Tag Archives: superhero

Black Panther review

24 Saturday Feb 2018

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Am I woke now?  I think I’m woke now!

by Thom Yee

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Images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Something I hear a lot around this time of year is “Happy New Year!”  And not usually from Chinese people either, from people who, I think, feel a measure of personal progress when they say it to people who look like me.  “Happy New Year!” they say to us.  In the middle of February.  Weeks later than January 1st.  I’m not saying that I really mind when I hear it, I’m not trying to judge people when I hear them say it to me, almost any recognition and celebration of other cultures is a good thing, I’m just saying that when I hear Happy [Chinese] New Year, I can’t help but think to myself, “It’s not my New Year.”  Sometimes with several exclamation points at the end. Continue reading →

The Punisher (Season 1) review

09 Saturday Dec 2017

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Maybe you should just shoot him!

by Thom Yee

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The Punisher images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios, and Netflix

“Sure, I use a lot of automatic weapons and they have their place in combat.  But I also have gone into my share of combat with a pump shotgun.  The U.S. Marines use a Remington Model 870.  I made great use of several in Vietnam, where I kept a cut-down shotgun close to me at all times.  We’d cut down the barrel to, like 10” and load it up with 00 buckshot.  Because, when ambushed, you might get the piece pointed in the general direction before you pulled the trigger.  But, sometimes that was all that would be needed.  Rapid-fire shot loads have the same effect as machine-gun fire, especially when there’s more than one shotgun.” Continue reading →

Justice League review

25 Saturday Nov 2017

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Meanwhile, in the universe formerly known as the DCEU

by Thom Yee

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Justice League images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

If you had told me back in 2007 — just one year after the disastrous X-Men:  The Last Stand stalled that franchise to the point of needing a soft reboot and just one year before Robert Downey Jr.’s debut as Iron Man would kick off Marvel’s own Cinematic Universe — that the next ten years in movies would be dominated by superheroes, I’d have thought you were joking.  And yet, here we are, a full ten years later and a full five years of reviewing them here at GOO Reviews (yesterday in fact marked our fifth anniversary), and superhero movies have gone from rarity to occasional hit to the driving force behind Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.  It’s superhero movies that make most of the money in Hollywood these days, it’s superhero (and superhero-like) movies that executives want most to produce and fanboys want most to see, and it’s superhero movies that, as of 2017 with the release of Logan, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man:  Homecoming, Thor:  Ragnarok, and the subject of this review, are now coming out at a rate of at least six per year (and that’s not even counting tangential 2017 superhero releases like LEGO Batman or Power Rangers). Continue reading →

Thor: Ragnarok review

11 Saturday Nov 2017

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That was… a lot…

by Thom Yee

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Thor: Ragnarok images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

If it feels like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about Thor here on GOO Reviews, you’re right, it has been a while, not since 2013 in fact when we published our review of Thor:  The Dark World.  And that’s actually a little weird because it’s not as if Marvel movies went away or became less popular in the four years since then, quite the opposite in fact.  It’s just that Thor’s only managed one other movie appearance since then, 2015’s Avengers:  Age of Ultron, a paltry number in comparison to his fellow Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man, with whom Thor ostensibly shares the title of that team’s “big three”.  In that same four-year timespan, as well as appearing in Age of Ultron, Captain America headlined two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest and most eventful chapters in Captain Americas Winter Soldier and Civil War and Iron Man co-starred in and often even outshone the titular characters in Captain America:  Civil War and Spider-Man:  Homecoming.  That’s two more movies each for Cap and ol’ Shellhead to become even more the central figures of the MCU whereas Thor’s been mostly off world, doing gods know what in adventures that either had little to do with the MCU’s main, Earth-bound stories or that we had no real interest in (like [again] Thor:  The Dark World [just as an example]). Continue reading →

The Defenders (Season 1) review

09 Saturday Sep 2017

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Not even one of you is a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist?

by Thom Yee

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The Defenders images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios, and Netflix

Ohai there!

So first of all, I’m not dead.  Also, this site isn’t dead.  But this past August in movies?  So, so dead.  For me, it started with Atomic Blonde, which I decided not to see (I’m not a big John Wick fan anyway).  Then The Dark Tower opened, and I thought I could skip it (like everyone else did).  I was looking forward to The Glass Castle, but who needs to see movies like that when they get reviews like this?  And that’s when I kind of lost it, and what started with not really paying attention soon made its way into a full-on zone out as we didn’t review anything for the whole month of August.  My staff writers kept up with their weekly updates, the loyal little underling/peons/unknowing hostages they are, which meant you had something new to read here every week, but a whole, full-fledged review?  I just couldn’t do it with this year’s late summer movies.  So I didn’t.  But we’re back!  For a few more months at least!  So on to The Defenders.  At least I could watch that from home. Continue reading →

Spider-Man: Homecoming review

15 Saturday Jul 2017

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Tom Holland > Andrew Garfield > Tobey Maguire

by Thom Yee

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Spider-Man: Homecoming images courtesy of Sony Pictures

How do you feel about Spider-Man?  And I don’t mean “Spider-Man”, the series of movies that’s already gone through three reboots in less than 15 years because Sony, who bought the movie rights to the character from Marvel in 1999, has to rush a Spider-Man movie into production every few years or else the movie rights revert back to Marvel Studios, I mean the character — Spider-Man.  If you listened to J. Jonah Jameson, publisher/editor of New York’s most infamous newspaper, The Daily Bugle, you might think he’s a public menace.  If you were familiar with the comicbook lore, you’d most likely find him to be a misunderstood but friendly, neighbourhood hero, driven by guilt over the death of his uncle to responsibly use his powers for good.  But whenever I hear anyone talk about Spider-Man in real life?  They usually say they don’t like him.  I’ve never really liked him that much either.  And I think it’s all Tobey Maguire’s fault. Continue reading →

Wonder Woman review

10 Saturday Jun 2017

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Everybody quiet down!  Women are talking!

by Thom Yee

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Wonder Woman images courtesy of Warners Bros. Pictures

“I respect women incredibly.  I have just amazing admiration and respect for women.  I have more respect for women than anybody would understand. I cherish women.  And I treat women with respect.  I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy.  I respect women more than I respect men.  We know they believe in certain things that we don’t want to believe in.  I want to help women.  Nobody has more respect for women than I do — that I can tell you.  Nobody.  I have tremendous respect for women.  And women have respect for me.” ~ Donald J. Trump, current POTUS Continue reading →

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 review

13 Saturday May 2017

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“We’re not friends, we’re family.”  Huh, where have I heard that before?

by Thom Yee

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Honestly, it’s starting to feel a little weird that we live in a world where I can talk to my mom about Rocket Raccoon.  At this point, I could probably even talk about Rocket Raccoon with your mom.  We geeks are really getting spoiled right now.

So anyway, the original Guardians of the Galaxy did did very well with us here at GOO Reviews, but the farther we’ve all gotten from it, the more I’ve personally learned to… well, not to dislike it, but to not love it SO much.  Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie defined by extremes, its most visible and memorable elements probably being its colourful comedy and its general wackiness, and though those extremes aren’t necessarily that surprising given that it is a comicbook movie, it still lacks some of the nuance that’s allowed the best superhero movies to endure (even as the most enduring superhero movies usually come across as far more sanctimonious and self-serious).  That doesn’t mean Guardians isn’t well remembered or that it couldn’t or shouldn’t be your favourite superhero movie, but Guardians was the type of movie that left me feeling extremely satisfied at first but ultimately somewhat empty, like a really, really great fast food meal.  Continue reading →