without flashbacks and flash forwards, is pretty straight forward and not exactly long. However, it is full of a lot of fun moments and jokes. I just wish that the movie was longer and had a little bit more meat to it.

A lot of that I think was because I was expecting more but the truth was, this movie was greenlit by Fox because they had money to spare from the X-men. It was made on a relatively small budget and for a lot of people, they thought this movie wasn't going to happen at all.

Overall, Deadpool just feels fresh.

Its a straight up comedy superhero film, its a hard R, and its a character that seems different. This is the kind of movie you want to see sequels to right away and its the kind of movie that if you have any doubts about it, seeing it again will probably make those doubts go away.

But have you seen Deadpool? What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get my updates on future movie news and reviews as well as live tweets sometimes to movies and shows I'm watching live.

I'll leave you with this. Here's one of the great viral marketing videos that came out for Deadpool. Enjoy!

Zoolander

Zoolander is a movie that for a long time I was very resistant to. There were a couple people that heralded this movie as a classic but I didn't really understand why? I watched a little bit of it a few years ago and I had to turn it off because it was so stupid. I just wasn't interested in the movie.

But with the new trailer for 2ooLander, and a lot of hype over this new movie coming out, I had to dig into Netflix and find this movie and figure out what the big hype was, and probably give this movie the chance it has earned.

Zoolander follows the story of Derek Zoolander, an incredibly feminine male model who is incredibly successful in his profession.

Of course the joke is that he builds his fame around the fact that he gives a great look when he's on the runway, whether its El Tigris, Ferrari, and of course Blue Steel. But the joke is that all these looks are the same look. Ha...

But Zoolander finds himself in a bit of a rough patch when he is beaten out for the award of Best Male Model by the new name in the fashion world, Hansel (played by Owen Wilson).

After a horrible accident involving a gasoline pump fight (which the first time I saw that I laughed so hard), Zoolander decides that he's going to retire from modeling.

But he is approached by famous fashion designer, Mugatu (played by Will Ferrell). He offers Zoolander an opportunity to fulfill his passion to teach kids who can't read good (get it cause Derek Zoolander is a dumbass) as long as he participates in Mugatu's new fashion show coming up. Secretly, Mugatu is making Derek a sleeper assassin to kill the Malaysian Prime Minister.

The majority of the movie is Derek discovering the conspiracy he's being put through with the help of Hansel and a reporter (played by Christine Jefferies).

Now I will concede a little bit and say, this movie made me laugh a lot more than I thought it was going to. When I realized that this movie is trying to be stupid and not a single line of dialogue is supposed to be taken seriously, the movie did get a little bit more entertaining then I originally thought.

That being said, this movie is really, really stupid. And I go back and forth on whether or not I think its stupid enough that I don't like it or if I think its the kind of movie that's just stupid enough but also a lot of fun that you don't have to think that much when you watch it, its just pure entertainment.

I don't know.

The truth is, I don't like Ben Stiller or Owen Wilson as actors. Its probably because I wasn't brought up on their movies like this one, but I've never been a huge fan. So there is a part of me that doesn't like it just because they're in it. However, at the same time, because this movie did make me laugh a lot more than I originally thought, I appreciate them a little bit more than I thought I was going to.

The funny part is of course watching Will Ferrell.

Its very hard for Will Ferrell not to get me with almost everything thing he does. However, what I've figured out recently is that I don't actually like a lot of his earlier work.

The first time I watched this movie I thought the only good part was Will Ferrell but watching it now I kind of realize that this was back in the day where Will Ferrell was more of a character actor and therefore was able to go off the handle more often.

What I've realized from this movie is that those Will Ferrell outbursts that I love are really only funny when they're used in moderation. If he's just screaming all the time, its not as funny every time he does it. So in this movie, he's this cartoon villain and its funny, but I've seen Will Ferrell be more subtle, even in cartoon roles like Elf, and I like those more subtle characters more than I like Mugatu.

Its weird because I went into this movie loving Will Ferrell and not really liking Ben Stiller or Owen Wilson, and coming out of the movie it was actually the reverse. I like Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson when they are more cartoon characters and I like Will Ferrell when he's not always a cartoon character 100%. Its a weird shift.

What I'm beginning to understand with this movie is that it is a very quotable movie.

And actually watching it, I'm glad that I can actually say that I know where some of these quotes and references are coming from now.

The movie does have a couple of really random movie references in itself which was a little bit odd and just out of place because it never felt like that kind of movie.

And the more I think about Zoolander, the more I like it but by the same token, the more time passes the more I forget about some of the memorable parts of it, so it loses the charm and therefore doesn't really seem memorable for me.

I don't know, again, its that question of is it so stupid its its own brand of movie, or is it stupid enough for me not to enjoy it.

Honestly, I'm more excited about 2ooLander than I originally was after I saw this movie especially because some of the moments from the trailer make a lot more sense after watching the first movie (big surprise huh?)

I'm going to stop pontificating on this movie and just say it is what it is. Its a stupid movie that I think has a lot of funny moments in it and is very quotable. Is it a classic? I don't think so, at least not in my book.

The truth is, I'm so excited for DeadPool that I probably won't see this movie this weekend and then I'll just put it off for a long time that I won't really care anymore... and maybe one day I'll see it, and I hope its good. But Zoolander is not the movie for me, at least not totally.

It was a short review but what did you think about Zoolander? Are you going to see 2oolander or Deadpool this weekend? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews as well as live tweets from movies that I'm watching live.

I'll leave you with this. I'm really tempted to leave a Deadpool trailer because I'm that excited for it, but I'll stick to the theme and give you the trailer for the second Zoolander in case you haven't seen it. Enjoy!

Suicide Squad Trailer 1

When a trailer like this comes out, I usually write down my thoughts and post it as soon as I can. Unfortunately with the amount of work I’ve had in the past few weeks, I started this but never got the chance to finish it. But now since there are a number of trailers that have dropped since, I felt I needed to get this out, get my thoughts known and move onto bigger and better things. 

So because of this trailer, I was listening to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on repeat since 7 o’clock this morning.

So the new trailer for Suicide Squad has dropped (A while ago) and its following in the footsteps of a lot of comic book and big franchise movies that have set their trailer to a famous rock song and I think this is definitely my favorite of all of those trailers.

The first Suicide Squad trailer that came out during Comic-Con was a really fun trailer. I gave my thoughts on it and I thought it was great. I thought it was creepy, I thought it displayed a lot of cool characters and gave us a feel for how this movie is going to be when it comes out in August.

While I really liked that trailer, I don’t think it was my favorite of the trailers that came out during comic-con. I think a lot of that has to do with my bias towards Batman v Superman but I do think that while it was a good trailer, it was just a teaser and it was about time we saw something new when it comes to this movie.

And man did we get something different.

The trailer that we got was set to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody and really broke down each of the characters of the Squad. They definitely showed more of Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie) Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) Deadshot (Will Smith) and the rest of them.

We also figure out that Rick Flag (played by Joel Kinnamen) is more likely a government agent who is the supervisor of this group… which makes me think that he’s going to die. I don’t think I’d be saying that if Tom Hardy had stayed on for the role but I’m pretty sure this movie ends with Joel Kinnaman getting blown away by the Joker or betrayed by Harley Quinn or one of the members of the squad it has seemed like he has been learning to work with this entire time. That’s obviously only a theory but he just looks like a character who could be expendable by the end credits.

But this trailer really lays out what these criminals are doing all brought together. They basically say, you’re here to do a suicide mission. Which follows in suite with the comics where the squad was formed to commute the sentence of hardened criminals if they carry out the secret missions of the government.

The best part about this trailer is, it doesn’t give away more than that. There’s a couple shots of something that could be the villain, something that I’m calling the Lego monster because whatever it is makes the subway car explode in something that looks like Lego pieces or explosions from The LEGO Movie.

Now I read a theory a while ago that was theorizing on who the villain of the movie could be and there are a couple trains of thought.

The first one is that the squad is going to apprehend The Joker (played by Jared Leto). I’m not totally sold on this theory. It can be assumed that Joker is not a member of the squad but I could see him more as an evil third party that both helps and also fucks with the squad. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind The Joker being “The Bad Guy” of the movie but I would be interested in seeing a new villain and the Joker still playing an important part of the movie to either help or create barriers for the squad.

The second theory I heard was that Enchantress (played by Cara Devigne) would be the villain of the movie. And this I could also see since she has not really been in group shots, at least not the ones that I have seen in the trailers or posters. Now we haven’t seen a lot of Enchantress’s power in either trailers or at least seen her pull of her powers so the LEGO explosions could be her.

The only thing working against this theory is that the power that with her costume and the black aura around her in this trailer doesn’t exactly correspond with the Lego explosions I was mentioning before.

HOWEVER, if you look in the background of the part where she says “Lets have some fun” (This is really looking in depth to this trailer) you can tell that she’s in a government conference room like the kind you’d see in the white house. So Enchantress could be wrecking havoc on the government and the Suicide Squad could be brought in to bring her down. I still think she’s the villain but there is always the third option.

The third option is that we haven’t seen the villain yet. This is actually a theory I’d be one hundred percent down for multiple reasons. First off, it’s a new villain in general. The more DC can expand this universe the more they’re going to show that they have an edge over Marvel in certain aspects and just have more fun expanding. But the other part about it is that if there is another villain, this movie has done a fantastic job at not showing who this villain is.

We live in such a know all culture that it is hard for anything to not get out to the public before the release. I mean everyone was so surprised when the trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane came out because we hadn’t heard jack about this movie and now its coming out in March. That blew people’s minds.

So if there is a villain in Suicide Squad that we’re not aware of yet, I’m really looking forward to how long they can keep that extra villain secret.

Now just some other things I liked about this trailer. I thought Jai Courtney was actually intriguing. Jai Courtney is an actor who just consistently has been in garbage movies and has not given a good performance in anything he’s in. So when they said he was Captain Boomerang, I was a little bit hesitant. For multiple reasons (one of them being the fact that he’s called Captain Boomerang) but the other one being that Jai Courtney has not shown us that he can give a really good performance… until this trailer.

Now a lot of it could just be well edited shots, but I laughed at a lot of Jai Courtney moments and I’m excited to see him in this movie.

The other great part about this trailer was the scenes with the Joker. Jared Leto continues to just show that he is bringing something really great and new to a character we know and love. Again, we’re still unsure of what exactly the Joker’s role is going to be in relation to the Suicide Squad but I love what they’re doing and it gets me pumped.

Now, there were a few things that I’m not wild about. And its mainly Harley Quinn.

Now I’ve always thought that Margot Robbie was a good choice for Harley. However the lines that she has in this movie are supposed to be funny lines and they more come off as awkward. The lines Harley has in this movie remind me of the lines they had in the Batman v Superman trailer when Wonder Woman shows up and Superman and Batman are like, “Is she with you?” They just seem awkward and DC really trying to show us that they can have a sense of humor. Now I think that this movie might have a dark humor to it but it doesn’t seem like the DC movies are going to be straight up comedies. So it’s a little odd when Suicide Squad comes out with a trailer that is akin to the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer.

Its not a huge complaint because honestly, I don’t have many bad things to say about this trailer. It’s a trailer. I liked it. I hope that Suicide Squad is going to be a good movie.

You might think I’m hurrying up the finishing of this review because I’m a week or two late… and you would be right. I just wanted to put out my thoughts on Suicide Squad so something is up here.

But what do you think of the Suicide Squad trailer... that came out a couple weeks ago? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews as well as live tweets of shows and movies I'm watching. 

I'll leave you with this. I'm hoping to do a post on all the Superbowl spots, but I'll show you probably one of my favorites, X-Men Apocalypse. Enjoy!

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2. (Or "The Whole Bloody Affair")

I'm not a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino. He always comes off to me as pretentious and just a tad bit racist, especially in his interviews. 

However, I really do have to give the guy credit where credit is due. He does know how to make movies.

Now, I personally think some of his best films though good, are slightly overrated (Pulp Fiction) and he tends to blow smoke up his own ass when he directs films that need to be different just for the sake of being different. That being said, I do give the man credit in the fact that he does know how to make films that are totally different than anything you'll see in the mainstream pop culture of movies today.

He also likes to buck the conventions we always expect in films today. For example: he made Kill Bill a 4 and a half hour long movie. Now, he did split them into two volumes and divided their release date, but it was intended to be a full feature length film as it does follow the story of The Bride and her vendetta against Bill and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

So both are on Netflix and i thought I was just going to watch one and get to the other one sooner or later... until I watched Volume 1. And realized that this is a long ass movie I have time to watch, and therefore I watched Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.

Kill Bill follows the story of The Bride, a woman who on her wedding day, is horribly beaten and shot in the head by her former lover Bill, the leader of the team of assassins called The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

Uma Thurman plays The Bride and the late David Carradine (though he doesn't even appear until the 2nd Vol.). And I understand why these are their most iconic roles. I don't really like Uma Thurman that much as an actress and David Carradine was an actor who wasn't as well known in his time. These two are really great foils to one another and yeah, its probably their best movies.

Since the movie is split into two Volumes I'll talk about each one individually.

Kill Bill Vol. 1

Volume 1 is the introduction of The Bride and her quest of vengeance against the team of assassins that tried to kill her 4 years prior.

And I will say, the first Volume of this film is actually great.

It really creates a character in The Bride that we care about and we want to see succeed. At the same time though she's a stone cold killer and she's kind of in the realm of all Tarantino characters in that they aren't exactly the nicest characters but they're just likable, and that's Uma Thurman as The Bride.

She is seeking vengeance and you want to see her get that. The first Volume is her going after the first two members of the assassin team played by Vivicia Fox and Lucy Liu. And it's a lot of martial arts action, lots of blood and gore, and some great stunts to go along with it. While Vivicia doesn't have a huge role in this movie her fight scene is a lot of fun and tension filled as it takes place in a suburb with her daughter coming home from school, its pretty great.

But the crowning jewel of this entire movie, Volume 1 and 2 is the story and fight surrounding Lucy Liu.

Lucy Liu plays the assassin and "Queen of the Japanese Underworld", O-Ren Ishii and I swear to god, everything about this character makes her one of the best villains I've seen in a long time and definitely the best adversary that The Bride fights in this entire movie... which is odd because the movie is called Kill Bill so you would think that Bill would be a top adversary... but anyways.

From the very beginning, Tarantino does his whole, let's be different thing in her introduction and tells her entire story in a drawing like a comic book. Her backstory is really compelling and it just creates a great legend for a great villainess. And it works perfectly for the kind of story that Tarantino sets up. I mean think about it, its a story about a woman called The Bride, fighting a group of assassins, one of them having an eyepatch, and the other one being a chinese japanese American leading the Yakuza, and a white guy named Bill who is a master in material arts master... its ridiculous but its great, and Lucy Liu is a fantastic addition to it that just makes the movie great.

And my god... the battle between the Crazy 88s and the Bride... damn.

That large scale battle and the one on one duel between The Bride and O-Ren is just fantastic, I don't know why Tarantino wanted to focus on anything else because he sure as hell knows how to do those action sequences, he sure as hell knows how to make these characters interesting and still manage to have those flares of Tarantino throughout, its just a ridiculous movie and it works perfectly.

And so when I finished Volume 1, I was pumped up, especially with the cliffhanger it left us with. I was ready to immediately put in Volume 2 and continue this "Whole Bloody Affair".

And then I saw Volume 2.

Kill Bill Volume 2. 

Now I don't want to say that Kill Bill Volume 2 is a bad movie, because that's really not the case at all. Its not a bad movie per se. I'm sure if I had watched it after I had given myself a little bit of time to let Kill Bill Vol 1. sit and not cloud my judgement so much I probably would have liked Volume 2 more...

But Tarantino intended for these movies to be one 4 hour long movie and that's how I spent my Saturday and you know what... the second half doesn't really live up to what the first half set up.

In the first Volume, The Bride goes after Vivicia Fox's assassin and O-Ren Ishii. O-Ren is set up as a great villain that could have had the whole 4 hours dedicated to her but instead they had to move onto the honestly not as cool characters left on the assassination team, Michael Madsen and a blonde pirate.

And where the battles between the Bride and the assassins from the first Kill Bill were set up like elegant Samurai epics, the confrontations in Volume 2 were set in a trailer...

Which don't get me wrong, the battle between The Bride and Elle Driver (played by Daryl Hannah) was in close quarters and really fun, especially the end of it. But in retrospect, all the movies fights were kind of sullied by cheap shots at the end and while Volume 2 had a little more humor than the first one, I don't think I needed that humor when I was getting a pretty kickass action flick Tarantino style.

Furthermore, they spent a lot of the movie in China.

A lot of the movie is setting up The Bride's training so she's able to punch her way out of a coffin, lots of build up for one way out (and a cop out which I'll talk about) and a character that really wasn't that entertaining.

Now I'm not sure if there was some reason the character of Pai Mei was such a weird and slightly racist character. I'm sure Tarantino would probably laugh at my ignorance and point so some influence that he pulled from a Japanese movie that makes it okay, or point to the fact that this is an exploitation film and the characters are that way for a reason, I don't care. I get that the movie is ridiculous and a character like this makes sense, I just didn't really like those scenes and I got kind of bored during them, especially since all the pay off for those scenes are Uma Thurman being able to punch her way out of a coffin.

But then we finally got to see Bill (played by David Carradine)

Now the build up for Bill has been huge.

Even in Volume 1. while the focus was on O-Ren and it was fantastic, we kept on hearing the name Bill, we kept on hearing that he was the final boss we were going to get to.

And of course the opening has Uma Thurman talking directly to the camera in a choice that I'm not totally sure Tarantino went with and her final words of that opening monologue are, "I am going to kill Bill". And yeah they're dumb but again, this is a ridiculous movie made for ridiculous purposes and its Tarantino, he's going to do whatever the fuck he wants.

But regardless of how ridiculous things will get, we finally get to see Bill in this movie and...

Again, its a pretty good role for David Carradine, I mean the guy was probably best known for this role and I think for the most part, he did a pretty good job.

It was just the climax of the movie and how it all came together that I think I was a little disappointed with.

I mean especially with the battle with O-Ren in Volume 1. I think I was expecting an awesome even greater duel between Master and Apprentice, jaded lovers.

Instead there's a quick fight with these two basically not getting out of their chairs and... its over.

Its a very short fight and the way she wins is not even that clever. Its kind of funny because its in a way that is so ridiculous and it was alluded to earlier that it was a good way to end the fight, but it just seemed like it ended so quickly that with all the build up, it was just disappointing in my mind.

Now what I will say is that a lot of the charm Bill brings to this movie isn't in his action sequences, they are instead in his dialogue.

Tarantino also really knows how to write dialogue and Bill's speech about Superman is a great speech.

I'm sure defenders of this movie will say that the climax was more of a verbal sparring than it was an actual spar, but to that I say, that's not what we were promised.

We were promised a final show down between these two and we were told that Bill was this bad ass who was going to be the final boss battle we all wanted... and instead it was an interesting conversation, a quick fight, and a cop out move that was only alluded to once earlier in the movie.

And that's what this movie really boils down to. A lot of good dialogue, and a lot of cop out fights. Instead of a fight with Michael Madsen, we get a quick shot gun blast and a snake bite. Elle Driver we get a decent fight in an enclosed space, and Bill we get more verbal sparring than needed and just getting let down by the final fight.

Now the obvious better half of the film is Volume 1. Which doesn't mean that the second part is bad, I would just suggest you let the first half sit for a while, let yourself forget about it a little bit and then watch Volume 2 with lowered expectations.

Some things worth mentioning about Kill Bill is that it is a send up to a lot of foreign films that are really fascinating. Furthermore its just a different type of movie from anything you're used to watching, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. For me it was very good because I was in a mood from Sin City and just wanted to watch that kind of style of movie, but on the flip side of that, you can kind of tell from certain aspects of this movie as a whole, there are shots and choices made just for the sake of being artistic and Tarantino can get his jollies from being different. I'm sure some of it was inspired, but what bothers me about Tarantino is that I feel like he's making films sometimes just to get people talking about it, just for the publicity of being different... but I digress.

I like Kill Bill, especially the first half. I liked it a lot more than I expected to and it might go on the top of my list of Tarantino movies up there with Reservoir Dogs. Its a lot of fun, fun action, acting, great music, and something different from your run of the mill hollywood flick. Definitely worth checking out.

But what do you think of Kill Bill? Comment and Discuss below. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you will get updates on movie news and reviews as well as live tweets of movies and TV shows I'm watching.

I'll leave you with this. Fallout Boy wrote a song called Uma Thurman. What does it have to do with Kill Bill? Not much but its a catchy song and it has the Munsters theme in it... for some reason. Enjoy!

Sin City

Sin City is a movie I never understood the hype over. I'm not a comic book reader so I never read the comic that it was based off of. On top of that, in 2005 when this movie came out, the story was pretty ambiguous and it was pretty hard to tell what this movie was even about. All I knew was it had a particular style and it was based off of a comic book that I didn't read.

And now its on Netflix and its the kind of movie that it wasn't going to go too long without being watched, especially with all the popularity this movie has accrued over the years.

And watching it over 10 years later for the first time, I can say, while I don't necessarily agree with the hype, I get it.

Sin City is a collection of stories set in the city of Basin City (but they cross out the BA and you get Sin so it makes sense).

In reality, the stories don't exactly connect. One is a story of a cop being forced into retirement (played by Bruce Willis) as he tracks down a child molester who has haunted his career. Another story is Mickey Rourke tracking down the creepy Elijah Wood who killed his hooker girlfriend. And another story is Clive Owen taking on the ex-boyfriend (played by Benicio Del Toro) of his current girlfriend (played by Brittany Murphy) with a band of gun wielding hookers.

The stories are clever in that they all take place in the same world and they have similar characters making cameos in each story and they bleed over. But none of the characters interact personally with the other ones and their connections are really only coincidental.

In this way, there's not one main character and it makes for a really interesting ensemble cast performance.

Unfortunately, this makes it difficult for me to really comment on an over arching story because the movie is in essence 4 short stories. While there are the connections and some of the stories are directly impacted by others, the character of focus often shifts just before you really get to delve into the character you were just focusing on.

The being said, the movie does a pretty good job at making you at least a little sympathetic towards each main character because while they may not be good people, they are definitely the better alternative to the dark and pure evil that they're fighting against.

Sin City is in essence a noir. Where the characters are morally ambiguous, there's a heavy contrast in dark and light, and the stories are not necessarily your typical happy endings.

Noir in itself is a style that you either like or you don't like. And honestly, you're either going to really like Sin City, you're not gonna like it too much. Or you can be like me where you understand the appeal, you just know that its not quite your style.

One thing that must be said about this movie is that it is an absolutely gorgeously shot movie.

I don't usually talk about cinematography on this blog because while I can speak to it, I don't claim to be an expert and I don't necessarily find it as interesting as the story.

However, not only would you have to be dumb to realize the significance and originality of the way this movie is shot, I realized that this movie is in essence the perfect comic book movie.

I don't mean that in its the best movie based off of a comic book, I mean this is the best movie that is a comic book movie. The shots of this movie are ripped right off the pages of a Frank Miller edition of Sin City comic book. Like I said, I don't read comic books but I've at least looked at one and I recognize the imagery, the use of color, and the way shots are lined up that make it so the movie is really just missing speech bubbles and its a moving comic book.

Its hard to show exactly what I mean with just pictures I find on Google Images so it might be something you just need to go and take a look for yourself on, but trust me, its something worth seeing because it is such a distinct style.

Now, like the film itself, you're either going to love it or you're going to hate it. Because not only is the cinematography comic book like, so is the acting.

In fact it kind of took me out of it in the beginning because its really this wooden acting as if someone is trying to read a comic book, its hard to translate that comic book dialogue to actual movie dialogue and not have a little bit of time to be eased into it.

The being said, the thing you have to appreciate about this movie is that everyone involved is committed to the style and nobody is phoning it in.

There may not be any Oscar worthy performances in here but everyone is committed to a certain style and once you realize what that style is, it doesn't break at all.

I mean I have a theory that the more hair Bruce Willis has the less likely he is to phone in a performance and that doesn't happen here. Everyone is committed and everyone is in on the joke or the style.

The fun part about this movie is that there is a little bit of everything for people who like a certain style. If you like Noir, there's a piece of that in Sin City. If you like comic books, you'll definitely get that feeling in this movie. If you like cinematography in movies, you're going to eat this up. But if you don't like any of those things or don't find interest in it, you might want to skip Sin City. On top of all of that, this is a gruesome movie. They get away with it because the blood is not red and its actually done in a cool stylized way, but that does not take away from the fact that this movie is dark as hell and not for the faint of heart.

What's also interesting is that this is not a conventional film.

From the subject matter, to the material its based on, to the cinematography, to the story structure, to the gruesome nature of the film, this is a movie that stands outside all conventions.

If you're a film fan, its definitely a film worth checking out just for the study, but if you're just looking for a straight forward film to enjoy, Sin City might not be the right film for you.

Again, do I love Sin City? No. But I do recognize the merits it has and it is entertaining to watch just for those observations.

But what do you think? Have you seen Sin City? Comment and Discuss below and tell me what you thought of it. You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get live tweets of films I'm watching at home as well as updates on future movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. So they made a sequel to this movie 10 years later... oddly enough. Here's the trailer. Enjoy!