I'm just a guy who loves stories, whether they be past, present, future, movies, TV Shows, video games, whatever. If you came to get an average guys thoughts on film, you've come to the right place.
So if you can't tell, I've really been in the mood for movies with some kind of science fiction edge to it, and some kind of inkling towards the supernatural. I also seem to have an inkling towards Kirsten Dunst for some reason...
Midnight Special has a little bit of all of that.
Midnight Special is a movie that went under the radar for a lot of people, including myself for the most part. It came out in March, about the same time as Batman v Superman, and it had a very limited release and a very limited budget. I understand why this movie got the publicity that it got and
why it didn't really receive that huge of a reception. However, I do think that this movie is a hidden gem of 2016 that I think more people need to check out.
Midnight Special follows the story of a young boy named Alton Meyer (played by Jaeden Lieberher). Alton has special abilities that are coveted by a religious cult as well as sought after by the federal government because of his inexplicable knowledge of government secrets without even hacking or getting onto a computer. But Alton is taken by his father Roy (played by Michael Shannon) and the two of them, including Roy's friend Lucas (played by Joel Edgerton) are off avoiding the police, the fundamentalists, and any other obstacle that comes in their way.
Along the way we are introduced to a Special Agent Paul Seiver (played by Adam Driver) as he tries to decode the presence of Alton and assist the government in their search for the young boy. I would
say that Seiver is a bad guy in this film, but that's not actually the case. Instead, he becomes more of a curious observer with the task of assisting the government in their interest in Alton, and in a way he's almost a vehicle for the audience to investigate this whole situation through.
There are a couple of influences that I think Midnight Special borrowed a little bit of their movie from. One one hand, its very much a science fiction film with a lot of homages to Steven Spielberg films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET. But at the same time, the movie focuses on the father and the lengths he will go to save his son. So in that case, it has a very dramatic feel to it, something that I could maybe compare to The Road or something like that. If you think that this movie might just be a cool superhero movie because the kid has special abilities, you're going to be disappointed because that's not what this movie is about.
I think that Midnight Special goes in ebbs and flows when you're talking about times when that Science Fiction element and the drama meld together and when it doesn't. Sometimes the action, the science fiction feeling, and the dramatic pull of Roy and Alton is really good. And sometimes it gets a little bit slow. I think its more good melding than slow times, but there were a couple of times where I wasn't as engrossed in the movie as I think I could have been.
Something I really appreciated about the film was that it started pretty much right where the action picks up. It didn't try to introduce the characters or the situation too far back or in flashbacks. The first thing you see is them on the run and everything that happened before is explained through conversation during the movie. It was a different take on the film and I appreciated the different approach. I think there was an element of that approach that they might have missed out on because at the beginning of the film, I thought they were going to try and maybe balance the audience's perception of who is actually the good guy and who are the bad guys.
The movie opens up to an amber alert saying that Alton Meyers has gone missing and that he was abducted by Roy. With a set up like that, I thought they were going to make the audience question if Roy is actually a good guy and whether or not he is actually the best person Alton needs to be with. That however is not really not much of a question. Roy and Lucas are always assumed to be the good guys and the government and the fundamentalists are supposed to be the bad guys. I think that might have been a part of the movie they might have missed out on.
The cast of course is really good. I am really starting to enjoy Michael Shannon in everything that he is in and the same goes for Joel Edgerton. These two have been very consistent in their performances and every movie I have seen them in in the past few years has been very good and even if it isn't, they are the shining stars of the movie. Michael Shannon's character used to be apart of a cult and you can see that based on his appearance and his performance. He knows a little bit more about Alton and you can understand it because he's his father. Edgerton on the other hand is a little bit more of the observer there along for the ride. They have the same goal but they have different outlooks on the situation.
Adam Driver is funny because he has a very funny voice that I have no associated directly with Kylo Ren from Star Wars. So when he does a movie like this, I can't totally take him seriously if he's not directly threatening any other characters and telling them about the power of the dark side. However, he does a pretty good job at being apart of the antagonist organization but not really a bad guy in actuality. He provides a bookworm type to sit there in amazement as this kid does incredible things.
And then we can talk about the kid. Now I did just watch the first season of Stranger Things so I think my perception of child acting is a little bit swayed. This kid was okay but he never felt like a kid to me. He was just a little angel child. And as you watch the movie, you can understand why that is, however he doesn't come off as a kid at all. Its not a huge complaint based on the backstory, all I'm saying is he was not the highlight of this movie when his eyes were normal.
He does a very good job at starring into the abyss and he also does a good at acting strange when he's required to. The kid just didn't really stick with me at the end of the day. I'm writing this a couple days after watching the movie and Michael Shannon and Adam Driver are the ones that stick out more.
And then there's Kirsten Dunst... she's just kind of there. Not bad, not good, just there.
Overall, Midnight Special is, in my opinion, not a perfect movie, but I still consider it a diamond in the rough that is also a hidden gem from 2016. I think with the limited budget this movie was provided, I think this movie did really great things and it actually is a pretty interesting movie. I think it has a pretty good cast and actually is visually appealing. Its not going to knock your socks off, but I think it is worth checking out.
But those are my thoughts on Midnight Special. Let me know what you think of the film? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.
I'll leave you with this. Michael Shannon is just always on the edge of crazy and falling asleep. Which one is it? Who knows? Here's a kind of weird video of him with a adorable things. Enjoy!
So I saw the first Cloverfield a while back and I thought it was fine. Not a great film. I've always thought the found footage was better in theory than in practice and Cloverfield, while a decent found footage movie, isn't a masterpiece. The movie is on Hulu and after watching this, I might want to revisit that one, if not to give a review perhaps comparing the two and giving my opinion on whats better.
Of course if you don't already know though, 10 Cloverfield Lane is really only related to Cloverfield by title, and even that's a stretch. It is not a direct sequel and really has nothing to do with the first movie, as far as I remember. I'll talk more about its connection and future films near the end of the review.
But 10 Cloverfield Lane opens up with a woman named Michelle (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) getting into an accident and waking up in a bunker. This bunker is under the house of the man named Howard (played by John Goodman) who claims he rescued her, not only from the car crash, but from a larger threat.
Howard claims that he brought Michelle down into the bunker because he rescued her and is keeping her alive from the toxic air that is outside. He claims that there was some kind of attack and there was fallout, making the air dangerous to inhale and get on your skin.
With them in the bunker is another guy named Emmett (played by John Gallagher Jr.). And that's pretty much the entire movie. You have Michelle, Emmett, and Howard all down in this bunker going about their business. Of course there is suspense, especially since Michelle and Emmett are in a similar situation where they're outsiders in Howard's house and they are off put by his rules and confrontational nature.
And that's the true beauty of this movie, the suspense. And its mainly owned by John Goodman.
From the get go, Howard just comes off as a guy who would abduct you and keep you locked up in a basement. However, then he starts talking about an attack, he starts talking about the air being toxic. Then that's supported by what Emmett saw before he came into the bunker. But then you get his creep vibes all around and his rules and how he's going to be in control no matter what. You keep asking yourself if he's telling the truth about the attacks, if he's just a psycho keeping people in his basement, or if he's just totally nuts. On top of that, the way Goodman decided to play this character is just perfect because the way he's written, the way he says things, they just get you on the edge of your seat, not totally sure what he's going to do next.
Throughout the entire movie you can just tell that something is not right with Howard, but you don't figure out until the end if its something psychologically, or if he's just responding to the impending doom above the bunker and John Goodman plays that like an absolute boss.
And then there's Mary Elizabeth Winstead and I really enjoyed her character in this film.
Something I really enjoyed from this movie that was a pleasant surprise was that while Michelle looks like just another helpless female victim from any horror movie ever, Michelle is a very smart character. And she doesn't need to have a background in escaping or be the next Macgyver, she's just smart and able to figure out creative solutions to her problems.
I really enjoyed her and John Gallagher Jr. as they are very much the people being kept in this bunker. I think they worked well together and it just kind of points out how good the performances were in this film. I won't say that they were extraordinary, but they were good to the point where I really was invested in their characters and their struggle with John Goodman's character who I think was suspenseful and just a wildcard throughout the entire movie.
Now, something I will say about this movie is that the suspense comes in ebbs and flows. The entire movie takes place in this bunker and its exactly what you expect its going to be. Its going to be these characters hanging out in a bunker during what they think is the end times. Sure there's going to be a lot of questions circling their circumstances and then the suspense that Goodman provides does show up, but I did have a couple of moments where I was checking my phone and not being one hundred percent connected to the events of the movie.
I did appreciate how the scary parts of this movie focused on the suspense and the scary nature of the situation instead of cheap jump scares as I am not usually a fan of horror or scary movies. But I did think there could have been a little bit more than just these three sitting in a bunker.
I won't give away the ending as it really is the answer to all the questions you have, at least about why are they in the bunker? What is John Goodman's plan? But I did think that the big reveal at the end was done pretty fast and I don't know how wild I am about the ending. You sit throughout the entire movie thinking that this is a pretty scary but realistic situation someone could be in and then you see the ending and I had to laugh a little bit.
Was it a horrible ending? No. I just think it pointed towards a larger movie that I really don't think we're going to get based on what I've seen about this sequel and this franchise.
And that's a good transition to how this connects to the first Cloverfield and what the future holds for movies with the same name.
In the first movie, a giant monster attacks New York. But there seems to be no reference to that attack in 10 Cloverfield Lane. And even if there was, by the end of the movie, its obvious that the Earth has bigger problems on their plate than a giant monster.
So how do these movies connect? Well its confusing because on one hand, the digital marketing for these movies is really fantastic with Bad Robot creating fake websites and digital content for viewers to follow and pick up on all the Easter eggs set in the Cloverfield universe.
However, in an interview, the director of 10 Cloverfield Lane said that the events of Cloverfield didn't happen in the new movie and that they are on a different timeline. So which one is it?
Based on this movie and the original, I can't say that I'm a huge Cloverfield fan. What I am a fan of is the universe that could be created out of these movies. I don't know if they're pulling some kind of Twilight Zone approach or if they're going to start talking about alternate realities but I do like how vague they are being with this. It allows the fans to go on the internet and look up conspiracy theories. In many ways, those often end up being better than the actual stories in some cases.
I don't think there is going to be a direct sequel to 10 Cloverfield Lane and I kind of hope that they continue in the vague, connected but not connected fashion that they've started on with 10 Cloverfield Lane. I think its a big gamble and it requires a lot of long term commitment on the part of fans to continuing to go and see movies with this name and have them try and understand the connections being made.
At the end of the day though, if you're not focused on the backstory or the secret lore behind Cloverfield, I think the thing that they need to focus on first and foremost is the individual stories being told. If you can at least say that these movies are well done, you'll continue to bring in more people and get more people interested in conspiracy theories and a larger story.
Overall, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a decent movie. After letting the movie settle for a little bit, I think that I enjoyed this one more than the first one (until I go back and watch the first one) but if you're not interested in a larger world, this is a very confined movie with good performances and a suspenseful mystery you need to solve. On top of that, its not really that long of a movie. Nothing wrong with a short and simple flick.
But what do you think? Do you think 10 Cloverfield Lane is a good flick? How do you feel about a larger universe being created? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.
I'll leave you with this. If you've seen the movie, this video will give you a pretty good explanation for the ties and connections being done not only in the movies, but online to a really interesting degree. But probably the best part about this whole movies run was how it was announced. A while back, this trailer really came out of no where and nobody expected it. Nobody knew that a new Cloverfield movie was being made and it just appeared. This is that trailer. Enjoy!
So Stranger Things was a show that really came out of no where. It showed up mid July and I didn't really hear about it until the end of the month. But when I heard about it, I heard about it from EVERYONE! Everyone watched Stranger Things and was amazed by the mystery, the casting, just the weirdness of it. Usually I don't fall so quickly for something like this, I usually let these shows come to me when their times come. But Stranger Things was a show that knocked on my door and it knocked hard. In fact, half the reason I blazed through the last few episodes of Daredevil was so that I could get to Stranger Things. But in the end, how does this show fare?
Stranger Things has a very suspenseful beginning with a young boy named Will (played by Noah Schnapps) riding home from hanging out with his friends Mike (played by Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (played by Caleb McLaughlin) and Dustin (played by Gaten Matarazzo) when suddenly he sees something and with a quick flash, vanishes.
Will's mother, Joyce (played by Winona Ryder) is immediately worried about him and reports him missing to the Chief of their city Hawkin's Police, Jim Hopper (played by David Harbour). While at first it just seemed like this is just a case of a missing little boy who might just be lost, things get very strange when a little girl appears in Hawkins with a very short hair cut, wearing only a hospital gown, and has incredible powers. This little girl eventually finds her way to the company of Will's friends where they figure out her name is Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown).
Everyone mentioned above, including Will's older brother Jonathan (played by Charlie Heaton) and Mike's older sister Nancy (played by Natalia Dyer), suddenly experience (excuse the pun) strange things happening around them, all while a shady organization hides in the background, obviously hiding more of what's going on behind the walls of their shady facility.
And honestly, that's all I can say without giving any spoilers.
Believe me, all I want to do is say everything that is going on in this show and tell you how amazed I was by the creativity and the structure of it all, but I can't give specifics because this show is so well crafted, you really have to experience for yourself.
The first thing I can say is that if you're looking at all the names of the cast and wondering what the hell they've all been in, the answer is, they haven't been in much. Yeah, a lot of them don't even have their own page on Wikipedia. A lot of their IMDB pages have this and maybe one other thing. But this show will definitely be a kickstarter for a lot of these young actors because they really kill it. From Finn Wolfhard playing Mike, the sympathetic nerd who is the leader of the young boys, all the way to Natalia Dyer as Nancy, the suburban teenage girl looking to rebel.
The funny thing is I watched this show just after I did my review for The Sandlot and I mentioned how good I thought the kid actors were. But the difference is, I thought those kids were bad actors in a movie where it didn't really matter for them to be good actors or not, they just needed to act like kids. Stranger Things has a similar concept. These kids don't necessarily need to be great because they just need to act like kids. The difference though is that this show is a lot darker and they need to act in dangerous situations and with a little bit of drama. And these kids nail it. And its not just that they're good actors, their characters are also fantastic in the context. Overall, this is just a good choice of child actors ranging from elementary/middle school kids, all the way up to high school kids.
And then you have the better known actors like Winona Ryder and David Harbour. The last thing I saw David Harbour in was A Walk Among The Tombstones where he was a serial killer. I've always seen him as a tertiary actor, not really having too much of the pizazz to carry on his own show or movie. And then I looked back at his filmography and he actually has a filmography full of shows that I really have enjoyed. Furthermore, he kills it in this season just making me want to see more of him.
And then there's Winona Ryder...
I will say one thing about Winona Ryder. She plays a woman who you question whether or not she's going insane very well. I mean I understand, a mother who is missing her son and has strange things happen to her throughout the entire season is going to be worried, she's going to be frantic, and she's going to seem like she's going a little nuts. But it kind of felt to me like Winona Ryder was playing one note the entire time. And what I've seen from Ryder, its always the pouty, whiney child.
Now that's not to say she did a horrible job in Stranger Things. It does help that her character is written well and I think Ryder gives a decent enough performance, I just saw a lot of the same from her. Maybe its a personal preference, but she wasn't my favorite part of the show.
Again, I really wish I could explain more about Stranger Things. The show makes so many omages and takes a lot of inspiration from 80's science fiction movies and if you're a fan of those movies, or are even aware of the style I'm talking about, you're really going to enjoy Stranger Things.
My biggest praise of the show is just the creativity and ability to do something totally different than what is out there already. Science Fiction can be difficult to do, you ride a very fine line between doing something that is far fetched of course but isn't too far fetched that it can't be taken seriously. While there is a little bit of human humor in Stranger Things, the show takes itself seriously enough to a point where I can sit and watch this show, be invested in the characters, and be taken away by imagination.
There are a lot of questions that went unanswered by the end of the first season and it really makes me itch for more. Apart of me kind of wishes that Stranger Things would be a little bit like a Twilight Zone sort of show where each season is a new idea based in the same reality and universe with all the "Strange Things" that happen, but then I think about all the great characters, all the cliff hangers we see in certain story arcs, and I get really excited for what The Duffer Brothers can give us in the second season.
So while this is a lot shorter of a review than I wanted it to be, in order to keep any spoilers from coming, just watch the first season of Stranger Things and let me know your thoughts. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for any movies or shows I should be reviewing in the future. Also, if you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on more movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.
And a personal plea I guess, I'm looking for more shows/movies like Stranger Things to hold myself over until the second season. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know on Twitter.
I'll leave you with this. So Netflix decided to do their first 360 experience YouTube video and Stranger Things was the show they decided to use. Enjoy!
So Lucy was the movie that a lot of people believed was going to be the vehicle that would take Scarlett Johansson to the top of a superhero like film and possible even point towards her getting her own standalone Marvel film as Blackwidow. I remember so many people believing this was her shot to finally break that glass ceiling.
And... well... its definitely something...
Lucy is the story of a woman with the title name (played by Johansson) who in the beginning gets caught up in a bad situation with a Chinese mafia and ends up being used as a mule to transport a new drug to the markets. When the drugs are introduced into her system, she suddenly opens up her brains capabilities and she has a plethora of abilities and powers.
And honestly, that's the majority of the plot of this film. And I wish I was joking. This movie feels more like an audition tape that Scarlett Johansson had for the newest psychic superhero in the the Marvel Cinematic Universe more than it felt like an actual movie.
And you'd think that this movie would be more interesting in the parts where Lucy is going around using her powers. And don't get me wrong, those parts are kind of cool, but in all reality, we're thrown so quickly into this new character who has no emotions or feelings and is just a brain capabilities robot that we don't really get to know the real Lucy. We get a glimpse of her in the beginning and honestly, that was the part that I liked the most.
Lucy is not a testament saying that Scarlett Johansson cannot act. She definitely can and you can see that in the beginning. She actually has a lot of genuine moments where she's scared. She's unsure. She's anxious. She actually seems like a human being in the beginning of this film.
But there is a distinctive part in the film where its like she was told not to act and just stare blankly into space.
Its not just that she doesn't give off any emotion and acts like a robot, any particle of any kind of character we understood out of Lucy goes away when she gets the drug in her system and starts unlocking parts of her brain. Instead of having human reactions to someone experiencing this new phenomena, Lucy just kind of goes through it and on top of all of that, just becomes a remorseless stone cold killer.
Like I said, we don't have much to go off of as far as any kind of character Lucy is supposed to be, but suddenly she's this mindless robot, just killing people because they're in her way. People give Man of Steel crap because Superman didn't save anybody during his fight with Zod and consequentially, a lot of people died. Now its definitely not on the scale of Man of Steel, but Lucy pulls the trigger on a lot of innocent people. She causes a lot of people, including police officers, to die in horrible automobile accidents, or at best be paralyzed for life. And for what? All to get to Paris and get studied by Morgan Freeman?
Now what I will say about this film is that it is visually appealing. There is a really cool scene where you see the construction and deconstruction of New York throughout time. The physical changes Lucy goes through are really interesting and creative. I'm sure the stunt work and visualization team had a lot of fun with this movie.
However, what I think this movie's biggest problem is, is that it tried too hard to be self important.
Suddenly everything is significant, Lucy goes from being a normal girl, to not just an emotionless robot, but finding the significance in every single little thing that exists.
I'm sure there was a point where she could have gotten to this point where she knows so much that she is pretty much a god-like character. But there was absolutely no transition. She goes from scared girl to emotionless demi-goddess in a quick seizure.
There is a little bit of an attempt to make this movie more focused on Lucy slowly losing her humanity. You can see it a little bit in the dialogue she says where she starts to see all the conventions and human constructions that she believe hold us back meaning nothing to her.
The only action that points towards her drifting away from humanity is the really forced romance between her and the police officer played by Amr Waked and she tells him that he is a reminder... of what? I would assume her humanity but still. Very weak, very forced, and it doesn't really make sense.
The sad part is, the action in the movie is really interesting. While its all based on bullshit theories about locking more than 10% of our brain (that saying is full of shit), the abilities and powers Lucy has in this film are really interesting and they make for a little bit of fun. However, it did create a little bit of confusion, especially in the end. If she's getting so powerful and she needs to focus and do this big science experiment for Morgan Freeman at the end, why wouldn't she go outside, kill all the bad guys going after her by just waving her hand, and then going through the experiment without any interruptions?
Overall, Lucy is a pretty harmless film. As long as you remember that all the theories in it are bullshit, its poorly executed, and Scarlett Johansson's talent is wasted in it, you can at least get some solace in the action, the visuals, and the very fact that this feels more like a short film than it does a feature length film. I don't think you need to go out of your way to see Lucy, but if you stumble upon it, it might be kind of fun to check out if you're just scanning channels.
But those are my thoughts on Lucy? What did you think? Do you think they should make a Black Widow movie? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll get updates on new movies and reviews coming out of this blog.
I'll leave you with this. There's a good Cracked video with a theory that Lucy is a prequel to the movie Her. However since I can't get that on here, here's the Behind the Scenes of this film and they explain how they do some of the interesting stunts they do in the film. Enjoy!
Melancholia is a movie that I had no idea what to expect.
I ran across this movie while watching another video talking about creative ideas. This seemed to be the headlining movie, suggesting that this was a movie with a really creative idea and it may have gotten overlooked when you talk about movies that came out in 2011. On top of that, when I looked at the cast, I really liked a lot of the people involved including Kirsten Dunst and Kiefer Sutherland. On top of that, the images that come along with this movie make it seem like a very unique movie. What I will say to that is... there is a lot of misdirection in this movie. From the little prologue at the beginning, to the images I saw previewing this movie on Netflix. Disclaimer: Kirsten Dunst never gets electrical powers.
This is a very misleading picture
Regardless, I wanted to check out the movie because whether or not it had anything to do with the supernatural or not, the fact still remained that this seemed like a creative enough idea and I wanted to watch something different.
Melancholia is split into two parts. The movie centers around two sisters. The first part is about Justine (played by Kirsten Dunst). It is her wedding day but something just seems to be off with her.
She seems to have this very elaborate party, paid for by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband Jonathan (played by Kiefer Sutherland). She seems to have a very successful job working for an ad agency under Stellan Skargard's character. And she seems to have a very loving and doting husband in Alexander Skarsgard's character. But throughout the entire first act of the film, Justine seemed unhappy.
And I'm not gonna lie, the first half of this movie is really, REALLY slow.
Like I'm sure if I sat down and really thought about this movie I'm sure a lot of it would connect to the second half a lot more but I'm honestly drawing a blank. There's so much back and forth from Justine, showing how she is trying to be happy, she is trying to enjoy this conventional happiness in front of her. And I guess at a certain point it gives a good perspective on people with depression or perhaps its talking about people not fitting into the norms or conventions we want to set up for them. Maybe this first act is all about breaking those bonds and just going off and doing whatever the fuck makes you happy.
Here's the issue though. You're sitting there watching this and the only introduction you have to this character is that she stares a lot with those definitely high Kirsten Dunst doe eyes, she can't keep a genuine smile for shit, and she can't decide what she wants. At a certain point, you kind of agree with the characters who are getting impatient with her and you just want her to get her shit together.
Now I tell you this because while you may be sitting there watching the first act of this movie, and yeah, you might fall asleep or get bored, I think the reason this movie is considered a really creative idea is due to the second act of this film.
In the second act, Justine has moved into the large house of her sister and her husband and she's definitely dealing with some kind of depression or something. I suppose the first act is a good way to set that up as it were and show you the turmoil she's going through and where she's headed in the second act because she is really at her lowest.
HOWEVER, the more important part of the story, and the part that is actually a lot more interesting is the fact that there is a planet called, Melancholia on a flyby course near Earth. Jonathan, Justine's brother in law/ Claire's husband, is a scientist who studies the stars and he is overly excited for the planet to pass by Earth. However, Claire is nervous because there have been reports that instead of just flying by Earth, Melancholia is actually on a collision course with our planet and it could lead to the destruction of Earth. Jonathan dismisses those theories and instead focuses on the excitement of the event.
Again, this is where things get really interesting. Claire and her husband show two sides of the same coin if an event like this were ever to happen. And this is not that far fetched of a situation. I'm not talking about a planet coming our way, but I've heard stories of asteroids or other space debris on a collision course with Earth that have been rumored to end our existence. This is actually a really interesting concept because you don't know exactly what is going to happen and what everyone's reaction is going to be if it does happen.
Well... except for Kirsten Dunst.
Kirsten Dunst has this real knack for just standing in the same place, or having the exact same face in any situation and calling it acting. And again, I get it, in this movie she's suppose to have some kind of illness, or depression, or superpowers, I'm still not totally sure about what her deal is, but at least have some kind of reaction to a freaking planet headed towards Earth. And I think I know what they were trying to do, they were trying to have her point out the hopelessness of the entire situation, regardless of whether or not it collides that there is literally nothing humans can do. But there had to have been some other way to play that, some other direction she should have gotten other than stare blankly into space.
Like I have kind of alluded to already, the real stand outs in this movie are Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland.
The two of them really do do a great job at balancing out the shock and awe of a phenomena like this is. I have a little bit of a bias towards Kiefer Sutherland because of how many years I just watched 24 on repeat, but Charlotte Gainsbourg was really good in this movie and I didn't really know that was going to be my reaction when I first started this movie. That being said, the first act of this movie is really boring so I didn't really know what to expect in general. And hey, if you're watching the first half of this movie and you like it, no harm no foul, I wouldn't blame anybody for getting caught up in a little bit of the drama that goes on in the first act, I just thought it was a little tedious and didn't connect enough to the second act which I thought was a lot more confined and allowed for three talented actors, Dunst, Gainsbourg, and Sutherland to really show off what they can do.
So overall, how do I feel about Melancholia? Overall, I'd say its a really slow movie. If you're a fan of Richard Wagner's orchestration Tristan und Isolde you're going to hear that song played... over and over... and over... and over... and over again. Its not a bad song and I guess it fits, but it gets really annoying really quick. In my opinion you're going to enjoy the second half of this movie more than the first half. I think you have some good performances, but overall, the movie falls a little bit flat for me. But if you like pretty low budget independent films, Melancholia might be the one for you.
But what do you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your 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 coming out of this blog.
I'll leave you with this. I'm not sure which part of this music video is funnier, how seriously Kirsten Dunst is taking this song about turning Japanese, or how uncomfortable a lot of the people in this music video look. Enjoy!
The first season of Daredevil came out in 2014. While I didn't watch it all the way through right away, when I did watch it I blasted through it and I really enjoyed what I watched. At the time I thought it was the best superhero show on television. Now, since watching that season, I have watched The Flash, Jessica Jones, and a lot of other superhero television shows. Not to necessarily say that those shows are better than the first season of Daredevil, but they are different. Each show is going for something different, even a show set in the same universe like Jessica Jones. And the same goes for Daredevil.
I think this should be an interesting review. I have my thoughts on the second season of Daredevil and I will definitely talk about what I liked and what I didn't like about this season. However, I'm almost equally looking forward to how this show compares with the other stories being told in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as comparing it with superhero stories in general.
Daredevil season 2 takes place not that long after the first season. It also takes place not that long after Jessica Jones but that's not as relevant. Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox) and Foggy Nelson (played by Elden Hanson) have their law practice in full swing, providing legal services to the down and out and the people that really need it. Matt continues his night time vigilantism as the Devil of Hells Kitchen or now known as Daredevil and Foggy is fully aware of it while his secretary, Karen Page (played by Deborah Ann Wolf) who also happens to be developing feelings for Matt, does not know of his secret night time activities.
The first few episodes, or what could be considered the first act of the season mainly focuses on Daredevil going up against a new vigilante that has come to Hell's Kitchen. This vigilante is a brutal killer by the name of Frank Castle (played by Jon Bernthal) who goes by the pseudonym, The Punisher. Like I said, this is the first act of the season and I thought the first few episodes were really
great. They were streamlined and they were a lot of fun. They created the clear divide between Daredevil and The Punisher and the lengths that the either one is willing or unwilling to go to to bring justice.
The episodes after the capture of the Punisher are where things get a little slow and a little bit convoluted. While you would think that the trial of Frank Castle would be a really interesting few episodes, these are really the slowest episodes of the season. There is a lot of Jon Bernthal just sitting in restraints with a glazed look on his face while he gets asked questions by the members of Nelson and Murdock. On top of all that, this is where things start to get real complicated really quickly.
This is the introduction of Elektra Natchios (played by Elodie Yung) and the whole story line with her, and the Yakuza, and The Hand, and the reintroduction of Stick from the first season (played by Scott Glenn). And while its an interesting story when everything is said a done, a lot of things got really muddled midway through the season.
And here's the thing. If this season had focused on The Punisher and unraveling the mystery of him and the murder of his family this would have been a really great season. If this season had focused on Elektra and the fight between her and the Hand. This would have been a really great season. But because they tried to fit both into one season, I think they overplayed their hand a bit.
Again, both stories are really interesting and for what they had, I think they did a decent job at portraying both characters. However, its when both stories go in tandem that things get convoluted. The fact of the matter is, there is a lot going on in this season. You have parts where Matt is dealing with Ninjas climbing up the walls of a hospital to find patients connected to The Hand. At the same time he's dealing with The Punisher going on his rampages. And I suppose a part of it makes sense to show that Matt is getting out of his depth and he needs help. This could possibly point towards the forming of The Defenders. However, I think with the balancing act of these two characters, Matt dealing with his relationships, whether its between him and Elektra, him and Karen, him and Foggy, him and Stick, and then you throw Wilson Fisk in the mix just for good measure, I think this season got really convoluted really quickly.
Speaking of Wilson Fisk, holy shit.
I re-watched the first season before watching this season and I just got chills again watching all the episodes where Wilson Fisk (played by Vincent D'onofrio is the main baddie and the fact of the matter is, the first season worked because it was streamlined on one antagonist. But back on point, Wilson Fisk does return at one point in this season and its not a moment too soon because he's the catalyst that really helps this season pull through the middle act to get to the big finale.
He's got a pretty small role in the grand scheme of things, but the promise of his involvement in future events with Daredevil and probably The Defenders, it just puts him back on top as the best villain in the MCU right now for me. And yes, better than Loki. I'm still not totally sure if he's better than Kilgrave... but maybe that's my bias towards David Tennant.
Another thing worth mentioning about this show is that it really took the action to the next level. While I'm still on the fence on whether or not I like DareDevil or Jessica Jones more, I will say that Daredevil just has better action overall because Jessica Jones is more of a slow burn psychological drama than it is a real superhero show. The anti was already set high with the first season but if there is anything that the second season undoubtedly improved on, its the action.
The bar was set pretty high by season one, but while a lot of people just pointed to one really great action sequence in season one (the hallway tracking fight sequence that looks like it was done in one take and looks amazing) there are a couple of fight scenes in this season that just blew my socks off. I had to take a breather after some of them just because they were so awesome. And I had heard about some of them but I don't think I was truly prepared for them when they finally came.
But I think the one thing that took it to the next level was the graphic levels of Jessica Jones.
While I mentioned that Jessica Jones didn't have the levels of action that Daredevil provided, One thing that it did better than Daredevil season one was giving a gritty, gruesome, clearly R-Rated show. Daredevil season one was definitely a mature R-rated superhero show, but the majority of it was just punching the crap out of people with some gruesome imagery in bits and pieces. Its almost like Daredevil saw Jessica Jones and said, we need to top that, but in our fight scenes. And that makes sense with characters like Elektra and The Punisher joining the fray. Before when it was just Daredevil, he would just beat the crap out of someone. Now you have a lot of characters who have no problem shooting someone in the face or slitting someone's throat. There's a lot more blood, and this season is a lot more gruesome. And its fantastic.
I wanna talk about each of the main characters individually because what Marvel's shows on Netflix have done is they have created really interesting and compelling characters in a 13 episode arch. And while some shows (and even movies) don't put in enough character development across seasons or sequels, Daredevil builds from the previous season.
Matt Murdock - Charlie Cox has created a character that you just like to root for. Its actually kind of a bummer because there were stories a couple months back that Cox's career has kind of suffered because of Daredevil because he's so used to playing a blind man that its bled into his other auditions and roles. You have to give the man credit for really embracing his roles like no other.
Matt Murdock is going through a lot of issues that you've seen before in a superhero show. He's dealing with relationships, he's dealing with some people knowing his secret identity and other people not knowing. He's dealing with balancing his day career with his night time activities. He's dealing with the overwhelming nature of being a masked vigilante and the fact that he can't always save everyone. He's dealing with the fear that if his enemies were to know his identity, they may use it to get to the people he cares about, and if that's the case, should he just cut off all ties. These are all issues that we've seen before in other superhero films and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Its just too simple to say that Daredevil isn't bringing anything new to the table because that's not true. Its doing it in a mature, not CW way, that I don't think we've seen done in a 13 episode arch.
While I'd love to see Daredevil show up in a feature length film in the MCU, I think Netflix is the perfect place for him and I'm looking forward to seeing this character grow even more. Because you see the conflict, you see the struggle this character is going through and its done, really, really well.
One thing I will say about Matt in this season is the fact that because there is so much going on, because there are stories surround the Punisher, surrounding Elektra, there are a couple of arcs and
paths of development for Matt that get a little bit muddled. There's a part near the beginning where Matt is hit in the head with a bullet and his abilities are impaired. Now I thought for a little bit that that was going to be a big part of the season, that Matt's abilities would go in and out causing a liability while he's out fighting crime... but no, it happens once and it doesn't really ever happen again.
Again, I think this all might tie together in later seasons, but overall, I think there was so much going on that some of the development I think they wanted Matt to go through got put off to the wayside. It wasn't as clear cut as it could have been. But for what it was, I thought it was still pretty solid.
Foggy Nelson - Elden Hanson is an actor that I can't really decide if he's a good or bad actor. Re-watching the first season, I realized that a lot of his lines are really delivered awkwardly and while he's supposed to be a quirky character, I'm not wild about exactly how quirky he actually is.
I think the thing that always brings me back is that regardless of Hanson's acting, I really enjoy his story and how his character is written. Foggy is the loyal companion of Matt, but at the same time he has his own aspirations and his own goals. In the first season, he wanted to see Nelson and Murdock succeed and would do anything to make sure that happened. And while he's the dorky sidekick character, both the first and the second season show that he is a very capable lawyer and he doesn't always play second fiddle when it comes to running cases through Nelson and Murdock.
This is even more flushed out in the second season. This season, Foggy is aware Matt is Daredevil and in many ways he helps him do his crime fighting in his own supplemental way. I like this because, again, while its something we've probably seen before in a movie, I don't know if we've really had the 13 episodes to really flush out the fact that Foggy will help out Matt in any way he can, until things go too far. Its interesting having people know Matt's identity and not having him be an Iron Man character where EVERYONE knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man. Its always good drama to have superheroes that keep their identities secret, even to those they care about. But its not as charted territory when these heroes have friends that do know their identity and how that affects their lives. Foggy gives a really good supporting character, regardless of what you think of Hanson's "quirky" acting.
Karen Page - Karen Page is a character that in every other superhero show would be a really boring character. She's a pretty blond white girl who is the secretary for two very competent lawyers, one of them being a masked vigilante. Sure they can make her a love interest, but that's more augmenting onto characters we already thought were cool. At that point she's really just arm candy right?
Well they really try to push those stereotypes out of our heads when it comes to Karen Page in the second season. Karen is not just a secretary at Nelson and Murdock, in many ways, she's part of the legal team. She talks to clients, she does a lot of the leg work.
And yeah they do make her a love interest for Matt in this season, and while in the first episode I saw this and didn't think it was that great of an idea, I actually think they did a decent job with creating a relationship between these two. I still feel like its a little bit artificial and perhaps only happening because of the source material from the comics, but it was a relationship that provided more than just a woman that Daredevil can go home to at the end of the night. Its also a pretty good contrast when compared with the relationship Matt has with Elektra.
But as an individual character, Karen's development is compounded from the experiences she has in the first season, and it makes sense with the things that she experiences in the second. In the first season, she is very much a victim, someone that is affected by the evils and the corruption of Hell's Kitchen. In this season, she's more of a survivor, someone who sees the evil, sees the corruption, and
wants to do something about it. You see her teeter between being an almost lawyer to being an almost journalist and you almost see her fill the shoes of Ben Urich from the first season. And while I'm still bummed that that character wasn't fully utilized in my opinion in this series, I think its good to let someone else shine, especially a character we've already seen grow in the first season, and needs avenues to go down.
The most interesting parts of Karen's story was her connection to Frank Castle. She had a connection to Daredevil and while that connection is still there, she kind of carries on the dilemma you see in the first few episodes on who's methods are better? Daredevil's where he punches the crap out of bad guys but at the end of the day watched the legal system take care of the bad guys, or The Punisher's who takes the bad guys off the streets permanently. The connection between Karen Page and Frank Castle is not a connection I was expecting from this show when I heard that The Punisher was going to be in the season, but I really enjoyed it by the end of the season.
Frank Castle - And speaking of Frank Castle, the Punisher was a fantastic character to add to this universe. I'm not really familiar with the lore of the character. I haven't seen the previous movies that had incarnations of Frank Castle. But what I do know is that I am growing to be more and more of a fan of Jon Bernthal's work, and I want to see more of him.
Bernthal is just good at playing characters that are just good at killing people. I'm not really sure if that's a type cast but what Bernthal does is he portrays these characters in a way that you really do understand where they are coming from. There's a great line where Karen says something to the effect of, I don't agree with your methods whatsoever and I think that you should be in prison for what you've done. But the reality is, what you do works. There's this great conversation that Matt has with Frank Castle on a rooftop all about the differences between Daredevil and The Punisher and Castle lays out the reasons why he thinks he is right and justified to kill the criminals that Daredevil thinks need to be put away instead.
In a year of superheroes fighting over different ideologies and different methodology of crime fighting, the struggle between Daredevil and The Punisher probably goes near the top of well done struggles. And it resolved very much the way it needed to in this case. There's not a huge resolution, nobody is really proven right or wrong despite there being a lot of dramatic tension on both sides, and at the end of day, The Punisher is just going to be doing his thing, Daredevil is going to be doing his thing and maybe their paths will cross again, maybe they won't. It may not be the cleanest resolution, but at least it made a lot more of an impact than both of them having mothers with the same first name.
Like I mentioned, there's a good portion of Frank's story where it gets a little slow and he's just looking blankly into space and asking questions pertaining to his really boring trial. However, when Jon Bernthal is able to go out and do his Jon Bernthalisms and be a badass, The Punisher is a really interesting character.
I really want to see a standalone series and it has been green lit. I have no clue when that is going to air but I'm really looking forward to The Punisher getting his own series to develop an already great character. I think with how much was going on in this series, Frank Castle maybe didn't get the levels of development I think he really needed, but it was a good taste and I'm looking forward to more Punisher in the future.
Elektra - And finally the last character worth talking in depth about is definitely Elektra Natchios. I had never really seen anything with Elodie Yung in it before and if I had I definitely didn't take any notice of her. And what I was worried about is that they just hired a pretty face to play a really interesting character, because that has never happened before...
Oh... right...
But luckily, I was pleasantly surprised with how well they built up this character and created someone who is very much an anti-hero, but still has a very compelling backstory and connection to Matt Murdock.
Elodie Yung is not only incredibly gorgeous, she creates this very black widow-esk character (in the traditional connotation of a black widow, not the Scarlet Johanasson character) where she comes off as a seductive object, but in reality, she is incredibly deadly.
One of the best parts of the show, in my opinion, was the relationship between Matt and Elektra. You get the sense that this is a really toxic relationship and something that Matt should be running far, far away from, but at the same time you see the connection that the two have, especially in the context of the events of season two where Matt wants to cut off all ties to those who aren't connected to his crime fighting, and suddenly this relationship is something you want to see grow, you want to see it blossom.
The one issue I think I had with Elektra was the fact that the last act really throws her story line for a loop and it seems very random the sudden change. It of course is explained by very convenient flashbacks, however, a lot of her story seemed very random and sudden, mainly when they start throwing in connections to Stick and The Hand.
Like The Punisher, Elektra creates an interesting dynamic for an anti-hero character. She is a brutal killer and lots of the things she does is reprehensible, however, you still see the connection to her and Matt. You still see the good in her and you want to see that good come out. Whether it does or not is the drama and the fascinating part of the story. I'm looking forward to where they take Elektra and how she develops in later seasons and in the Netflix TV universe.
The interesting part about this season is that they tried to play it off like The Punisher and Elektra were the two characters that would replace Wilson Fisk, like they were the villains. The fact of the matter is, neither of these characters were the main antagonist of the series. And that might have hurt the season. The fact is, we want to see all three vigilantes fighting together against evil. And while there is an antagonist (or a couple) in this season, none of them are really memorable and are really just place holders until a later time when Wilson Fisk returns... and my god, is he going to return.
And that's a good segway to talking about the greater universe that the Netflix shows are creating. As much as I would love to see Daredevil fighting side by side with Captain America and Thor, The Defenders are more of the B-squad, taking on the street level crime, or the evil that hides in the shadows. Jessica Jones and soon Luke Cage just fight on a different playing field than The Avengers that I don't think it would vibe. I'm okay with the fact that Daredevil will probably never fight the Kree or Thanos because he'd be out of his league. On top of that, I don't think the tones of the movie universe would mesh well with the tone of the movies and I'm okay with keeping them separate.
The only exception I could possibly see is dependent on how they pull off Spider-man: Homecoming. I would love to see Spider-man take on the more street level crime and if that was the case, it would make total sense for him to cross over to fight the criminals Daredevil fights. It would make total sense for Spider-man to take on Wilson Fisk. Now, again, the only thing holding that back would be the tones. I don't know if a John Hughes style Spider-man would really mesh well with the absolute brutality of Wilson Fisk, but still I would be one-hundred percent fine with shifting that to make it work. We shall see.
But back on target, the Netflix shows are creating their own dark, gritty, street level crime fighting universe that isn't dependent on the movies and has their own threats that The Defenders need to face.
The interesting part is, I'm not totally convinced we need a collaboration series.
While Season 2 of Daredevil gave some good insight into what the nature of the threats in The Defenders could be, if they said tomorrow that The Defenders weren't happening, I wouldn't be disappointed. And here's why.
In case you don't know, the Defenders is an upcoming show on Netflix that Marvel is producing that is going to be the street level Avengers. Its going to take the characters from the big shows being put out on Netflix to create another super team. This team, as of now, will consist of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Daredevil and Jessica Jones have already aired, Luke Cage (played again by Mike Colter) is set to release in September while Iron Fist (starring Finn Jones) is set to be released in February of 2017. The reason I wouldn't be opposed to them keeping them separate is because each show so far has had its own taste and feel to it.
Jessica Jones is very, very different than Daredevil in a variety of ways. It is different in tone, kind of action, in the variety of themes that come out of it, etc. Jessica Jones is so good because it didn't try to
be a female Daredevil. It was so good because it wasn't really a superhero show. It was a suspenseful drama that highlighted a lot of the struggles that women go through in their daily lives with a character or two that just happened to have super human powers. I hope that Luke Cage does the same thing but with people of color. (Even though I wasn't incredibly impressed with Luke Cage as a character in Jessica Jones and I'm not totally sure how he's going to fare with his own standalone show). And Iron Fist... I have no idea where they're going with that. And that's awesome!
I think these shows thrive more if they're not bound to being your classic superhero shows. Daredevil is a good show to carry on that classic superhero feeling and I don't think they need to change that formula for that to continue to be a successful show. But I don't know if I necessarily need to see them change the formula for Jessica Jones to fit the Avengers style cross over they want.
I'm all for crossovers. Right now they're playing the crossovers like a Grand Theft Auto game, where in Jessica Jones, Claire Temple makes really vague references to Daredevil, and in Daredevil Season 2, they make really vague references to Jessica Jones for a kind of wink wink to the audience to give them some kind of reward for sitting through all 39 episodes of all three seasons of these shows. And don't get me wrong, I think it'd be a really cool idea to have Daredevil show up in the second season of Jessica Jones. I'd love to see these two interact.
However, if Daredevil is going to show up in Jessica Jones, it needs to be in a context that is conducive to Jessica Jones, not only there to create a franchise. If they're going to continue the themes of the first Season, Daredevil needs to show up and be conducive to those themes. I would expect the same thing with Jessica Jones showing up in Daredevil, or Luke Cage, or Iron Fist. I just don't want them to sacrifice all the story building and the character development done in both shows, just so they can all come together and fight. That can be done in crossover episodes and maybe, down the road they can do a collaboration series, but it needs to be earned and it needs to make sense.
Luckily, Marvel isn't like DC where they feel like they need to hurry up and create a universe out of scratch. Marvel has the time to mold and shape these characters and create a story that makes a lot of sense for them to come together and form a team. I would just ask, don't force it. If these characters work better alone, let them work better alone.
So overall, the second season of Daredevil was pretty good. I don't think it was as good as the first season or Jessica Jones, but the fact of the matter is, I had fun with this show. There was a lot of good development of characters I really enjoyed and the action was off the wall awesome.
If you're looking for a show on Netflix to binge watch, Season 2 of Daredevil is just another reason to check out this series. Builds on the first season in a great way and while its not quite as good as the first season, its still worth checking out.
So those are my thoughts on Daredevil Season 2. Its been a while since I've been able to write this in depth of a review of a television season. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for movies and TV shows I should be reviewing in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.
I'll leave you with this. Its not much and I know its not exactly what I want right now, but here is the teaser trailer for The Defenders coming out soon. Enjoy!
