Solo: A Star Wars Story review

So yesterday I went to see the new Star Wars film Solo. I was worried about this film as it went through production hell such as it got a different director and had numerous reshoots. It also had a mixed casting choice in Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo himself and also the division of the fanbase which has led a war between die-hard fans of the franchise and comparing the new film's sales to Marvel's massive box office. But after all this controversy the film as came out and it is a fairly safe movie.

The movie centres on a Young Han Solo and tells the story of his first heist, his history with the Empire, how he met Chewbacca, how he got his surname (yep Solo is not his surname), how he won the Falcon of Lando and how he got his blaster the DL-44. Which some topics have been covered in the comics beforehand. The movie starts off with Han and his friend/lover Qi'ra played by Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke escaping their homeworld of Corellia, unfortunately, things go south as Qi'ra gets captured and Han joins the Imperial Navy. Three years later he is imprisoned by the Empire and meets a Wookie who we all know is Chewbacca played by Joonas Suomato. They then join forces with Tobias Beckett played by Woody Harrelson to still some Coaxium off an Imperial crate train. This plan does not go so well and there are a few loses. They eventually meet up with the main villain Dyrden Vos played by Paul Bettany who tells them to go to Kessel to get some Coaxium but instructs his top lieutenant Qi'ra to join them. And you can guess the rest of the story from there.

The movie is not a trainwreck as many people thought it would be but there are more bad parts than good in this movie. But let's cover the good the casting was ok overall such as Alden does a good Han Solo, however, his performance is nowhere near the outstanding work of Harrison Ford, Donald Glover/Childish Gambino does a spot on performance of Lando Calrissian as in he is like a younger version of Billy Dee Williams, Joonas Suomato is great as Chewbacca. There are some entertaining scenes in the movie and the Kessel Run scene is the standout scene apart from one scene which I will cover later so spoiler warning. Also, another good thing that the movie has a different tone to other Star Wars movies which makes it unique and different but I think it will be remembered for the wrong reasons which leads me to the bad stuff. Apart from the characters I've mentioned some of them are just ok such as Qi'ra, the villain is bland and seems pointless to the plot at points. Also, Enfys Nest is a pointless character which is a shame as the trailer set her up to be the big bad of the film. The film can feel rushed at the beginning and takes a while to get quite exciting.

But there is one character that was the worst part of this movie and that was L3-37 played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Her character is annoying and ruins the whole cocky droid thing that Disney has started since the Force Awakens, so instead, she is just annoying and just seems pointless to the plot but thankfully we don't see her for very long. Also, C-3PO and R2-D2 are not in this movie which kind of makes sense to the plot of the movie but also seem like a crime as they both have appeared in all 9 Star Wars films prior to this one.

Some of the Movies best scenes are in the third act where Han and Qi'ra plan to stop Dryden Vos once and for all. Before I continue there are a few spoilers here so please read on to the next paragraph. Once Dryden is killed by Qi'ra she takes his ring and contacts his boss which is revealed to be Darth Maul played by Ray Park and voiced by Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels actor Sam Witwer. Also another fact that there are some actors from Rebels who came back for this movie such as Steve Blum returning to voice the Storm Troopers which apparently he did in the previous anthology film Rogue One.

Overall Solo: A Star Wars Story is a very safe movie with a very basic plot attached to it. It has some great special effects and scenes but it doesn't have the courage to expand upon topics that it vaguely covers such as Han and Qi'ra's relationship and Hans Imperial History.

However, taking all of this into account I would give Solo: A Star Wars Story a 6/10: Very basic plot and doesn't take enough risks that could make the film more interesting which overall makes it an average Star Wars film.

Avengers: Infinity War Review

Yesterday I went to see the latest instalment of the MCU. This has been set up for around 6 years and now it has finally arrived to the big screen and has been a result of almost every Marvel film since the first Avengers back in 2012. This movie is probably the most hyped and biggest movie Marvel has ever produced and they did not disappoint in both the hype and the quality.

The story of the movie is that Thanos a powerful being from the planet Titan is on a quest to search for all six Infinity Stones and once he finds all he can wipe out half of the universe. He sends his minions known as the Black Order to search for the stones on earth and The Avengers and The Guardians of the Galaxy must join forces to face Thanos and stop him from obtaining all the Infinity Stones and changing the universe.

The cast is the biggest Marvel has ever had in the movie so I will split them into the teams and other minor characters that are in the movie. So from the Avengers, we have Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rodgers/ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/ The Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/ Scarlett Witch, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/ Hawkeye, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/ The winter soldier, Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/ Ant-Man, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, Tom Holland as Peter Parker/ Spider-Man and Chadwick Boseman as King T'Challa/ Black Panther Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/ War Machine and Paul Bettany as Vision.

From the Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/ Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon, Vin Diesel as Teenage Groot, Pom Klementieff as Mantis and Karen Gillian as Nebula. From The Black Order, Tom Vaughan Lawlor as Ebony Maw, Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight, Micheal James Shaw as Corvus Glave and Terry Notary as Cull Obsidian/ Black Dwarf. Other characters include Gywenth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Idris Elba as Heimdall, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Peter Dinklage as Eitri, Benedict Wong as Wong, Benicio Del Toro as The Collector, William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Ross Marquand as the Stonekeeper and of course Josh Brolin as Thanos.

Well, that is a heck load of characters in the film. now time for some things that the film did really well was the chemistry between all the characters such as Thor with the Guardians and Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, Iron Man and Star-Lord work well together also. It also has Villian that may be the best in the MCU in my opinion, We all know that Marvel has had a big Villian problem with some being amazing such as Loki, The Vulture and Erik Kilmonger and other just being plain forgetful such as Malkeith, Ronan the Accuser and Yellow Jacket. Thanos is different from all those, as he has been set up as the big bad for six years, although the fans make fun of him as aside from this movie he hasn't done anything that antagonising we all knew he would make a big impact on the MCU and boy did they do that. Not only did he change the MCU forever we also had a look at the emotional side to him such as his motive to change the universe and his past actions to his daughter Gamora.

However no matter how good a movie is there will always be its downsides. The movie is undoubtedly the longest MCU movie to date having a runtime of 2hrs and 30 mins and sometimes the scenes could drag and make the movie seem longer than it actually is but there was enough in the movie to actually make the movie not seem boring such as the final battle in Wakanda. Another is also the CGI was unfinished in some scenes which seem to be a common mistake in the MCU, although the CGI was good in most scenes you were able to tell what scenes had good CGI and which didn't.

In Conclusion, the Film has its downsides to it but it has enough good things to it that the downsides seem like minor things that are occurring in the film, It has enough jokes in the movie to make it not seem plain boring like the DCEU before Wonder Woman and Justice League. The chemistry of all the characters is amazing and they all have an equal balance of screen time although some do have more than others. But I am excited to see what happens next after Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel as they are based during or before the events of both Infinity War or The MCU as a whole.

But Overall I would give Infinity War a 10/10- For amazing character and amazing emotional moments, some unexpected twists, a worthy villain that has been set up for a while and a climax with a huge impact to future movies and would like to see what happens next.

HAPPY TEN YEARS MARVEL STUDIOS

Psycho review

So yesterday I went to a screening at my local drama centre, it was a horror film and as my upcoming project for college is a horror opening I decided to go and see what it was. The film they showed was Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho. The film is more of a thriller than a horror as there are not as many scares in the film.

The story starts in Phoenix, Arizona where a girl named Marion talks to her boyfriend about leaving to pursue a better life. She goes to work later that day and a man about to buy the building she works for gives her $40,000 to put in the bank. she pretends she is ill and steals the money. She is then caught being suspicious by many people like the police and the car salesman. She stops at a place called 'Bates Motel' where she gets a room after they have a talk about Norman Bates's mother problem. She starts having a shower until she is murdered by 'Mrs Bates'. A week later a P.I turns up due to her suspicious disappearance, he later gets murdered and that leads Marion's sister and boyfriend to go to the motel and try to see what is wrong. Marion's sister founds Mrs Bates's corpse, Norman tries to kill her and then is stopped and after that, he is sent to prison. The story ends with the police finding the car with Marion's body and the $40,000 inside.

That's the story out the way, now for the cast. The cast had stars such as Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Janet Leigh as Marion, Vera Miles as Marion's sister Lila, John Gavin as Marion's boyfriend Sam and Paul Jasmin as the voice of Mrs Bates.

Some of the camerawork had a lot of impressive shots such as the freaky close-up shots and they also had a clever use of lighting which made it more effective in black and white than it would be in colour.

Overall Psycho is a film that is a classic example of a thriller. It has impressive shots and angles and a great use of lighting. However, the film has aged a little due to it being released 57 years ago so not all the scares are as terrifying as they were back then. However, the ending is freaky with Norman in his cell with the voice of his mother in the back round.

I would give Psucho a 9/10- Impressive camerawork and lighting, not all the scenes have a big impact on the audience anymore.

Darkest Hour review

Welcome back, everyone.

The most boring month of the year is drawing to a close. As apart of the last weekend of the month till another year I decided to review a film that at the moment has won lead actor Gary Oldman a lot of awards, yes I'm talking about Darkest Hour.

The film starts in the first year of the Second World War and Neville Chamberlain is booted out of Parliament for allowing Hitler to invade Poland, his party is forced into electing a new Prime Minister for a new coalition Government. Churchill is elected due to him be the favourite of the opposition so he should work well with them. The film covers two events in the war which are Germany's invasion of Europe and the Dunkirk crisis where the whole British Army could have been demolished by the hands of the Nazi's. With Britain in a lot of trouble, Churchill is struggling to decide what is best for the country as there is a temptation for peace talks with Mussolini one of Hitler's most trusted allies.

The film could be nothing without it's cast as it has some strong actors such as Gary Oldman as Churchill, Kristin Scott Thomas as his wife Clementine Churchill, Lily James as his typist Elizabeth Layton and Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI. There also some other minor roles such as Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain and Stephen Dillane as Lord Halifax.

The film expresses Churchills personality very well and you forget that he is Prime Minister as the film portrays him as a man who is trying to do what is best for the people. The film also as a lot of good moments between Churchill and Layton as they both trust each other and become good friends by the end of the movie.

What I found that was interesting was that no one believed that Churchill would be good and would resign leading to a vote of no confidence to do the peace talks, Once that looks like it will happen Churchill strikes back by talking to Parliament saying that England 'will never surrender' which leads both sides to agree and the rest is history.

I would give Darkest Hour a 10/10 good performances throughout which made the film enjoyable to watch.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review

Hi everyone happy new year,

I know it's been a while since I have reviewed a film as per usual but I thought I'd start up again by doing the latest addition to the Star Wars Saga (if it's still called that). This movie has had many good reviews calling it the "Best Star Wars yet", the audience, however, are debating if the film is good or that its bad. People have been calling it bad due it being more of an end of a trilogy than a sequel. So without a further doubt let's continue with the review.

The film takes place a few minutes after the Force Awakens and the Resistance are desperately escaping the clutches of the First Order. As the Resistance are about to finish there evacuation the First Order have found them and start to wipe them from Existence. On the other side of the Galaxy Rey (Daisy Ridley) has found the location of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on the island of Ahch-To where there was once a Jedi Temple until destroyed by Ben Solo or as he is known Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). After being tracked through light speed the Resistance are trying desperately to find a new base without being stopped by General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and the First Order. Poe (Oscar Isaacs) has a plan to get someone to stop the First Order from tracking them by shutting the core down on Supreme Leader Snoke's (Andy Serkis) star destroyer. Finn (John Boyega) and a new character named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran)  go to a planet called Canto Bite where they find a hacker named DJ (Benicio Del Toro) who help them on to the star destroyer before betraying them for an award. The plan fails so the Resistance evacuates to a planet called Crait where they hide until Rey comes back to help fight and get them out of the First Order's clutches.

That is the whole story of the film. So what did I think of it? I thought it is a pretty decent film, I understand why people hate it as there is a lot of unanswered questions such as Snoke's Identity as he is killed off in his second scene in the flesh. The good things I thought that it had an interesting use of two separate stories that link together at the end, they gave Poe a bigger part as he was forgotten about in the last film, Carrie Fisher had a bittersweet part and also Yoda was back. However, like all films, there are also bad things such as Snoke's part in the whole film, the Canto Bite scene, The fact it had a lot of unnecessary jokes which make it more of a Marvel Movie than a Star Wars Movie, Also Luke's personality and that he shied away from the force. Also an extra mention to the film's ending, the ending is a small child who we saw a scene prior for a second, looking at the resistance leaving through the Millenium Falcon and for some reason he has the force. Why. Rogue One has a more satisfying ending with the Darth Vader scene.

Now there were things that I did find weird in the movie as well one was the blue milk coming out of this seal on the island as it was awkward and added nothing to the plot, C-3PO had a Gold Arm,This is awkward for me it looked like he had a red arm for most of the 30 years before the Force Awakens so the fact that this film takes place literally after the destruction of Star Killer Base why has his arm gone back to gold, Also the falcon wasn't flown with Han Solo as he is mostly with the ship and the fact the character is no longer with was a little bit heartbreaking. But then again the new Solo Movie is coming May this year so we'll see how that will turn out.

But the main question people want an answer to the most is what did I think of the Porg's? Honestly, nothing much they seemed to waste a lot of time that could have been added to certain characters they were good as they had a funny relationship with Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo not Peter Mayhew) also R2-D2 was played by Jimmy Vee as Kenny Baker unfortunately died.

So overall I'd  give the Last Jedi an 8.5/10 good movie, not the best executed.

Justice League Review

Now the last time I did a review I did the last Wolverine film and since then there's been a lot happening with rumours of Fox being purchased by Disney just to get the Fantastic Four and the X-men which shows that they are very desperate to get those characters and put them into the MCU which has been on the screens for almost 10 years now. Anyway, that's one worrying factor in Superhero films here's the film that by what the media is saying could make the future of the DC universe change forever. Yes, I mean Justice League.

Now before I start I want to say I have wanted a Justice League film since I watched the animated series and when the Avengers came out it was a complete gamechanger. So when I heard DC will do there own I was hoping when they got to a Justice League film that it would be the same, shamefully that didn't happen but it might be the second best movie in the DCEU so far which, to be honest by the way their movies are going that's not the greatest place to be at the moment. But then again at least Wonder Woman was good and everyone was worried about that.

Now let's begin, it starts at least a year after the events of B vs S and much has changed. Batman's trying to investigate these disappearances and Wonder Woman works in a museum. While the others are out of hiding. One problem I have with this movie is you sort of have to forget events from the last as it portray's Superman as this g-d like character which to be far he saved everyone just in a very questioning way.

Anyway, crime increases and whats worse is that the main villain Steppenwolf voiced by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds comes to Earth to locate three motherboxes that together can recreate the world in his image. This action is called the unity. The Justice League eventually come together to stop him and use the last remaining motherbox to revive Superman, this happens and he turns on the Justice League and Lois Lane is used to make him calm down as he almost kills every member of the Justice League.

The League go to Russia and stop Steppenwolf from using the Unity, Superman returns after having calmed down and helps them defeat Steppenwolf and turn his Parademons against him and is sent to who knows where. All the heroes are reunited and are able to live happy lives until the next event in the DCEU. There is also an after credits scene of Lex Luthor having escaped Arkham Asylum and having talks of forming the Legion of Doom or the Injustice League with the help of Deathstroke portrayed by Joe Manganiello. 

The overall movie is alright there is nothing that special and it is nothing like there version of the Avengers which is a shame because if they got all the solo movies done first then it might have worked instead of just dragging them into the movie but to be fair they did introduce them into the last movie so that was good. The villain contributed nothing to the plot as he kept saying 'mother' and other lines that didn't make sense. My main issue is that the story was a bit of a mess as it was very rushed and not all the scenes made complete sense which was a major issue.

I'd give Justice League a 6.5/10. Good new characters, enjoyable to watch at times, disorganised plot.

Logan review

Logan marks the last Hugh Jackman film as the popular X-Men character Wolverine. The film has a different tone to other X- Men movies and its film certificate. Due to the success of Deadpool, Logan was rated a 15 and boy did they stick to that. The film has more violence which suits the role of Wolverine very well. Also he swears quite a bit like his comic counterpart. The story is set 6 years after the events of days of future past were we see that Logan is one of the only mutants left in existence, he stumbles across a girl who is just like what he used to be so he, Professor X and the girl must find a save haven. once they do they see other mutants and take them to safety so the mutant generation can live on.

The cast like any X- Men movie is well built. Some performances to spot are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Stephen Merchant unrecognisable performance as Caliban. Newcomer Dafne Keen did a good job at playing X-23 or the New Wolverine as she is now in the comics. Director James Mangold has down a good job on his last two Wolverine films and hope to see him in future X- Men films. But Logan marks the end of the current X-Men franchise so I doubt I'll see him do another film like that again.

There isn't really any negatives I can say to this movie as it is not a usual X-Men type film, it is more of a drama just with comic characters. I guess one thing could be Wolverine's clone X-24 (spoilers) as they sought of went a bit too far with that idea. That I guess it the only negative I can come up. But all that aside I would give Logan a 10/10 as it is one of the best Wolverine/X- Men movies I have seen in quite a while.