Rage4Media: RageLite review - Shazam!

Rage4Media: RageLite review - Shazam!: Note - This episode is almost a week late, my apologies.  The year is 1939, and creators C. C. Beck and Bill Parker create a character for F...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge ...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge ...: We're back with more Dragons: Race to the Edge, last time we just passed the half way mark with the first of a 2-part episode. Yeah, stu...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defende...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defende...: We’re gonna look at Voltron for the final time, and see if the ending is satisfying.  

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - The Lion King

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - The Lion King: The third of the 4 remakes of 2019… I still can’t believe they released 4 of these things in 2019, was of Disney’s most popular animated mov...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defende...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defende...: Halloween is over and we’ve got a show to finish, can Voltron end on a high? 

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - Aladdin

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - Aladdin: We continue the slew of 2019 Disney Remakes with another 90s Classic, Aladdin. And directing this one we have Guy Ritchie, who’s mostly know...

Rage4Media: #80 - IT Chapter 2 (A Strange Halloween 3)

Rage4Media: #80 - IT Chapter 2 (A Strange Halloween 3): Derry Maine is an odd town Perfect for Pennywise the clown He feeds on fear, the stories claim As he pulls your carcass down the drain A g...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defende...

Rage4Media: Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defende...: I accidentally posted the previous Strange Halloween reviews a week early, so to allow for the 2 Halloween reviews to drop next week, here&#...

Rage4Media: #79 Dumbo (Disney Remake Marathon)

Rage4Media: #79 Dumbo (Disney Remake Marathon): OK, of all the films to give to Tim Burton, why this one? I get giving Tim Burton another Disney remake, much as his Alice remake sucks, l...

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - Beauty and the Beast

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - Beauty and the Beast: Tale as old as time True as it can be Barely even friends Then somebody bends Unexpectedly Just a little change Small to say the least Both ...

Rage4Media: A Strange Halloween - Stranger Things Season 3 Epi...

Rage4Media: A Strange Halloween - Stranger Things Season 3 Epi...: Starcourt Mall, shiny and bold Has shattered relationships, so I am told Billy was a lifeguard, became a prophet And Downtown stores aren’t ...

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - The Jungle Book

Rage4Media: Disney Remake Marathon - The Jungle Book: Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is clearly a favourite among Disney execs, despite them not owning exclusive rights to it. It got the anim...

Rage4Media is moving...

I have been with Blogger for over 5 years but with Facebook now blocking this site for reasons I struggle to fathom and with most of the changes made to Blogger in its recent update being unfavourable to me, I've decided to set up a new blog. The reviews posted here will remain as an archive.

Check out https://rage4media.blogspot.com

RageLite Review - Teen Beach Movie

Guys, we’re in the dark timeline here. COVID-19 has changed everything and film and television will likely not be the same for years to come. So, I’m flashing back to a simpler time, when I was still at University and not completely wasting my life. Let’s have a look at Teen Beach Movie

I’ll freely admit, since lockdown and the launch of Disney+ I have become obsessed with Disney Teen Musicals and comedies, yes, including High School Musical (HSMTMTS is really good, despite a shaky opener) the one I want to talk about is… Well, actually it’s Teen Beach 2, but to cover that one we must first look at the first one.

Don’t have much to say about the crew, the director, Jeffrey Horanday, had directed Geek Charming for Disney prior to this and has some experience as a choreographer if nothing recent. When it comes to talent, it seems they were banking on the stars, Maia Mitchell, who had starring roles in various TV series, and Ross Lynch, who’d shown off his singing talents playing the role of Austin in the Disney Sitcom Austin and Ally, this show has become something of an obsession of mine, and I’ll be talking about that show soon.

And it worked, joining Descendants and High School Musical as the Disney Channel’s most popular films. Let’s take a look and work out why?

Netflix Retrospective - ReBoot: The Guardian Code season 2 episodes 7-10

Ok, we are nearing the end of this series, thank god, but things have changed, Megabyte is free, and the Sourcerer knows about Alan Turing high school, we have 4 episodes still to fill, so here’s hoping they’re good… Can’t say that with a straight face.

Praise4Media #67 - Aquaman

Apparently, I’m on a superhero kick, let’s take a look at DC’s offering with Aquaman

I think most of us agree that Justice League wasn’t good (and the Snyder Cut won't be either, I guarantee it), and Aquaman isn’t immune to criticism when it comes to the performance of Jason Mamoa but let’s be honest, he could’ve given it his all, and it would still have been sh*t so no love lost there. I don’t mind the casting of Mamoa and it’s time to give him his time to shine, and shine he did in his solo movie.

Production of an Aquaman movie can be traced back as early as 2004, but with studio mandates, recasting and the usual stuff that goes on behind the scenes with this kind of movie, it was 2018 before we saw it as part of the already very shaky DC Extended Universe.

The story was written by comic veteran Geoff Johns (who has written Aquaman before), mostly horror writer/director James Wan, and writer of Gangster Squad Will Beall, who co-wrote the screenplay with David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. Clearly Geoff Johns is the big name when it comes to writing, as most of the others are fairly niche. James Wan is an interesting choice as director as this brings him well out of his comfort zone, not necessarily a bad thing though is it can provide a fresh perspective that the DCEU sorely needed.

The film had a mixed critical reception but was well received commercially, making over $1bn at the box office, making it the DCEU’s best outing to date. So where do I stand on this film? Let’s take a look.

Netflix Retrospective - ReBoot: The Guardian Code Season 2 Episodes 4-6

ReBoot The Guardian Code is not a very good show, now we’ve got that out of the way

Pixar Playlist #10 - UP

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

Ever wished your problems would just float away? Ever tried attaching 23 million balloons to your house? That’s the solution for one Carl Frederickson, let’s take a look at UP

Up was the brainchild of Pete Docter, who in 2018 became the Chief Creative Officer for Pixar, he’s been there since the beginning, helming the story and being a lead animator for Toy Story. Tom McCarthy, writer and director of multi-award-winning films The Station Agent and the Visitor helped with the story for a period of 3 months, with Bob Peterson, another Pixar veteran helping finalise the story and screenplay

The Pixar team went to visit Tepui and spent 3 days covering it from every conceivable angle, as this is where the bulk of the film takes place, and researched local wildlife for their purposes. But there were some new animation challenges here, and it really boils down to its heavily stylised design. Our protagonist is an old man with a massive head and they needed to make it look believable, designing new systems for fabric and feathers. There’s also the technical challenge of animating in a general shot over 10,000 balloons.

The film released in 2009 and made $735m on a $175m budget, it was a massive critical success with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating and is the second animated film after Beauty and the Beast to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards, it won best animated film.

Netflix Retrospective - ReBoot: The Guardian Code Season 2 Episodes 1-3

Hello Darkness, my old friend, ReBoot: The Guardian Code everyone

But I guess I owe somewhat of an apology to this show, because I’ve just found out that sourcerer is actually a real word, despite my spell check not recognising it, meaning a programmer that works with source code, it can also be spelt sourceror, though my spell-checker doesn’t recognise that either.

Last we left off, we were introduced to Hexadecimal, an old friend of Megabyte’s. Can the guardians defeat them both, and what about the spheres showing some mysterious origins for Austin’s father. Will there be an episode of passable quality? All this and more, let’s dive in.

Praise4Media #66 - Avengers: Endgame

We finally come to the payoff to 12 years of Marvel films with Avengers: Endgame

Avengers Infinity War was a massive hit for Marvel, breaking the $2bn mark for the first time, Endgame would surpass it to become the highest grossing film ever, beating out Avatar (though still didn’t beat The Force Awakens in the US) and thank god that era’s over. It was a hell of an investment for Disney but one that paid off nicely, showing how far Superhero movies have come in the last 20 years.

And much with the rest of Marvel films, it was critically successful, 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with 8.42/10 average.

OK, this film is just over 3 hours long, the longest film I’ve done up to now is Batman v Superman’s extended cut and I don’t really desire to do a frame-by-frame plot dump for the opening hour. I’m gonna use this particular film to try something a little new. So, whilst this review may end up being on the shorter side because of this, I am looking to see if this is a worthwhile change because with all the changes going on at the moment, it’s getting tougher to motivate myself to do these anymore.

Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge Season 3 episodes 10-13

Alright, let’s finish this series, shall we?

RageLite review - Oceans Eleven

What happens when Batman and Jason Bourne try and rob Vincent Mancini with Brad Pitt? Let’s find out with Oceans 11.

Oceans 11 is a remake of a film by the same name released in 1960, it follows a largely similar plot, with the writers of that film credited for the story of this one. Adapting it to the new era is Ted Griffin, who had previously written Ravenous and Best Laid Plans, but might’ve enjoyed writing this as he went onto write another successful Heist Movie, Tower Heist, he also did a rewrite of killers but I can’t imagine even the greatest screenwriters being able to polish that turd.

In the director’s chair is Steven Soderbergh, who the year previously had Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Director for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, the latter of which marked his return to Box Office success after a series of flops. The film continued that streak, making $450m on its $85m budget and has generally favourable ratings with both critics and audiences.

Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge Season 3 episodes 7-9

Much like the first half of the second season of Race to the Edge, very little in terms of plot progression happens, I understand the need to do one-and-done type episodes for syndicated television but with Neflix sharing the budget, you’d figure they could try for some more long term stuff too.

#77 - Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (Rage4Media 6th Anniversary)

It’s the Rage4Media 6^th anniversary

And I can only apologise for how few Rage Reviews there have been this year. My focus has shifted away from smaller direct to DVD films with weird quirks and annoyances to big budget blockbusters and franchises, more over I’ve shifted away from older films to more recent stuff, not entirely but this is largely down a work benefit that gives me a discounted cinema pass that means I’ve seen a lot more recent films there.

Beyond that, I can say assuredly that less films annoy me in quite the way things used to, perhaps it’s down to me. I was 21 when I started this blog, and my opinions are hopefully becoming a bit more nuanced.

But don’t think for a minute this format is going away. If Cats taught me anything last year, it’s that bad exists in ways I’d never imagined before and I still can ignite passionate rage when I want to.

Speaking of which, let’s start with that thing that will get me hate comments: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is not a bad film. It’s a good one, though not without its problems, some of which are massively overstated by critics of the film and some are just bad faith nonsense because they don’t like what a character did and have a creepy feeling of ownership over a character, often to the point where they forget that the character has flaws.

It’s very difficult to say something goes against Luke’s character when there’s at least a 30-year time gap from the last time we saw him. A lot can happen in 30-years, is all.

But enough defending the Last Jedi, I have a whole review dedicated to that, let’s get instead to what this review is ultimately leading up to, bashing the Rise of Skywalker. 

Colin Trevorrow was originally set to write and direct this film but left owing to creative differences. This is becoming an all-too-familiar pattern, Disney. Then again, given that his last film was the abysmal Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, maybe they did us a favour.

Replacing him is JJ Abrams… The Force Awakens had its moments, and I honestly like both his Star Trek films, against the popular grain on Into Darkness, I know. The problem is he’s very safe and he’s following up on a director who had a more out-there approach, an approach that had divisive feedback. Also, judging from what I hear about Lost, he’s good at setting up interesting mysteries but sucks at paying them off.

Probably not helping is Chris Terrio being his co-writer. What happened to Chris Terrio? He won an academy award for Argo, then he wrote Batman v Superman, and then Justice League. To reiterate again, however, I do not bring up the writers by name to shame them, I merely do it to provide some context as to what might’ve been going on behind the scenes and how a combination of factors lead to the bafflingly awful product we ended up with. It’s entirely possible Abrams and Terrio had a brilliant script and it was messed up through editing and we don’t know the degree of contribution each writer gave, so it’d be foolish to lay the blame squarely at anyone. Disney and LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy are not off the hook here either, I will get to them at the end as this preamble is long enough already.

The end result was the film being the first $1bn disappointment in recorded history, making less money than either of its predecessors; with a 52% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest rating of any live action Star Wars film, prequels included.

One last thing before we start this proper, the novel: I haven’t read it and if the book explains a plot-hole in the film, it’s still a plot-hole in the film. The fact that the novel spawned several articles explaining what should’ve just been explained in the movie is in and of itself a major problem.

Netflix Retrospective: Dragons: Race to the Edge Season 3 episodes 4-6

The first 3 episodes of the season were fine, but episodes 2-3 were more akin to filler episodes, let’s take a look at how things progress in the next 3 episodes

Praise4Media #65 - How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

The adventures of Hiccup and his crew come to an end, it’s time to explore the Hidden World.

I have enjoyed both of the first two How to Train Your Dragon Films, and I’m continuing to offer my retrospective on the Race to the Edge series, which exemplifies both the best and the worst of the film’s writing. But will the final film stick the landing? Let’s take a look.

Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge season 3 episodes 1-3

It’s been a while since we last checked in with hiccup and the gang, and with May also bringing my How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World review, it’s as good a time as any to take another look at race to the edge.

#76 - Mary Poppins Returns

Wow, have I really not done a Rage review in 2020 yet? (Yes, but Crimes of Grindelwald was originally planned as a 2019 review)

Let’s fix that, shall we, hello Mary Poppins Returns, aren’t you just a prime candidate

Yes, both my rage reviews this month are gonna be of Disney Films, both of which came out in December, though of different years, want to guess what the other one is?

It’s no secret that PL Travers, the writer of the Mary Poppins Books was no fan of the film. There had been talks about a sequel but Travers and Disney had very different ideas for it, so the idea laid on the shelf until well after Travers’ death. But this is Disney in the late 2010's, taking off old properties, giving them a lick of paint and then presenting them as something new is the norm, and sequels are more prevalent than they were in the early 2000's. So naturally a sequel to Mary Poppins was inevitable.

And naturally, it made money, because unless Tim Burton is involved in some capacity, all of the 2010's Disney sequels and remakes made money. No, I’m not bitter at all, why would you think that? The Tim Burton Dumbo sucked too, by the way, we’ll get to that at some point 

But why is this film the one that ignites my rage, let’s take a look

Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 10-13

Ok, we’re on the final season 7 retrospective. Things are pretty dire on Earth right now, can the Paladins turn things around?

RageLite review - Mission: Impossible Fallout

With Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation, I finally became a fan of the Mission: Impossible series, it has a good story-telling engine, allowing for some interesting plot-lines, the main cast are generally well developed and the action is among the best film can offer, in part due to Tom Cruise putting his life on the line, doing his various stunts personally.

Mission Impossible Fallout, the 6^th entry in the series keeps things going strong with a $791m box office haul on a $178m budget and, even more impressively a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating. There was a mishap on set where Cruise broke his leg during a stunt, all the crew had to be paid during his recovery time, upping the budget. He actually came back to set a week early, he’s either deeply committed or crazy, probably both.

Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 7-9

We’re back to Voltron and they’re back on Earth, it’s finally time to address the controversy as we move into...

Praise4Media #64 - Steven Universe: The Movie

I’ve wanted to talk about Steven Universe for a while. I did a small section in an editorial about it but I didn’t do it justice. I like Steven Universe, a lot. But it handles it gem characters better than most of its human ones. With some exceptions, of course, human characters come off as one-note, which is understandable given that there’s already a sizeable cast of characters, the problem is when episodes focus on these characters, where the conflicts seem forced at best.

The other problem with the show as it stood is with how they treated the main villains. And I’m just gonna put up the spoiler banner for not just this movie but whole main plot of Steven Universe.

The Diamonds, who created an empire of mass genocide and destruction, valuing only their own creation over the lives of everyone else are pacified by the end of Steven Universe. It’s got all the markings of a rushed redemption arc, and with Steven Universe future being half way done and barely touching on the diamonds, I don’t see much changing. And the question becomes whether you should redeem someone who’s responsible for mass genocide.

Good redemptions: Peridot, Zuko

Bad redemptions: The Diamonds, Kylo Ren (we will be getting to that – although Vader also counts here), Kuvira

The difference, the ones that are good take time, the ones that aren’t are generally rushed and tend to ignore the magnitude of their actions (for the purposes of this, I'm ignoring the comic Korra book that helps elaborate on Kuvira)

So, now that the wars are over, what’s next for Steven Universe? Here’s my take on Steven Universe: The Movie.

Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 4-6

We’re back with Voltron: Legendary Defender, when we last left the crew, they were struggling with their lions, which are low on power and find it’s been years since Voltron was last seen. Can things get better, let’s take a look at the next 3 episodes.

RageLite review - Solo: A Star Wars Story

So… Was anyone really asking for a Han Solo origin story?

The main crew of the Millennium Falcon are iconic characters. Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, even Lando Calrissian to a lesser extent, but the one with most potential history to explore is Han Solo. How did he become the man he was in the Star Wars films?

This project has been in development by Lucasfilm for some time, even pre-dating the Disney buyout. But production issues kept it from getting its feet off the ground in one form or another. Lawrence Kasdan was initially hired to write the story, he’d been involved in writing the original trilogy, but duties were passed to his son Jonathan as he was picked up to write the Force Awakens. Jonathan Kasdan had written a few episodes of Dawson’s Creek and wrote and directed In the Land of Women and The First Time, both of which are niche films that received mixed reviews and didn’t make much money.

Originally penned as directors were Phil Lord and Chris Miller, hot off the heals of the highly successful The Lego Movie, unfortunately creative differences with the studio caused them to leave and be replaced by Ron Howard. Lord and Miller would go on to be hired by Sony for Into the Spider-verse, so don’t feel too sorry for them. Ron Howard would go onto to reshoot most of the film, inflating the budget to nearly $300m

The film was released in a crowded May-slot with the likes of Deadpool 2 and barely off the heels of Avengers: Infinity War; it ended up making only $393.2m at the box office, the first and only Star Wars film to make a loss at the box office.

But let’s take a look at the story we ended up with and see if it’s a worthy addition to the Star Wars timeline

Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 1-3

We’re finally back to Voltron, with the controversial season 7. I’ll get into detail about the nature of said controversy through my review. This still had a high critical rating, with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and enjoyed high audience ratings, although a slight dip from previous seasons. We’re back to 13-episode seasons, so let’s spend the next 4 weeks breaking this season down.

Pixar Playlist #9 - WALL-E

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

Wall-E is the 9^th film in the Pixar library, and back in the director’s helm is Andrew Stanton, who had directed Finding Nemo as well as co-written the Toy Story films and A Bug’s Life (though we won’t hold that against him) he was also came up with the plot with Pete Docter, and wrote the screenplay with Jim Reardon, who worked on the Simpsons as well as Tiny Toon adventures.

This film presented a unique challenge, as the main characters had a bare minimum of dialogue and they’d have to other ways to convey the information through the visuals, as a result, this film was their most complex since Monsters Inc, requiring 50,000 more storyboards than the usual 75,000 for a Pixar film.

The animators used silent films as a reference for getting their characters to emote without words, but their job was made even harder given what they were animating and the limitations that came with it. R2-D2 was apparently influential in that regard.

The budget for this film was $180m, another increase and more akin to the norm as the Disney era continues, the film made $533m at the box office, less than Ratatouille did but enough to be successful, this film was applauded by critics and audiences with ratings of 95% and 90% respectively. But where does it rank on my list? Let’s take a look.

RageLite review: Captain Marvel

We’ve got one more MCU film to look at before we get to the big one and that’s Captain Marvel.

We got a teaser for her at the End of Infinity War and people were anticipating her solo outing that would follow up on this. But then Brie Larson had some feminist opinions and the idiots of the internet started spreading fallacies and garbage about her, and if you are one of those people, please stop reading now. I could spread more colourful insults, but you’re not worth the effort.

For those of you who are still reading, you’ll be pleased to know this didn’t affect the bottom line, the film made over $1bn at the box office, being the first female-led superhero film to do so. Yes, it beat out Wonder Woman. It got a reasonable critical reception, a 78% rating with an average 6.8/10 score. I’m not gonna bother with the audience score because of everything I just said in the last paragraph.

The film has 5 writers, which is not usually a good sign. They include Meg LaFauve, who had been involved writing Inside Out and Good Dinosaur for Pixar, Nicola Perlman who was a writing consultant on Thor and co-wrote Guardians of the Galaxy, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, who wrote the Tomb Raider reboot film, she also wrote the screenplay with the directing duo Anna Bolden and Ryan Flek, who and written and directed several smaller films prior to this. Does this approach pay off? Here are my thoughts:

Praise4Media #63 - Venom

How do you make a Venom story without Spider-man? Easy, there are hundreds of venom comics you can adapt for that? How do you make a Venom origin story without spider-man? Now that’s a trickier question.

When the Amazing Spider-man 2 was filmed, it was intended as a springboard for spin-off properties, in theory not a bad idea but it was handled so clumsily it brought down the reception of the whole film. The Amazing Spider-man 2 made decent money, but not enough for Sony executives to be satisfied, so they reached a deal with Marvel to bring a new version of the web-head into the MCU.

But the idea of spin-offs wasn’t dropped entirely, they were just distanced from any spider-man legacy. So, we are back to our original question: How do you do a venom origin without spider-man?

Grappling with the answer to this question is Jeff Pinker, who co-wrote the Amazing Spider-man 2, Dark Tower and the modern Jumanji movies, Scott Rosenberg, who did an uncredited revision of the first Raimi Spider-man movie, and also the modern Jumanji films (also Kangaroo Jack), and Kelly Marcel, who co-wrote saving Mr Banks and unfortunately did the screenplay for the original 50 Shades of Grey movie. I will never dignify those movies with reviews, so never ask. So mixed bag there then. Directing the film is Ruben Fleischer of the Zombieland films. Wikipedia says he’s directing Uncharted but with the way that project’s going through directors I’m sure if it hasn’t already, it will have changed in the 2 months between me writing this review and it being published.

The film had a budget of $116m and surpassed expectations, making $856m, more than half of the live action Spider-man films made, though less than the more recent MCU outings. It certainly created a divide between audiences and critics, with critics giving it a 29% Rotten Tomatoes rating with an average 4.42/10 score and audiences giving it an 80% rating with an average 4.02/5 score. So, where do I stand? let’s take a look…

Redux Month - Ratchet and Clank (movie)

Before we get to this film, a couple of quickfire revisions

I've said before I was probably too harsh on the live action Japanese Death Note films, at least they're not the Netflix film

My Harry Potter mini reviews: 5 and 6 in particular were short and lacking in detail, I would have done at least one of those for this month but then JK Rowling became controversial

Dude Where’s my Car: who you love is irrelevant and 2 transgender people can fall in love same as anyone else. My joke was inappropriate and I will have edited that review by the time this goes out. (If only to say transgender as opposed to transsexual – what the heck was I thinking?)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie – I rewatched it again recently and it’s terrible

Captain Sabretooth and the Treasure of the Lama Rama – apparently the white makeup is supposed to be some kind of status symbol (although at least one of the villains calls him pasty-faced) I should’ve looked into it more before writing that review, still not a good film though

I’m sure there are more problems and mistakes I should go over and maybe I’ll do another of these if I’m still doing this in 5 years’ time, but before now let’s look at Ratchet and Clank again.

Ratchet and Clank had a very encouraging teaser in its early development, maybe a little too early all things considered as it was an age before another trailer released, then the game news and that’s basically all there was until the film’s release. You have to wonder whether there was much confidence in the film taking it off, and it really didn’t.

Rainmaker were the animators for this project, which immediately raised alarm bells with me. Sony owns the Ratchet and Clank rights, and an animation studio that could’ve done the work. But they outsourced it to Rainmaker instead, implying little confidence in it from the start, then there’s the fact that Sony wouldn’t even distribute the movie under their own brand. It was distributed via Vertigo films by Lionsgate.

Rainmaker weren’t exactly greats in the genre as their only other theatrically released film was Escape to Planet Earth, a film that was not received well critically and floundered at the box office. Their niche was more in CG direct to video films and series such as ReBoot (they also did the Guardian Code, we’ll be back to that soon, don’t you worry)

Writing the film’s story is TJ Fixman, who had written the PS3-era games and the game tie-in to this, along with Gerry Swallow, writer of the Ice Age sequels and Kevin Monroe, who was also the film’s director. TJ Fixman apparently left the project before the writing process was complete but admits his fingerprints are ‘all over the film’.

So what went wrong? This film floundered hard, being lambasted by critics and ignored by audiences. I offered my theories in my original review (plug) so I’m just gonna stick with the story for this one.

Redux Month - Charlie's Angels Full Throttle

Oh boy, we’re back to this one. So, Redux month continues with Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle

I gave this quite a scathing review back in the day but has time changed my mind? Well in part, but to that in a moment. McG is back in the director’s chair and John August is back with the story, Cormac and Marianne Wibberly are now helping to write the screenplay, I Spy and The 6^th Day were their only credited films at this point.

Making $259.1m on a $120m budget meant the movie wasn’t as successful as the first, and with a 49% RT rating, it was less critically successful as well, what went wrong? Let’s take another look.

Redux Month - Charlie's Angels

Hey, don’t call me angel

So the Charlie’s Angels reboot came out in late 2019 to the fanfare of almost no-one, in part thanks to the godawful choice of song that accompanied the trailer, but we’re not talking about that one today it’s redux month

And we’re looking at the 2000 film, directed by McG, who since has directed such greats as This Means War and the sequel to this movie (who am I kidding?) and written by Ryan Rowe, whose bibliography looks more like a rap sheet, Ed Soloman, who wrote the Bill and Ted films, but also the Super Mario Bros movie and John August, at this point he’d written God, Go, and Titan AE, he went onto write the Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie and the live action Aladdin, make of that what you will.

The film made some money, $264m on a $93m budget, and received a positive 62% rotten tomatoes rating with critics, but audiences landed it a mere 45%, with the averages of both being around a 6.2/10. So, looking back on this movie, has my opinion changed?

Redux Month - Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

We’re looking now at the second of the Percy Jackson film series and the one that would end up being the last of them. Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

Though the leads are still familiar, much has changed around them. Thor Freudenthal (whose name will never stop being funny, when he’s directing a movie based around the Greek gods) has taken over directing and Marc Guggenheim is the new and still only writer of the film. Marc Guggenheim’s last and first project as a writer for film was Green Lantern, and we all know how much I love that film.

I’m a little more lenient to this book however, it has its flaws, it takes too much time explaining things anyone who read the last book already knew, but the story gets moving more quickly, and it isn’t all as melancholy and depressing.

Sadly though, in the spite of the change of talent, the result was much the same. A mixed reception and less money at the box office than its predecessor. Let’s take another look and see if we can work out why

Redux Month: Percy Jackson & the (Olympians: The) Lightning Thief

I took a look at the Percy Jackson movies side by side as a sequel baiting, concluding that whilst neither of them were good, Sea of Monsters marginally edged out The Lightning Thief as a better product. Now time to look at each of them as individual entities.

I have now read the first two Percy Jackson novels and… they were OK. It was a reasonably engaging tale and I like the idea of Greek Gods operating in the modern world but I felt like Percy got to see all the horror and calamity with none of the fun and joy. And this may have been intentional, true to Greek myth and whatnot, but was jarring to me as a reader. It kinda reminded me of the Spiderwick Chronicles (the film anyway, and not in context, but in tone). The Lightning Thief was the worst for this, as we continually saw that Percy was being blamed for disasters caused by the monster fights, being essentially branded a terrorist.

The writer for this first outing and yes, there’s only one, is Craig Titley. He did the not particularly good live action Scooby Doo movie, a couple of decent episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and a few from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. So, you could argue this as a net positive, not seen Cheaper by the Dozen so can’t use that to judge but it’s never a great sign when you only have one writer, and no-one to reign him in.

Chris Columbus is in the director’s chair, just off of the first two Harry Potter movies, so at least he’s a guy with experience in this. The film made money but not to the same level as Harry Potter did and got a more decidedly mixed reception. Why? Let’s take a closer look.