Netflix Daredevil review

  A/N: I know I missed Sunday sorry there was a party at my house so my bad sorry.

   So after two or so months I finally finished Netflix's Daredevil. The reason this took so long is I'm not the kind of person who can sit for thirteen hours binge watching a show no matter how good it is or how much I like the show, I don't have the attention span to do that.

The Man without Fear

   My favorite superhero of all time is Daredevil. I love the idea of a disable superhero who has not just the problems every other superhero has but other more personal limitations that set him back a lot, that creates for an interesting character. So when I heard he was getting a Netflix I thought both perfect and "Oh my god I want that now!" So what do I think of the TV now that I've watched it what do I think?.... I love it!

    Daredevil is a fantastic show with interesting characters, amazing acting, a great story, good action and just about everything was spectacular.

     Daredevil is a show about Matt Murdock who when he was a child saved the life of a man who was about to be hit by a truck but the truck spilled over and the chemical contents it was carrying spilled into Matt's eyes and blinded him for the rest of his life. However he found that in exchange for making him blind the chemicals gave his super senses. After the death/murder of his father with the help of a blind ninja master named Stick he learns combat skills and when he is older (and a lawyer) he becomes a vigilante (later named Daredevil) fighting in the name of justice. Now in post-avengers Hell's Kitchen (pre-Clinton era) a new crime boss has risen Wilson Fisk (A.K.A the King Pin) who plans to tear down Hell's kitchen and build a better tomorrow through criminal means. Now Daredevil must not only get the basics of what it means to be a hero but stop the crime boss before the city he loves is gone forever.
   If I could compare this show to anything (even if it's in the smallest common factor) is Game of Thrones and what I mean by that is that the show's greatest strength's are within it's interesting characters. This for the most part is a character show and the best way to review this is by talking about the characters.

   First our hero. Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil was one I was at first skeptical about as the only thing I remembered seeing him in was Boardwalk empire and I wasn't impressed with his performance. After seeing the show I see he was the perfect choice to portray Daredevil as he very much brings forth the exterior cool, calm confidence and the interior insecurity, guilt, anger and righteousness that the character is supposed to have and balances both sides beautifully. You believe Matt Murdock to be a man struggling with what's right and trying to be the best he can be when so many forces are weighing down on him both externally and internally. The performance is extremely compelling and he pretty much owns every scene he's in. I hope he's nominated for an Emmy when the time comes because he definitely deserves a nomination.

   Now while Charlie Cox as Daredevil is awesome the person who steals the show and should WIN an Emmy is Vincent D'Onofrio as King Pin. In both the comics and cartoon's King Pin is portrayed as a cool, level-headed crime boss who is the master of quiet intimidation, basically Vito Corleone. Here however he's played as both intelligent and intimidating but also in probably the most sympathetic light the character has ever been in and the most complex. He's basically an anti-social man child who is playing in the adults game with an adult appearance but with a child's personality, if you don't give him what he wants he's going to kill you in a temper tantrum and he kind of sucks at dating. My favorite villains are the ones who either think of themselves as the hero and/or in certain perspectives is the hero. Wilson Fisk entire motivation is to make Hell's Kitchen a better place and not the crime ridden cesspool he's lived in for so long and you buy it, he's so genuine in the idea that his plan is with good intentions and in certain aspects you agree with him more than Daredevil. You root for him when he finds love and happiness, you cry when he cries and you feel upset when he feels angry. The writing and performance for King Pin is just brilliant and perfect.

  Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson is great as well. He's laid back and the comedic character in the show but you can still take him seriously and he's never played as an idiot, he's played more as a well-meaning laid back guy you would want to share a drink at Josie's with and he has some of the best dialogue in the series. Yet like Matt Murdock who kind of got upstaged by the villain, the villain's best friend/right hand man kind of upstaged foggy. The character of James Wesley could have been just a generic, forgettable henchmen but with excellent writing and the performance of Toby Leonard Moore it transform into an interesting character of the King Pin's puppet master, right hand and best friend of Wesley. A intelligent, confident to the point of overconfident and dedicated guy who doesn't seem as if he's outright evil but more along the line he's here just to do his job and help his friend and you genuinely buy these guys are friends especially in episode 8,11,and 12.

  Deborah Ann Wolf as Karen Page I also really liked and found really cool she's running away from an apparently dark past and feels guilty after the death of her co-worker David, the first person to show her any kindness is killed because of her and you feel real sympathy for her. She's very caring, resourceful, and determined person who just wants to do the right thing and bring the person responsible to justice. I also really like Vanessa played by Ayelet Zuer, I like that they make Vanessa know what her boyfriend is up to and she accepts it not just out of the fact she genuinely loves Fisk but is also kind of crazy herself making her a more interesting character than in the comics.

  One of my favorite characters (along with with King Pin, Wesley, Jack Murdock and Karen) is Vondie-Curtis Hall as Ben Urich. Ben is a passionate and determined journalist and a devoted husband who is trying to survive in a internet saturated world and you understand his plight and want to see him succeed and he's a genuinely good person, he also has one of the few scenes in episode 12 & 13 that almost made me cry. Scott Glenn as Stick was inspired casting and I like the idea that Stick was not the traditional wise ninja master you see as he's rather mean and is very stubborn a lot of the time yet he is very funny and entertaining to watch. I also really loved Fisk's fellow mobsters Nobu was cool, Owlsey was just entertaining to watch, Anatoly and Vladimir were interesting but my favorite was Madame Gao a really old (probably late eighties) Chinese woman who was probably the most blatantly evil and intimidating person on the show a women who could offer sagely words of advice while at the same time ripping you apart.


    The only character I didn't care too much for (and one of the weaknesses of the show) was Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple and it's not like she's a bad character she's caring yet has her limits and has her own moral code yet the thing is, is that she doesn't really do anything besides help Daredevil heal and her appearances are very sparatic so we never really get to know Claire that well.

   Besides the characters the writing is really solid and well done, the dialogue is great and most of the episodes are coherently structured and never waste any screen time on unnecessary stuff. The actions scenes are really cool and done well as in you can actually see them and they are choreographed nicely especially the now infamous fight in episode 2 which is equal parts hilarious and badass. On a side note the cinematography is beautiful with interesting shots and angles done in most episodes.

   My favorite episodes so far are episode 2, a great Jack Murdock centric story and automatically makes Jack on of the best fathers in television. Episode 6 a great episode involving Matt trapped in a stick situation and some of the best writing in the show, episode 7 as Stick was amazing and it adds an interesting layer to Matt Murdock with what's revealed in this episode, episode 8 the backstory of the Kingpin is amazing character study of our villain and has some of the shows best directing and has the best ending to any episode and episode 11 & 12 are suspense filled rides both with shocking endings.

   Now the show does have flaws like everything does. Along with Claire not being well realized some episodes are not up to par as some others, now that doesn't mean their is a bad episode within the bunch but the other episodes are usually so good anything less than brilliant stands out. Episodes 3,13, and 5 are like that. Episode 3 is poorly structured and confusing to follow even though the ending is good, episode 5 is somewhat forgettable until the end and blends too easily with episode 4 (a great episode) and episode 13 as the finale one starts out amazing and the middle is still good but the end part is somewhat anti-climatic mainly the fight between King Pin and Daredevil.

   Still the show is overall a near masterpiece and if it weren't for the flaws mentioned above it would be.


I give this TV show a 9.5/10~ Near perfect with great characters, brilliant writing and action and just a joy to watch


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Weekend box office prediction~ Thundering the weekend

  The big movie of note that is coming out this week is Ted 2.

   I haven't seen the entirety of the original Ted but what I've seen of it has been really funny but it doesn't make me want to clamor to see the sequel. Still the trailers look good and the original Ted was did well financially (being the highest grossing R-rated comedy) and critically. The only way I could see it not doing so well is due to last years Seth MacFarlane bomb A million ways to die in the west. Anyway here's my prediction for Ted 2.

Ted 2
Budget: $85 million
weekend box office: $55-$65 million
Domestic box office: $90-95 million
International box office: $100-$120 million
World Wide box office: $190-$215 million

    The budget for this is relatively small and reasonable for this movie with high paid stars, CG and sets and they can easily make enough to break even with a little bit extra to please the investors. It won't make the $500 million the first one did but it will do well. Here's how I think the top ten will fare out:

Weekend box office
1.) Jurassic World
2.) Inside Out
3.) Ted 2
4.)Spy
5.) San Andreas
6.) Dope
7.) Insidious chapter 3
8.) Pitch Perfect 2
9.) Mad Max Fury road
10.) Avengers Age of Ultron

That's my prediction for the weekend box office and I'm still deciding what I'm doing for Friday so be sure to check and see if I actually did something for it. Thanks for reading.

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Weekend box office~ Money makes the world goes around

    Money makes the world go round and round and round because now Universal and Disney are now two of the richest movie studios of the year so far. With Jurassic Park, Furious 7, Avengers age of ultron, and  Inside out (which I'm glad that's doing so well.) And with still more films to come like Ant-man , Terminator Genesys and Star Wars force awakens, so this will definitely be a profitable film even if it's only for Universal and Disney. Here's what happened.

Weekend box office
1.) Jurassic- $106 million
2.) Inside out- $90 million
3.)Spy- $11 million
4.) San Andreas- $8 million
5.) Dope- $ 6 million
6.) Insidious Chapter 3- $ 4 million
7.) Pitch Perfect 2- $3.5 million
8.) Mad Max Fury road- $3 million
9.) Avengers age of Ultron- $2.8 million
10.) Tomorrowland- $2.4 million

  That's the weekend box office and sorry this is so short I wanted to get this out really quick sorry.

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Inside Out review

A/N: I know, I know. This is my procrastination and my obscene love for the Dragon age video game series fault.

    Inside Out is a movie about the mind of eleven-year old Riley Anderson specifically her emotions. Joy (Amy Pohler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling.) They're job is basically making Riley function as a human being and making her life the best it can be. One day after moving to San Franciso ,Sadness and Joy accidently get lost in Riley's mind with her core memories leaving only Fear, Anger, and Disgust to make Riley work so without Joy and her core memories Riley can't be happy. So Joy and Sadness must get back to HQ (where the emotions work) before Riley's life is ruined.

  I really loved this movie, and I am happy to say that if this movie is any indication Pixar is back on track.

    This is one of Pixar's best movies if one of it's darkest at the same time. It's basically about emotional development and growing up mentally and that you need negative emotions as much as you need happy ones. Joy is the leader of HQ and her primary goal is to make sure Riley is happy even in negative situations and often pushes Sadness into a corner so she is barely able to do her job but this ends up backfiring as without Joy Riley, whose only ever been happy, can't cope with the troubles she faces at school, in her clubs, her friends and her family. Most of which to some would be considered minor problems unlike say someone dying but the fact Riley can't cope with seemingly more minor problems in comparison to other people's problems makes what Joy's ideal more flawed. Now that doesn't mean they ever portray Joy as a villain (there's no villain really) but they do portray her as flawed as any human being.

   I've been sad before and I know from experience that sadness helps people understand and heal from whatever is causing their sadness. The writers and directors help emphasize this with a scene where one of the characters gets sad and when Joy tries to cheer them up using "joy" it doesn't work but when sadness comes and talks to the character they feel better. Also with one of the end scenes where sadness is the only one who can make Riley feel any emotions. Both scenes are really powerful and pointed. The last one in particular is really deep and actually had me crying. This is one of the most smartly written movies Pixar has ever written.

    So great message aside the film has amazing voice acting from the cast. First off Kaitlyn Dias as Riley and Diane Lane and Kyle MacLahin as Riley's parents did a good job whenever they had speaking parts and conveyed a lot of emotions through their voices especially near the end and they were all relatable. The emotions however are the stars of this film. Bill Hader as Fear and Mindy Kailing as Disgust did a good job but out of the five they did get the least to do although whenever they were on I did smile. Amy Pohler as Joy and Phyllis Smith as Sadness were both inspired characters and had inspired performances by both actresses and I really liked the bond Joy and Sadness shared throughout the movie despite the fact they were polar opposites. Yet my favorite out of the bunch was Lewis Black as Anger who every time he talked was hilarious and he stole the entire show for me with just how angry and insane he was.

  Speaking of hilarious this is also a really funny movie in terms of jokes and gags none of which are stupid all of them are intelligent especially during a dinner table scene between Riley and her parents and we get to look inside in Mr. and Mrs. Anderson's heads that was just hilarious. Having the emotions react to different situations Riley is in is always funny as well. The world and animation is amazing and is probably one of the most creative and stunning worlds I've seen in a long time.

  Of course their are flaws is that it's pace is really weird as at points it's really slow and yet in certain aspects it goes a bit faster than I would like and I wished it was slightly longer to give a bigger impact. Also I wished they had shown more of the importance of anger, disgust, and fear but it's really close to being perfect like UP, Toy Story 2 and 3 and Ratatouille.

I give this film a 9.5/10~ Smart writing , an important and new message, funny and great performances.

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Weekend box office prediction~ Go Inside Out! Go!

 
        So the only movie of note that is coming out this week is Inside Out the latest Pixar film about a preteen's emotions (it's a lot more fun than it sounds from the looks of the trailer.)

Let's see what you've got

     I think out of all the films coming out this year, yes even more than Star Wars force awakens, due to the fact this film will decide the fate of Pixar. Back in 2009 Pixar was basically untouchable, everything they put out ranged from good to fantastic and then Toy story 3 and UP came out, (UP means a lot to mean since it was the movie that got me into to movies and movie making),they were both hailed as perfect movies making Pixar appear as Gods and so the expectations were basically up in the stratosphere for Pixar. In 2011 Cars 2 came out the sequel to one of  Pixar's weaker movies which put a stain on Pixar considering this movie was called the "only bad Pixar movie" especially off the heels of Toy Story 3 and UP. Then Brave came out an overall fine movie but was considered a disappointment critically of and infuriated many when it was given the Oscar for best animated feature over the superior Wreck-it Ralph (Although that was more about Academy bias but that's an article for another time.)

    Finally in 2013 Monsters University came out to more critical disappointment, and to me the only bad Pixar film. Couple that with the announcement of Toy Story 4 with a reaction of appall, Incredibles 2 met with cheers but cautious ones, not to mention the rumored trouble with the upcoming Good Dinosaur movie and the set back of Finding Dory (still can't believe that happening ) Pixar has a lot riding on this movie.

   Personally I hope this movie is good because I love Pixar, they helped me truly appreciate movies and they have been putting out too much good content for them to fall. I'm also glad they are going for a smaller and more personal story to get back on track. Anyway here's my prediction.

Inside out
Budget: $175 million (I give this a slight pass because it's mostly a CGI movie and does look expensive enough for that budget.)
Weekend box office: $65-$75 million
Domestic box office: $90-$120 million
International box office: $100-$130 million
World wide box office: $190-$250 million

     This movie should hopefully make enough to break even but it better make more than that or else the think pieces "The End of Pixar" will starting coming out again. I don't think it will top Jurassic World but it should get second place.

Weekend box office
1.) Jurassic World
2.) Inside Out
3.) Spy
4.) San Andreas
5.) Insidious Chapter 3
6.) Pitch Perfect 2
7.) Entourage
8.) Mad Max Fury road
9.) Avengers age of Ultron
10.) Tomorrowland

    So that's the weekend box office and hopefully... something tomorrow... no promises.

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Weekend box office- A world of money

    Wow I so did not expect that number for Jurassic World. I expected it to make a lot of money to be made but at most I predicted it would make a one hundred million and I was off by one hundred million dollars. That is shocking yet I'm glad because while I didn't like the movie that much I do want to see a sequel and this basically guarantee's a sequel.

   This makes me interested in seeing how much Star Wars the Force awakens is going to make considering while Jurassic Park series is one classic the Star Wars movies is a whole different beast with in it's self. Here's the results to get what I'm talking about.

Weekend box office
1.) Jurassic World- $208 million
2.) Spy- $15 million
3.) San Andreas- $10 million
4.) Insidious chapter 3-$ 7 million
5.) Pitch Perfect 2- $6 million
6.) Entourage- $4.1 million
7.) Mad Max Fury Road- $ 4 million
8.)  Avengers age of Ultron - $3.6 million
9.) Tomorrowland- $3.4 million
10.) Love & Mercy- $1 million

    Besides Jurassic World I'm glad Spy is doing so well and Avengers age of Ultron is still doing well. Not much else to say but that's the weekend box office and see you either later or tomorrow for my Daredevil review (My glasses got broken and I had to repair them so that Daredevil review is going to take a bit.)

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Jurassic World review

A/N: I know, I'm sorry it's my fault, It took a lot longer than anticipated to get this I lose track of the days in the summer, I just have really bad emotional days sometimes as well

   Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all time, it's the reason I love Sci-Fi (yes it's just as much of a Sci-Fi film as much as it's a horror film.) I consider it a masterpiece and one of my favorite Steven Spielberg movies next to Jaws and Indiana Jones: The last Crusade. Now of course Jurassic Park The Lost world and Jurassic Park III are bad movies lets get that straight but even still both are fun to watch and I will always watch them if they are ever on TV. Jurassic World is a different can of worms altogether because while it is the second best Jurassic Park movie it's my least favorite.


    The movie is about Jurassic World now a full operational theme park goes to shit one day when the InGen the company that owns the park decides to make a new hybrid to please apparently rapidly growing bored customers which the movie never presents outside Zach one of the protagonist of the movie because besides him everyone looks as thought they're having a great time and even with Zach it still shows him getting excited about different features of the park.

  Anyway with the help of Dr. Henry Wu (played by the ever excellent B.D Wong), who would have made a ten thousand better male protagonist than Owen, one of the original genetics specialist from the first park they create the hybrid but due to it (pretty stupidly) having intelligence and never really having anything close to any social interactions it goes loose and everything goes to hell. Meanwhile you have Claire (played by the always good if a bad decision maker when it comes to the movies she's in Bryce Dallas Howard) trying to manage the park while managing her nephews Zach and Gray and trying to manage her ex-boyfriend Owen who also works at the park now.

     First thing's first this movie is way more of a prologue to a much more interesting movie we will probably get in two-three years because this will make a lot of money. There are a lot of new ideas presented in this movie at the beginning like the idea of how big corporations, military and science are now consumer based machines that have become hard to tell the difference from anymore that make it seem as though this movie will be smart yet entertaining like the original which was basically a whole science vs. nature debate but instead the movie decides to basically rehash the plot of the original when things are about to get interesting that I feel wasn't the fault of the director or even writer so much as the studio not sure if this was going to work so they fell back on the plot of the original as a safety net. They even rehash the ending to the original movie with very minor differences.

   Some people say Lost World and III were total rehashes of the first one but no in Lost World they knew the park was bad the only thing they were trying to watch the second location was about rescuing a kid who accidently got stuck on the island. I get the feeling the ideas we see at the beginning was apart of the original finale draft and in all honesty I would have liked to have seen that movie rather than pay close to forty bucks to watch the original again.

   The main protagonist of the movie are Claire and Owen and Claire's nephews Zach and Gray. Now Claire is interesting character and a well rounded one she's a driven, perfectionist, intelligent workaholic who is actually very compassionate and cares a lot about her family even though she does have trouble balancing the two couple that with the fact she now has to work with a guy who she once dated but broke up with and from what the movie implies it was a bad break up. I really liked Claire I related to what she was going through, I felt bad for her because she's not a bad person and is really just doing her job and when things start going wrong she constantly worries about what's going to happen to her nephews.

   I also liked Zach and Gray, Claire's nephews. Gray I liked from the beginning an energetic, talkative, brainy kid who came to Jurassic World to have some fun. Gray is played by Ty Simpkins who was also in Insidious and Iron man 3 and he's just a great child actor as he both can actually act and he finds a balance between being serious and childish very well. Zach I didn't like at first because I thought he was a complete jerk but by the end of the movie I came around to him as he turned out to be a resourceful, tough and strong guy who genuinely cared about his younger brother when push came to shove. Any moment with these two I really liked and I would have watched an entire movie with those two. There is a subplot about their parents getting a divorced but a really has no bearing on the story and they seem to forget about it half-way through. It probably was there to build sympathy for Gray and Zach but you didn't need it.

   Owen is the last protagonist who is played by one of America's treasure's Chris Pratt who was really kind of wasted in this movie. The character of Owen was really just bland and non-exsistant in terms of personality, and really if it weren't for Chris Pratt (who can't be unlikeable in any movie he's in no matter how hard he tries) would come off more of a jerk and you can't really understand why Claire likes him other than the fact he's hot and he's just overall a dull character. Vincent D'Onofrio is in this as Vic Hoskins who is a pig-headed sleezeball who wants to use the dinosaurs in the movie (even though someone could just shoot them with rocket launcher and they can turn on you if your not careful and they would probably be more expensive than any drone), I love  D'Onofrio especially after Daredevil, he just chews the scenery in this and not in a fun or borderline good way just a bad way.

   A character I did love was Lowery Cruthers one of tech guys working in the control room, he's the nerd who genuinely loves Dinosaurs and that's why he signed up to work at Jurassic World but he hates all the corporation stuff that's going on around him and actually has a very level-headed and practical way of thinking and he even showed bravery when he decides to help Claire, Gary, Zach and Owen. Another character I found interesting and as I said wish was the male protagonist was Dr. Henry Wu. If you don't remember him he was a geneticist in the original movie who worked on bringing the dinosaurs back to life. In the movie they present him having resented Hammond and hating currently what the new heads are making him do. All he wanted was to see his work come to life which he gets no credit for and the new heads are asking him to tear down all his work again. That would have been an interesting concept to explore and an interesting character to see if he wasn't relegated to five scenes the last of which sort of sets up the sequel.

   The reset of the characters are ok, they range from not very interesting to in another movie being very interesting. The Hybrid dinosaur was ok but I don't know if it's the CGI or the lighting but I could never get a good look of it and it was hard to discern at points what it actually looked like. The rest of the CGI outside of the Hybrid looked good and you were able to tell dinosaurs apart from one another.

    The movie has a serious tonal problem as it tends to switch up tones out of nowhere. It switches  from a science fiction to 90's action to horror to gore in a blink of an eye and it's not done that well and it's actually kind of jarring. When I say they rehash the ending to the original, they rehashed the ending including the fact that one of the dinosaurs involved in the ending was from the original movie (how I do not know.)

   Now so it doesn't seem as if outside of a few characters I'm completely ripping apart this movie I did have a lot of fun watching this as the action and the comedy was actually well-written. The best action scene being the raptor fight against the Hybrid dinosaur. My favorite jokes actually came from Zach and Gray as they got some of the best dialogue in the movie.

   It's also more coherently structured than Lost world and three even with the tonal problems and everything else in terms of aesthetics are really good looking especially the park which was set up great and it becomes a place anyone would like to visit. The music is also really good outside of John Williams score their are some beautiful sounds that ring throughout this movie.

    Now I didn't want to be disappointed coming out of this movie, this was one of my most anticipated movies to come out this year and apart of one of my favorite franchises. I will see the sequel though because this does have potential but the filmmakers could have done better. In terms of progression this is the route that makes the most sense for the series to go even if a more interesting story could have been told.

I give this movie a 6/10~ Some really great characters, some good comedy and action if a mess in terms of tone, originality, some really stupid plot holes (why did no one think to call the military at one point) and just lost potential.

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