Space Jam A New Legacy

Alright, that was interesting.

I must admit I have a strange kind of admiration for this movie, it goes big and it goes wild and fully commits to the scenes it is doing despite the absurdity of the scenario. Okay so let me relay this as coherently as possible, LeBron James and his son get digitized Tron style into the WB server where all the properties of the film studio reside and what a shock a basketball game with a wager occurs leading to basically the same movie. If you've seen Space Jam you've seen a good portion of this movie, but what I liked so much about it is like I said the commitment to their craft. The Looney Tunes are really good, it still has those moments of classic comedy and the animation style both 2D and 3D looks good, the voice cast is spot on, I had a great time when the movie went to that 2D animation. It fits the Looney Tunes perfectly and a good chunk of the movie is like that, and while it did give me momentary whiplash going from CG everything to classic drawings I appreciated that they did that. Sure they 3D'd the characters but only at the end, but screw it I saw traditional animation in a feature film in 2021. Awesome. The film goes for the dramatic family moments, and while they did fall flat, never once was it played for a laugh or or felt like padding. The movie is very easy to read and predict yet truthfully it didn't tamper with my entertainment. And boy howdy did I have a time and a half catching all the background characters at the climax. Hannah-Barbera classics, Batman characters ranging from the 60s to Burton to Schumacher, The Iron Giant, the friggin' droogs from A Clockwork Orange, it's a wild trip. And yeahhh, this really was kind of a whoring out movie for WB. I'm sorry man, it's just so hard not to say because it's true. Now did I have a bit of fun with it and still appreciate some of the jokes they did? Absolutely. Was there stuff I despised? Tiny bit. But the big question is do I like it better than Space Jam? Well if you read my review for that, the answer of course is yes. Merit to merit, A New Legacy brought so much to the table and I enjoyed a great deal of it despite it's obvious flaws. The soundtrack was garbage though, so fair dues to the first movie. 3 stars, 7/10, I kinda expected it to be garbage but it turned out okay so I will take this minor victory and we shall see what next week has in store for us.

Iron Man 3

Oh thank the space gods this didn't suck.

I was severely dreading Iron Man 3 after the last debacle and from the word of mouth I heard over the years did not help, and while this is an okay comic book movie what elevated it for me is actually what they did with Tony Stark. It's been awhile since New York and Tony is a bit worse for wear, he has anxiety attacks, he has full blown PTSD, he's having the triple crisis, an identity crisis, a mid-life crisis, and an existential crisis all in one film. At several instances this reminded me of The Dark Knight Rises but also Knightfall, with this new villain The Mandarin creating propaganda, completely destroying Tony's home, Tony hides out for awhile and has to recouperate from his severe beating, he's struggling with the Iron Man persona not too deeply as say Bruce is about the cape and cowl, but this really was like that kind of story for Tony. I'll say this up front right now, if this was the last time we ever saw Iron Man I would be happy, cause it seems like he walks away from it all, he fixes his heart, ditches the arc reactor, all of the suits are destroyed, and he seems content to help the world without being a superhero. This is great stuff. Tony hasn't been the most deep character and has been pretty easy to read, but this movie gives him more stuff to work with and shows a pretty vulnerable side to this guy. It almost makes up for Iron Man 2. Almost. I know a lot of people threw a shit fit over The Mandarin but seeing as how I've never read a Marvel comic book in my life, he's just sort of there and Ben Kingsley is odd in this movie but an entertaining odd. Once again the villain is sort of blah, it's not even an interesting scheme, good lord Marvel villains suck. Say what you will about the DC movies but the performances and villains we get are memorable in some shape or form even if they aren't particularly good (looking at you Steppenwolf), but they are more often than not. I mean I know we're still early days with these movies but I can't name a villain off the top of my head except Red Skull and Loki, but I remember them more for the star power and not the script. I think we've made it to the other end of the spectrum with the effects though, before it was a lot of practical effects with CG used sparingly, now it's a lot of CG with practical effects used sparingly. To be honest the Iron Man suits have been on a downward spiral for me in terms of the mechanics, I'm not a big fan of the designs, they screwed War Hammer over to the point where I just shake my head and ask why, but the big part is how the suit comes on. I thought it was kinda cool with the first suits we saw, they were bulky but still high tech, then it turned into a briefcase, and then it turned into random pieces that fly into position. It's so dumb. I'm sure some people like it but the practicality and designs have become so ridiculous I can't stand it. "But it's comic book stuff Dude!" you might be saying, but comic books can be plenty fraking stupid and this is an ideal example. Thanks! I hate it. Oh and let's talk about the army of suits, I heard people bitch and moan that ooh the Knights Of Ren were just made to sell toys, motherf***er have you seen the action figure collector sets of ALL the Iron Man variant suits? That....that is made for toys! Urgh, moving on. At least the child actor isn't abysmal. But beyond the pretty good character progression with Tony, this is yet another average Marvel movie. I'm starting to wonder how it's gotten this far to be honest, the movies are either superflous and bad or good but mostly average, you think with this many people squeezing every drop out of Marvel's yarbles there would be some pretty great movies and characters but it's just okay so far. I'm not taking the piss out of this series to aggravate people or say, well DC is better you f***ing idiots, I mean you've seen me give compliments! You've seen me say good things about these movies, I'm being unbiased here and not much has leaped out at me as really good if not great save for a few actors and moments. I get Marvel movies are not for everyone, but to a comic book fan the scale has not been tipped in Marvel's favor for me but again we're nowhere near the end and there's plenty more to see. 3 stars, 6.5/10, Thor is coming back tomorrow so let's hope his sequel fairs better.