Tag Archives: superhero

The Boys season 1 review

24 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by in Television

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“Diabolical.”  What a super, super word.

by Thom Yee

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The Boys images courtesy of Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios

In a lot of ways, the history of our work here at GOO Reviews can be directly mapped against the emergence (and eventual domination) of superhero movies over the last decade.  The very first movie review ever written for this site and the very first review ever published on this site was an Avengers review.  We’ve reviewed every single Marvel Cinematic Universe movie and every other major superhero movie released since then, and sometimes it seems like the only thing that keeps us going is superhero movie reviews.  We’ve watched and reviewed superhero movies good and bad, waxed lyrical and philosophical over their beauty and place in society, and pontificated on the powerful message and principles they have for us in the world we live in today.

All of which is to say that… we’ve probably wasted a lot of time.

Our time and yours. Continue reading →

All 23 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, ranked by GOO Reviews

27 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by in Editorials

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All images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

It was the tail end of spring 2008, just before summer, that a little movie called Iron Man debuted from a little studio called Marvel.  As the first self-financed and produced work from Marvel, who had, until that point, almost exclusively licensed its properties out to other studios, Iron Man was a big step forward even if the movie itself wasn’t opening to too much in the way of fan fair or expectations.  But as the summer closed and the box office dust had settled, Iron Man had earned nearly $600 million.  That was kind of a lot back then.

Far more importantly, though, Iron Man established a beachhead; it was the first stage in what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a series of movies following the adventures of some of the greatest heroes of our age, and all, as it would turn out, taking place in the same world.  What happened in one was reflected in another, our heroes would meet sometimes and even sometimes become integral parts of each other’s stories.  Eleven years, 23 movies, and three unofficial “phases” later, Marvel has woven an intricate tapestry, a deep and epic backstory that rewards those of us paying attention while still maintaining the necessary accessibility for each of their individual chapters to stand on their own.  Mostly. Continue reading →

Spider-Man: Far From Home review

13 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by in Films

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We’ve ended the Endgame now

by Thom Yee

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Spider-Man:  Far From Home images courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing

Y’know what?  We are really, really, really lucky that Marvel and Sony got the whole Spider-Man thing straightened out.  Like, lucky as a culture.  Like, lucky as a people.  Like, lucky as a species.

For the time being at least.

It’s taken me a while to realize this, at least realize this fully with as much force and with as little doubt as I’m about to present here, but I’m finally ready to just say it:  I hate the original Spider-Man movies.  They’re dramatically overwrought and clichéd, their plots stretch out to the point of near total incredulity, and they feel so much more concerned with the idea of what a superhero movie is supposed to be that they get nowhere near what they can be.  Continue reading →

Dark Phoenix review

15 Saturday Jun 2019

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Oh yeah… the X-Men… I remember the X-Men…

by Thom Yee

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Dark Phoenix images courtesy of 20th Century Fox

I hate X-Men: Apocalypse.

I hate its little face. I hate its guts. And I hate the way it ruined the X-Men franchise.

Though to be fair, X-Men: The Last Stand did that first.

And that’s really the story of the X-Men on the big screen: Generally okay movies ruined by a few bad installments. For every couple of decent ones — X-Men and X-Men 2 — and even some good or great ones — X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past — there’s an X-Men: The Last Stand or X-Men: Apocalypse to set things back and screw everything up for those that try to follow them. Even the Wolverine and Deadpool movies were both almost tanked before they could start by X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Continue reading →

Avengers: Endgame review

04 Saturday May 2019

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Finally!  Something to avenge!

by Thom Yee

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Avengers:  Endgame images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

I know what it’s like.  To want so desperately not to, but to know it as an inevitability.  Dread it.  Run from it.  But always arriving at the same conclusion:  You hate people.  But don’t worry.  So do I.  And honestly, I think… no, I know that if I had had the chance, I would get rid of half of them too.  At least that many.  Starting with the people who won’t shut up in movie theatres.  Because it’s precisely that type of person, one with no regard for those around them and the injustices they inflict on others, that led to the type of hatred I felt for people while watching Avengers:  Endgame.  I suppose, though, when it comes to something like Endgame, that, like Thanos’ mad scheme to kill half the universe, getting mad at awful people is ultimately little more than a game of numbers — combine the release of one of the most anticipated movies of our age with the longest running time ever for a superhero movie and attending that movie on its very first day of release and of course the odds heavily favour that at least one idiot would have to come to my showing and not be able to keep his mouth shut.  And that he would have friends.  Anticipation + Time + Overstimulation + People = Catastrophe. Continue reading →

Shazam! review

20 Saturday Apr 2019

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Hmm… more strip club scenes than I was expecting

by Thom Yee

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Shazam! images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

One of the more peculiar things you may have noticed if you’ve paid much attention to Hollywood movies releases is how often two very similarly themed movies come out in the same year, often jammed right up next to each other so closely that you can’t help but take note. It happened with Armageddon and Deep Impact, both about giant meteors on a collision course with the Earth, when they each arrived in 1998; it happened again later that year when DreamWorks’ Antz released little more than a month ahead of Pixar’s A Bug’s Life; it happened with Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige in 2006, a movie that made everyone forget that The Illusionist was also a pretty good movie about magicians that year; and it happened in 2013 when the President was in danger and could only be saved by a snarky action man in both Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down.  Continue reading →

Captain Marvel review

16 Saturday Mar 2019

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Back in my day, Captain Marvel was just a big red cheese, and I don’t remember no one complainin’!

by Thom Yee

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Captain Marvel images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

It might not seem like it from the outside, but Captain Marvel is just about the weirdest damn superhero to talk about.  At least for me she is.  See, I’m a lifelong comicbook nerd, even to this day, but I’m also a ‘90s kid, and if you were a ‘90s comicbook nerd kid like I was, then Captain Marvel, at least the Marvel Comics version, is basically a character who didn’t exist.  See, in the ‘90s, Captain Marvel was one of only two things:  1) The DC Comics teen superhero who yelled SHAZAM! and got powers just like Superman’s; or 2) The Marvel Comics superhero with cosmic powers who had been dead for a long, long, long time.  Like early ‘80s long ago.  And in either case, neither was a very big deal.  And in both cases they were men. Continue reading →

Aquaman review

23 Saturday Feb 2019

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Imperius rex?

by Thom Yee

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Aquaman images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Ask any of us comicbook fans, any of us REAL comicbook fans, whether or not we’re happy that there are so many superhero movies right now and most of us will tell you that of course it’s something that makes us happy.  It’s great.  It’s great that the things we like are now so popular.  Ask any of us fans if we’re surprised that they’re so popular, though, and most of us will probably say that yes, we’re also very surprised.  And it’s not that we’re surprised to see normal, everyday people getting into the same kinds of stories we’ve been reading about for most of our lives, it’s just kind of shocking to us that we could ever get here.  The superhero movie age we live in right now is truly astonishing, a promised land of sorts, and the type of thing we comicbook people had imagined might happen in some other reality but thought could never happen in this one.

Continue reading →