[EXPRESSO] Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) | Stabbing Friends

I do not know if it’s still “cool” to hate on Deadpool (both the character and the film series), but laughably wanton changes of popular opinion aside, i quite liked Deadpool and i was glad to see that he would return and drag back Hugh Jackman to play Wolverine again in the third Deadpool live action film, Deadpool & Wolverine, as they go through a multiverse hopping adventure to avoid the timelines being erased, and for spoilers’ sake i will leave it at that.

Not that you’re here for the story anyway, you’re here for Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool and to see him interact with Hugh Jackman back in his iconic Wolverine role/persona, and honestly i can’t deny it works well as a buddy comedy adventure, as the two actors work off each other perfectly.

I will not chastize the series style and humour and characters for actually being consistent with themselves as they were before, but i also won’t deny i would be quite okay with this being the last Deadpool film, as nothing here works badly or anything, is just the formula at this point in time lacks any real surprise, and the “annoying” aspect of Deadpool deliberate meta-massacring humour is even more noticeable than it’s purposedly made to, like dial it back a bit.

Also, there’s the fact the plot is weaker and meandering, as much as it makes some cameos possible from Marvel characters otherwise stuck in stupid limbos, it’s more derivative, the new characters could be better, and the movie – which is still decent-and-above fun overall – is quite funny but noticeably not as funny (or well directed) as Deadpool 2 was, and the meta referencing und self deprecating humour ends up feeling kind old hat, even if you enjoyed Deadpool whole shtick so far.

Green Lantern: Rise Of The Manhunters X360 [REVIEW] #meleemay

During the 7^th generation of console, there were still movie tie-in Marvel and DC games for each of the heroes/movies (though mostly for what is now known as Phase 1 of the Marvel MCU) , mostly under the Sega brand, and there was a 70 % chance of it being a beat em up because God Of War was still the new cock of the walk, leading the market to lots of imitators crafting up 3D hack n slash/beat em up in where to fisticuffs dozens of foes while playing as a digital Hollywood actor in costume. Yep, years ago, it was economically pheasable to pay for the actors’ likenesses without that alone costing more than the budget for the game itself. Looking at you, Square Enix’s Avengers.

The Green Lantern movie released in 2011 (starring a yet-to-bloom Ryan Reynolds) and… was definitely one of those, bad but not as bad as i expected. So after finally watching on a whime the movie last year on Neflix , i’ve decided to finally bother unearthing the disc from my 360 library. Hope you hankered for some tie-in movie trash of yore to be reviewed.

A shame DC is most likely never gonna touch the idea of a Green Lantern reboot in terms of live action film, so engrained is the stigma the 2011 movie has, because it would still make more sense than the Black Adam movie they did make, but who knows?

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Red Notice (2021) | Buddy Thief Routine

So, the “Dwayne Johnson” genre of Hollywood films got a new entry, and in order to engineer it being even more palatable, cast also Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot in it.

What does the bald muscle god among men do here? He works as a FBI agent that reluctantly has to team up with an art thief (Ryan Reynolds) in order to catch an even worse and infamous criminal, a jewel thief (Gal Gadot), after a legendary egyptian treasure. The usual caper shenanigans ensue, done in the modern half self-aware style with a flavor of the National Treasure variety.

Yes, if this sounds as generic and carefully stuffed with big budget and popular actors to ensure people would go see it… it’s that, but it only had a limited theatherical release in theathers as Netflix distributing rights from Universal, so they can spin data they don’t share to make marketing posts on Twitter on how much it was viewed… without actually telling us HOW much it was viewed.

Make no mistake, this is conceptually as safe and milquetoast as you can get from Hollywood in terms of action comedy, it’s processed meat, so ridden with cliches and ferociosly mediocre it’s kinda hard to even get engaged in the “plot” or even squeezemuch entertaiment out of it, as you know exactly how all is gonna go down, made worse by a bloated runtime and franchise pretensions.

I mean, it’s about what i expected from the director of Skyscraper (also with Dwayne Johnson), Rawson Marshall Thunder, and by and large most movies “The Rock” is in, though he has been in far worse and far better ones, this is just your average summer popcorn flick, heck, arguably even more “fire and forget” than usual.

It sure is some content, just kinda there.

[EXPRESSO] Free Guy (2021) | Life Service

So while we wait for the multiple movie projects spawned from that time online users deliberately made Gamestop’s share value drop (IF they happen at all), another thing that felt already dated the moment it was announced it’s finally out, Free Guy.

While it’s surprisingly not that out of touch as i expected (the fake in-game graphics looking like those crappy mobile ads for free-to-play games is a nice touch), i won’t deny it does sound like something that shouldn’t work as anything more than a sketch on Mega64.

So, what’s the plot? Ryan Reynolds lives his routine of bank teller nicely, until he decides to break it (inspired by a new woman player that he falls in love at first sight), gets They Live-style glasses, and learns that he’s just a random, generic NPC in a open world game called “Free City”. Or he was, at least. Guy then decides to become a hero for the city and its fellow virtual inhabitants, and becomes essential to the other protagonists, a couple of indie game developers trying to prove that a big videogame company CEO ripped off their work for his Free City game.

For a movie that takes many elements from other movies, ending like a weird amalgamation of Wreck It Ralph, The Truman Show, and The Lego Movie, it’s nice that is not as cynical conceived and executed as it may sounds, there’s actually some heart to it.. when the movie manages to focus and stop itself from doing weird “references-corporate pop culture flexes”, pandering to stereotypes, or trying to reach for super-safe narrative and emotional appeal.

It’s a decent movie, bit of a mixed bag, one that includes a slightly miscast Ryan Reynolds doing a Jim Carrey style character and a really overacting Taika Waititi.

Not bad.