Movies are awesome

[Sparky Prime]

Black Panther 2 Wakanda Forever

Spoiler

They write out T'Challa at the beginning of the film, suffering from an unspecified disease his sister Shuri attempts desperately to cure by recreating the "Heart-shaped herb", but fails to do. Not really sure why she thinks this would cure him. This is what gives the Black Panther his powers, it's already in him. Why would giving him more cure him? Unless the herb is the cause and one has to keep taking it every so often to prevent from getting sick? But the movie doesn't explain it. At any rate, jumping a year later, Wakanda is on the defensive now that the world knows they have Vibranium and their King is gone. However, another source of Vibranium is detected under the Atlantic Ocean, which the Talokanil (to avoid confusion with DC's Aquaman, they aren't Atlantians in the MCU, with their culture instead based on Aztec mythology) kill to miners attempting to extract it. K’uk’ulkan (Namor to his enemies) then goes to Wakanda and asks that they find the scientist (Riri Williams) who developed the Vibranium detector, as by revealing themselves as a society with Vibranium based technology, they've also opened up Talokan to being discovered and attacked.

We find out the Talokanil Aztec ancestors all ate a plant similar to the Wakandan "Heart-shaped herb" in hopes it'd help them against the invading Spanish in the 1500's. It transformed them, making their skin blue and made it so they couldn't breath air, forcing them to live under water where they built a new society of their own, similarly to Wakanda, all based on the use of Vibranium. We're also told, Namor's mother was pregnant with him at the time of her transformation, which resulted him being born a mutant. I have to say, I really liked this origin for Namor and his people.

The Talokanil and Wakandans end up fighting each other, resulting in Queen Ramonda. Using some fibers from the Taloka plant, Shuri recreates the "Heart-shaped herb" and becomes the new Black Panther, intent on killing Namor. To help out, Riri builds herself a new advanced armor with Wakandan technology. But at the last moment, Shuri decides not to kill Namor, offering him an alliance instead in order to avoid endless war between the two nations. Namora is pissed that he'd yield, but he tells her when Wakanda is eventually attacked by the surface world, they'll turn to Talokanil for help, giving them the opportunity to conquer the surface world. Riri is allowed to return home, but she isn't allowed to keep her new armor.

In a mid-credits scene, Nakia reveals to Shuri that she had a son, Toussaint, but his Wakandan name is T'Challa, in honor of his father. Nakia explains she and T'Challa wanted him to be raised away from the pressures of the throne.

It's unfortunate they had to establish a new Black Panther already. To some degree this made the movie feel like it rehashed some elements of Civil War and the previous Black Panther movie. But given the circumstances, obviously they had to with Chadwick Boseman's untimely passing. I wish they'd done more the Riri. I know she's getting her own spin-off series on Disney+, I just think they should have done more to establish her character here, and not have her build an advanced Iron Man suit with the help of Wakandan technology. That's really something that should have been built up to and earned. They showed her cut out a heart shaped piece of metal at one point, but they never explain it, or use the Ironheart name at all, which makes the scene seem out of place and unnecessary.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, despite a few bits that could have been improved upon.

[andersonh1]

Shazam: Fury of the Gods - I like the overall story and character beats, but there are things in the movie that are just in bad taste and which sour the whole experience. I would disagree with Zachary Levi that it's a family film. The idea that "the gods" would be unhappy about a group of children using their powers is pretty strong idea for a Captain Marvel plot (I refuse to call the character Shazam. Shazam is the wizard.), and the three daughters of the Titans are well-played and understandably motivated, and not all at the same level of villainy, so there's some nice variety. I've always felt that Zachary Levi, while entertaining, leans too much into the "childish" side of his character, with non-powered Billy Batson seeming far more mature than his adult super-hero form. They carry on the running gag in this movie that they started in the last one of never quite settling on what the character's super-hero name actually is until the very end, when of course they have to settle on Shazam. Though in a fun cameo, the actor who played Billy Batson in the 70s Shazam series suggest the name Captain Marvel, so that was appreciated.

Spoiler

Wonder Woman gets a major, plot-relevant scene at the end, complete with her theme music.

I'd give this movie a C, and if they cut a few things out, it might get a low B. For the most part, perfectly enjoyable super-hero fare.

[Sparky Prime]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Once & Always

I grew up watching MMPR, up until Lost Galaxy. I was really curious when this special was announced brining back the original cast. Some of them at least.

Spoiler

The whole MMPR team are fighting a putty patrol created by a robot version of Rita Repulsa. During the fight, Trini is killed and robot-Rita leaves, swearing to return to get revenge on the rest of them. Sometime later, Billy and Zach argue about what to tell Trini's daughter, Minh, but she finds out when they fail to notice she walked into the room. Pretty dark way to start this special. It's not the first time a Ranger has been killed in Power Rangers, but this was a pretty brutal way to do it.

A year passes and robo-Rita is ready to enact her evil revenge plan. She's created robo versions of two monsters she'd used before, Snizzard and Mighty Minotaur. Snizzard has been given an ability that captures Rangers and shrinks them down to action figure size, which he uses to capture Tommy, Jason and Kimberly (explaining why none of those actors appear unmorphed). It's interesting robo-Rita attacks the Rangers on the anniversary of Trini's death at her grave. Again, kinda dark for Power Rangers. Anyway, Billy and Zach retreat to the new Command Center, built by Billy, secretly underneath his company building. It's pretty cool looking. It takes some cues from the original, but looks more high tech. Alpha 9 enacts the "Bandora Protocol" (nice reference to the Japanese name for Rita) calling all available Rangers to help with the crisis. Kat and Rocky teleport to the Command Center and Alpha gives them proxy power coins allowing them to morph (needing them in case they need the zords, having only modified the Sabertooth Tiger to operate minus its Ranger). Kinda cool that Billy and Alpha have figured out how to create copies of the power coins. I guess that's also how the original team got their original powers back. The Rangers go to fight off another attack but quickly figure out they're being tracked while morphed, and retreat to come up with a new plan. Meanwhile, Minh sees the news and takes her mother's morpher but is unable to activate it. Zach and Rocky save her from putties and take her back to the Command Center.

We find out that Minh blames Billy for Trini's death. Turns out, Billy was trying to bring back Zordon by gathering his essence after it was spread across the universe by the "Z-wave" at the end of In Space. But instead of Zordon, he got the evil essence of Rita, which possessed Alpha 8. The Rangers go capture Snizzard and Mighty Minotaur with a giant magnet at a construction site, and Minh wonders why they don't just destroy them. Billy explains it's not always necessary... Um, Billy? You guys pretty much always won the day by blowing up the monster of the week. But if it wasn't clear already, they make it clear the reason Minh cannot morph is because she's just out for revenge. The Rangers, using Billy's stealth tech, go to robo-Rita's moon base but Minh decides to go destroy the monsters by herself... Which of course fails. The Rangers realize they need to destroy Snizzard to break the spell on their friends, but robo-Rita has already released her monsters and has Minh hostage.

A battle breaks out, and Minh ends up making the same self sacrifice move her mother did to save Billy. For some reason, she survives. I'm guessing, as indicated by the glowing morpher, that it somehow protected her. So... Why didn't it protect Trini, who was even morphed at the time? At any rate, Minh is finally able to morph and joins the others. robo-Rita makes Snizzard grow. Billy stabs her, then he and Minh take the Megazord to fight him (despite that earlier they said they needed Rocky and Kat to pilot the Tyrannosaurus and Pterodactyl if they needed to use the Zords). Rocky finishes off robo-Mighty Minotaur, so he, Zach and Kat join the others in the Megazord to finish off robo-Snizzard. The CGI in this fight is pretty bad. robo-Rita wakes up just as her device is ready... A time portal to when she was freed from the space dumpster, so she can team up with her younger self and kill the Rangers before they become Rangers. But the Rangers save their captured friends, destroy the device, and Zach destroys robo-Rita. Back at the Command Center, Adam and Aisha (now members of SPD) are taking the Rangers that had been captured to Aquitar to recover, and will say hi to Cestria for him. I guess they're still together after he stayed on Aquitar back in Zeo? Back at the Juice Bar, Zach, Minh and Billy reminisce about old times.

I thought this was a pretty good tribute to the original series. For only being about an hour long, they managed to squeeze a lot into it. Although they kept a lot of details vague, they did a pretty good job of addressing or at least acknowledging continuity. I'm not too familiar with anything after Lost Galaxy, but from what I've read they had a ton of references to many of the series. There was quite a few things from the Zordon era that I picked up on.

The tone was a little bit odd... There was some fairly dark elements to it for Power Rangers. I'm sure they had their original fanbase in mind for those scenes. But it also had some of the goofiness' the original series had. I mean, I get this is still primarily aimed for younger audiences, but it was just an odd mix, that I think they could have balanced better.

The Zord fight was the most disappointing part to me. I'd thought, based on the trailer, that they'd recreated the original suit for this. But it was all CGI, which kinda looked like something out of the Netflix War for Cybertron series.

[Ursus mellifera]

The Zord fight was the most disappointing part to me. I'd thought, based on the trailer, that they'd recreated the original suit for this. But it was all CGI, which kinda looked like something out of the Netflix War for Cybertron series.

Yeah, I have to say I was bummed to see the Megazord as CGI. It really needed to be a suit to fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the special. It was jarring and out of place.