Netflix Retrospective: Luke Cage Season 1 Episodes 3-4 - Who's gonna take the weight?/Step in the Arena

Smith Month - Mini Review - Collateral Beauty

In cinema history there have been many horrors, killer clowns, serial killers with clown masks, reliving the same day over and over again, sociopaths, ghosts, zombies, things that go bump in the night and literally anything by Adam Sandler these days but none are more scary than Will Smith trying to win an Oscar

We conclude Smith Month with the most recent of Will Smith’s Oscarbaiting flicks, Collateral Beauty. Can’t we do Bright instead? No? Oh joy. Despite a star-studded cast, this movie was panned by critics with only a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and whilst moderately successful thanks to it’s low budget, it made less than $100m and marks one of the lowest openings of Will Smith’s career. That Oscar just seems further and further away.

Netflix Retrospective - Luke Cage Season 1 Episodes 1-2 - Moment of Truth/Code of the Streets

Well, let’s continue these retrospectives with Luke Cage. Last seen in Jessica Jones getting a shotgun to the head and getting himself repaired by Claire Temple (and yup, she has a sizeable role in this one) my initial reaction to Luke Cage is that whilst it doesn’t reach the lows DD s2 reached, it didn’t reach the highs, in particular with the action, but a re-watch may do this show credit (or possibly not) so let’s do it.

#58 - Smith Month - After Earth

In this instalment of Smith Month

I’m revisiting an old friend of the show, M Night Shyamalan

It’s been a while since I reviewed the last one and it’s still most anger-inducing product I’ve ever watched. But this one is slightly different. Will Smith wrote the plot of this movie, which M Night and Garry Whitta adapted into a screenplay. Jaden may have been successful in the Karate Kid but it certainly didn’t seem like he was getting a lot of other acting roles, this came out 3 years after the Karate Kid, and something had happened, Jaden had gone through puberty so his voice and performance is significantly changed from Karate Kid

It’s fairly obvious this movie was Will Smith’s attempt to bolster his son into stardom, and if that was the case then EPIC FAIL! This movie was panned on release, 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was also a box office failure, earning $250m on a $150m budget + $100m marketing. So, what went wrong? Was it Shyamalan’s direction, the writing or a mixture of the two? Let’s take a look at After Earth.]

Smith Month: Mini Review - Karate Kid

How about a Smith Month review without any Will Smith in it? Here’s Karate Kid, the remake.

Yup, Jaden’s on his own in this one as stars in a remake of an 80’s movie that, I haven’t seen, I’ll be honest. But this isn’t a comparison piece, I want to judge this movie on its own merits. Released in 2010, the movie got a mixed reception, 65% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average 6.7/10. But financially it was successful, getting $365m on a $40m budget.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 episodes 12-13 review - The Real Deal/Principia

Let's take a look at Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s 100th episode, and the one that follows

Smith Month - Mini Review: The Pursuit of Happyness

I’ve decided to save my sanity and limit the Will Smith Oscar baiting movies to this one and Collateral Beauty. But I’ve chosen this one to introduce another member of the Smith family we’ll be looking at a couple more time. May I introduce Mr Jaden Smith… You know the guy who tweets this sh*t

No Jaden, Baby Geniuses is cr*ppy movie series, not a representation of Real Life

At a mere 8 years old (probably younger during production) and with only a cameo in Men in Black II under his belt, young Jaden would have a starring role in this, the Pursuit of Happyness

Released in 2006, the movie had a decent reception with 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average 8/10 on IMDb. The movie was profitable, earning over $300m on its $55m budget. But does it hold up? Here are my thoughts.

#57 - Smith Month - Shark Tale

I’ve not done a single Guilty Pleasure review in ages, and that’s not about to change now, we continue Smith Month with an animated future, infamous as one of the worst of the Dreamworks Catalogue, Shark Tale.

Released in 2004 and making a sizeable profit of $367m on it’s $75m budget, the movie had a mixed critical reception at the time and it’s only got worse as time went on. I normally wouldn’t cover a movie Mr Enter had already torn to shreds, but this is a Will Smith movie and hey? When was the last time I reviewed an awful kids thing? What's that? I did in my last 2 rage reviews… why break up a trilogy? This is Shark Tale

Smith Month - Mini Review: Men in Black 3

It was only about 8 years late, but we finally got a second Men in Black sequel, does it improve on areas that were lacking in the last movie? Well, with a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and making enough money to surpass the previous film, it certainly seems things are back on track, but are they? Let’s take a look.

Star Wars Rebels Season 4 Finale Review - A Fool's Hope/Family Reunion and Farewell

And so we come to the end of a journey. Back in August 2014 I started Star Wars Month, a month dedicated to Star Wars Material: movies, tv shows and cr*ppy lego shorts. Just as I did, Star Wars was preparing for its big return with the Force Awakens. But before then, a little kids’ show in Disney XD cropped up. I decided to review it, episode by episode, and whilst other shows failed to meet the standard I require to be invested, this show never dropped that far, at least not consistently. Sure the quality varied from episode to episode, I’d argue this season gave us some of the most consistent quality I’ve seen, not a single episode scoring below a 7, and I’ll tell you right now, that’s not changing with these final ones. This show had 2 purposes, the first was to the show the foundations of the Rebel Alliance, an arc that basically concluded in the last series and secondly to see a rag-tag group of rebels fighting the good fight with the end goal of liberating Lothal, and here we are, let’s take a look at the final episodes of the show. Spoilers will be covered, so here we go

Smith Month - Mini Review: Men in Black II

Let’s continue with the Men in Black series as we continue Smith Month

Men in Black II came out in 2002 and was met with a decent Box Office performance but a poor critical reception, which likely factored into the 3^rd movie not coming out until 10 years later. Why was the critical reception so poor, well here’s my take on it.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4 episode 11 review - All the Comforts of Home

Smith Month: Mini Review - Men in Black

It’s March, you know what that means, time for an obligatory theme month!

  

Ah, Will Smith, a guy who somehow ends up in some dire awful movies, but maintains a certain charm that keeps him employable, even moving over to the first Netflix blockbuster, Bright (which is not a great movie but I won't be covering here) but like I said, he’s been in a lot of bad movies, and I have a select few I plan to cover. Let’s start with one that isn’t sh*t, Men in Black.

Released in 1997 to financial and critical success, including 3 Academy Award Nominations, this movie would go on to the first of a 3-movie franchise, the rest of which we’ll cover next week.