The 355

Alright, I'm back and I wish it was on grander circumstances.

Sort of breaking the rules this year reviewing a movie not on opening day but I think the game is changing this year for reviews. I really thought nothing of The 355 before seeing it, it looked like harmless action movie fluff and I can appreciate that, but it just was a bunch of average. Credit where credit is due the cast commits to this, all our leading ladies do decent work with the action and bits of espionage, even the big moments of emotion work well! It's a bit of a no brainer plot that essentially boils down to, this device could start World War 3, agents from all around the world join to retrieve it, bang bang you're dead, we won, okay bye. However. The movie has moments, it has little glimmers and shinies, that make it a bit better than average. I like how all our agents aren't besties off the bat, they fight each other and get in the way of the other's mission before they all join in, which I am also pleased to say happens early on so you don't have to wait until the end or even the halfway point it seemed. Each operative has little touches of backstory, some stated and some not, and while they are not full three dimensional characters it all works. I like how the movie actually took me for a twist or two and did stuff I fully was not thinking it would do, I will give props to it for that. The action is....average without bashing it too hard, I blame more the editing than the actual choreography why it didn't work so good for me, you get a decent amount and each is different from the last. The location shoots are nice, again adding variety here and there and it does give some nice visuals. Nothing really popped out at me though besides the cast who even still, kinda deserved a better written story to work with. Action movies are very difficult to do and to add some variety and spice to a very tired, very easily halfassed genre. You're gonna forget this movie in about 3 days and I repeat, I did not expect anything from it if anything I was hoping in the back of my head it would throw me for a loop and have a kind of cult action hit vibe to it. I really didn't want to hate it and I suppose I don't, it's just so middle of the road nothing. A lot of people gave shit to The Protege and said it was very much in the same vein of action movie as this, I strongly disagree, you should go rent that movie it is better than you think, you can easily skip this one. 2 stars, 5.5/10, and because I have nothing else to do The King's Man is coming up next time.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 2

Now it's kicking off.

A vast improvement over the first, season two of Rebels picks up on all the elements that they did fairly well in the first season. Our crew of freedom fighters have now fully joined the Rebellion and have begun to slowly form the basis of their operations, with the Empire always hot on their trail. The action has been upped significantly, the character development continues in some cases brilliantly, we get a few familiar faces this season that never ceases to make me happy, and the finale alone is what brought Rebels on the map for me. If you made it through the first season and thought it was good, by the end of this season you will consider it to be great. Pretty much the season finale to season two combined with the trailer for season three is what got me to watch the show, and once I got the backstory and re-watched the final scenes of the finale, it got ten thousand times better than it already was. I'm excited to watch season three, it's only I think maybe three or four episodes until the end of that so I timed my watchings perfectly. Hell, maybe even in a week or two I can fully review season three! One thing I have noticed though is the big bad of the seasons are surprisingly not in it often, the main oppressive force is the Empire as a whole. The first season had the Inquisitor which was a basic but still interesting villain that appeared throughout the first season but at the end of season one it is very clear who is taking the forefront of the villain role, and yet...he's in it for two episodes, the first and last episode of the season. That kinda sucks but I'm amazed they got the original voice actor for the role which is just the cherry on top of this sundae, but you can forgive it solely because of the duel at the end. I just hope they don't follow suite for season three, I want to see the Grand Admiral in action often, because if you know anything about the Expanded Universe of Star Wars then you can understand my concern for this character. But needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this season of Rebels much more than the last. I'm excited to start watching season three and if all goes well, you can expect that review before the end of this month.

Star Wars Rebels: Season 1

I didn't have high hopes, but by God it's not half bad.

So Star Wars Rebels takes place a few years before Rogue One (I love how I can say that now.) following a group of smugglers who slowly transform from mercenaries/smugglers to freedom fighters battling against the Empire and creating the spark of rebellion. So the story starts off with this kid Ezra he just lives his life on his home planet until he runs across this crew sabotaging Imperial supply routes and this crew is very unique in the Star Wars universe, we have a Twi'lek pilot named Hera who pilots their ship the Ghost, Kanan who seems to be the leader of the group and has a bit of a past to him, a Mandalorian explosives expert who is a young girl named Sabine, a Lasat called Zeb who is like if Wolverine was an alien in Star Wars, and their astromech droid named Chopper who is a bit of a wise ass. Ezra soon joins the team as they go through a mish-mash of different missions almost all around being a nuisance to the Galactic Empire. It has interesting and unique character development which appears every now and then, granting significant growth as characters and not just being like, oh yeah Hera's just a pilot and that's about it. No, they build on them slowly but satisfyingly. Now the story follows in direct correlation with the previous animated series Clone Wars, now it's not pertinent to watch Clone Wars but it does help in the long run with this series. Now one thing I cannot avoid talking about is the art design. It is like a love letter to Ralph McQuarrie who did all the conceptual art to the original Star Wars movie, the series could not adapt it more if it tried. And I have seen many of the conceptual artwork of the original movie, and I greatly appreciate the look of it all. Now I have to admit, I did not start watching Rebels until this week, I thought it was just a dumb kid cash in on Star Wars on the Disney Channel, but when I saw the trailer to season 3 and heard much fan talk about it I decided to take a look. It's a kid show without a doubt, whereas Clone Wars was aimed more towards early pre-teen to teenagers (I was a teenager by the time Clone Wars really took off) and yet I never watched that show until a few years after it ended, because I watched the original Clone Wars mini series that came out between Episode 2 and before Episode 3 even hit theaters and I thought it was an unnecesary remake. My God, was I wrong. So wrong. I apologize to Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network. So yeah, I wasn't expecting greatness but I got a decent show and it got really good a few episodes before the end of the season. If you like Star Wars or have kids that enjoy Star Wars this is a decent show to put on.

As of today I am almost finished season 2 and will have the review up next week. I won't do just one review a week when it comes to television shows, so no worries about lack of content but I will probably have to cut it back to two reviews a week. Yeah, material is running thin but not entirely gone. Merely a setback but it does not dampen my spirits, I shall persevere and continue bringing you more recommendations and opinions. See you next week.