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?

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.

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.

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:

RageLite review - Ant-man and the Wasp

Ant-man was one of Marvel’s more modest hits when it was released back in 2015, making around $520m on around $120m budget. A sequel was ultimately inevitable and Marvel did increase the budget for it, putting it around $190m. Peyton Reed is back directing but we have an all knew writing team including Chris McKenna, who wrote the Lego Batman movie and Spider-man: Homecoming, Erik Summers, who also worked on Homecoming and the previously reviewed Jumanji sequel, Andrew Barrer, who’s last work was on the 2014 film Haunt, Gabriel Ferrari, who was producer of Haunt, and Paul Rudd himself, who had helped write the screenplay for the original Ant-man.

The film had the blessing/curse of being released between Infinity War and Endgame, anticipation was high, and turnout was OK, it made around $620m, again a modest success for Marvel. Critically it did well, an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating but with an average of only 6.97/10, Audiences gave it a 76% rating with an average 3.76/5. How did I find it? Let’s take a look

RageLite review - Star Trek Beyond

Captain’s Log: Star Date... I think we’re in August now, this is the voyage of the Starship Enterprise and the story of how when we explored the final frontier, we delivered a Box Office bomb.

Star Trek Beyond is the third and currently final instalment in the Star Trek reboot series. The series would still have a future in its series on streaming but the adventures of Captain Kirk would seem to be at an end for the moment, with Chris Pine becoming Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman, and somehow will be in its sequel despite being dead and all.

When it comes to the writers we’re out with the old and in the with the Simon Pegg, who has certainly written stuff before but is mostly well known for comedy. Doug Jung joins him and his experience is mostly in TV. JJ Abrams has stepped back into a producer’s role, with Justin Lin taking over as director.

Released in July 2016, just 2 months off the series’ 50^th anniversary, made on a $185m budget, the film underperformed, making just $314m at the box office. Having to compete with Ghostbusters, Jason Bourne, and Suicide Squad, 2/3 of which are terrible, and the other only slightly less terrible, didn’t help, attributing to a 63% drop in the box office on the second Friday, and lead to an estimated $50m loss for the studio.

The series continued to get critical praise, with an 85% Rotten Tomatoes rating and an 80% audience rating with averages 7/10 and 3.88/5 respectively. So, what happened here? Let’s take a look

RageLite review - Star Trek Into Darkness

You may remember just under a year ago I covered the first of the Star Trek reboot films. And now we move onto the second with Star Trek Into Darkness.

Although the original reboot film was released in 2009, it wouldn’t be until 2013 until the sequel was released. Far as I can tell the major issue was the script, which underwent several revisions, then having it line up with the schedules of the actors, and J J Abrams who’s stepping in as director again.

Alex Kutzman and Roberto Orci return for the second film, the two have almost identical filmographies, and have written films featured on Rage4Media (mostly Guilty Pleasures) such as: The Now You See Me films, the Amazing Spider-man 2, Cowboys vs Aliens and Mission Impossible III. Joining them is Damon Lindelof, who was a producer for the original reboot, and had written with them before on Cowboys vs Aliens. He also helped write Prometheus but you can’t win them all.

The film was financially successful, making $467m on its $185m budget, although that said once marketing and theatre cuts are taken into account, the total profit wound up being about $30m, not exactly the take you’d hope for. The movie was praised critically at time with an 84% Critic Rating and 89% Audience Rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with average scores of 7.46/10 and 4.23/5 respectively. That said, this film has some level of infamy among fans, so what do I think?

RageLite review - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

The game evolves for Sherlock Holmes as he plays the Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes proved a decent success for Warner Brothers, so naturally a sequel was inevitable, it was fast-tracked by the studio and was released in 2011. It was about as successful as the first one commercially but there was a slight drop in critical response, with a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the 70 the first one got? Where did this one go wrong? Did it go wrong? Here’s my take: