I got to see this movie in advance of it being released at the cinema, thanks to Cineworld having a secret screening.
I’m actually glad I got to see this movie. I did see the trailer, but it wasn’t one that immediately grabbed my attention. It was one I might have gone to see if there was nothing else on at the cinema I wanted to watch, but I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see it…which would have been a shame, as I actually really enjoyed this movie.
I found Ember to be a really relatable character…perhaps because I’ve been working in retail for so long and could 100% understand her blowing up at the customers who were acting so entitled. I really did enjoy learning about her back story, with her parents coming to Element City…and having to deal with prejudice from the other elements. Considering that water could actually be so destructive to fire, it was a little surprising to see that Element City was so heavily geared towards the water element…but then again, I guess fire was the only element that could be outright harmed by water; though as Ember pointed out, fire could just as easily cause water to evaporate.
I really liked the growing relationship that formed between Ember and Wade. Considering that it started out as fraught with conflict…and that’s not even counting the animosity between water and fire in general…I felt that the feelings growing between them was shown really well. It was also good to see that not all of the water elementals were the jerks who had been seen at the beginning. Wade and his family were really interesting characters and his mom was really sweet. I honestly loved how easily and readily she accepted Ember and Wade’s feelings for her.
I did like a lot of the secondary characters, such as Ember’s parents and Gale. While the main movie was about Ember and Wade, I thought that there was a lot of attention paid to developing the other characters. Plus, there was no real ‘villain’ of the movie, which I don’t get to see very often even in movies only aimed at adults.
I did love the visuals of this movie, too, and getting to see the different areas of Element City. I also thought that it was a nice touch to have Cinder do fortune telling and use the smoke to see the compatability between a couple…and I really loved how that was handled when it came to Ember and Wade.
All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. It was a lot of fun and provided escapism for a couple of hours. It’s definitely worth watching if you’re on the fence about it!
So, I actually got my gold ticket for this event last year, shortly after they initially went on sale at the start of the Marvel event in 2022. I did think I’d been one of the first people to buy the ticket…and while I did get the lowest number I ever have for a Starfury event, it wasn’t quite as low as I was expecting. Not a disappointment, but more of a, ‘Wow, so many other people got there before I did!’
This event was a small one, with the amount of attendees being about 250 and the total guests being five. There was supposed to be a sixth guest attending, but unfortunately, the flight he was meant to be on was cancelled and the airline refused to refund the flight cost. The small event was a lot of fun, feeling far more intimate and cozy with such a small amount of people.
Since I had a gold ticket, I got to be part of the meet and greet reception, which had all of gold attendees getting to meet each guest and spend about five minutes with them. Groups gathered around a circular table with one empty seat, and the guest would come and sit in the empty seat and chat to us. I somehow ended up with all but one of the guests sitting next to me, which was really nice! And Nick Blood recognised me…I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one, although I have now met him on four separate occasions, with one of those being the Marvel event last year.
I only had one photo op over the weekend, on the Saturday, with Adrianne Palicki, who plays Bobbi Morse in Agents of SHIELD. She’s also appeared in The Orville, Supernatural and G.I. Joe: Retaliation, along with numerous other roles.
I also only got two 10×8 autographs, one from Adrianne and one from Katy O’Brian, whose appeared in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and The Mandalorian, along with various other roles. In fact, Katy was only there for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. Due to a change in the filming schedule of her current project, she had to leave by 11am on the Sunday.
I don’t normally go to many of the talks, but at this convention, I went to all of the guest talks on the Saturday, which were fun…if difficult to sit through (for me personally). Lyrica Okano, who appears in Marvel’s Runaways and plays Nico, had so much energy and was so lively…I loved how she took every question in her stride and answered even the most bizarre one about Doctor Who, that she’d never heard of before. And it was a lot of fun to hear about Jeff Ward’s character on Agents of SHIELD…and I loved that Katy ‘offered’ to answer someone’s phone when their boss called. And Nick and Adrianne were a lot of fun in their talk. Nick, of course, has so much of the Starfury energy and really gives off the vibe that he wants to be there. (I’m not saying that the others didn’t, but to the best of my knowledge, he’s the only one who, last year, came all of the way from Scotland and then back again for one day of the con).
One thing that I also thought was exceptionally good was that there was a young girl in the talks, who asked each of the actors what advice they’d give to someone who wanted to be an actor (her). All of them were completely genunine and honest in their answers, instead of brushing the question off, or ‘dumbing down’ their answers because they were speaking to a child. Nick, especially, gave a response that was incredibly thoughtful and sincere.
Starfury is incredible value for money…and one of the main things is that many guests are included in autographs, even for regular tickets. At this event, all five of the guests’ autographs were included in both gold and regular passes, which was awesome. You can see below my shiny autograph card, which is a must-have for if you want to collect your autographs.
As you can see, although it’s technically a check list for the guests’ PA to tick off, most of them do things a bit more interesting than just the check mark. And I didn’t realise until the Sunday that one of the PAs had done a sad face for Gregg Sulkin! (He was the guest who unfortunately couldn’t make it last minute).
I was extremely happy with my included autographs. I always like to get my convention booklet signed, since it fits very nicely into a plastic wallet to go into my (one of five) autograph folders. Both Katy and Lyrica had extremely long autograph queues; Katy because everyone was keen to get hers on the Saturday, due to her leaving early on the Sunday…Lyrica because, well…I’ll let the autograph speak for itself.
Lyrica’s was actually the last autograph I got on the Saturday and I said to her, ‘You can have the whole of the front!’, and she took it. Which was awesome. All of the guests were lovely people to meet, but I saw Lyrica write a lot on everyone’s autograph they had…which I’m sure wasn’t very comfortable by the time the event ended.
And I mentioned that Katy was leaving early, but in spite of that, she took her time talking to everyone…asking me if I’d seen the Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. I said yes and that Jonterra was my favourite character, which I think (hope) made her happy.
These were not, in fact, all of the autographs I got from this event. I mentioned before that Multiverse was a very small convention…and because of that, the organiser very kindly offered everyone another photo to get signed on the Sunday, by the four guests who were still there…and also promised that the same photo could be signed as an ‘extra’ by Katy at any future Starfury event she might attend.
There really aren’t any other convention companies who would give you an extra autograph from the majority of the attending guests! I really can’t recommend Starfury enough, because while it looks more expensive on the surface…it really works out as much better value for money. Not only are you paying for the whole weekend convention, but you get all of the talks included, plus access to the evening parties, and autographs from the majority of the guests included.
Book for Starfury. You won’t be disappointed. I’m hoping to attend Witchbomb this year. I did also want to attend Cross Roads 7, but I don’t think that will happen for me. But Witchbomb is almost a certainty…just a few more days until I can book!
Thanks to my sister and her two children, I read the first book in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, and when my sister lent me the next two books in the series, I was immediately happy to be able to continue reading.
I particularly liked that this book didn’t shy away from the problems caused by Pip’s investigations in the previous books. While they obviously had a negative impact on Pip’s family, there were also a lot of conflicts that were caused between Pip and other members of the town…such as Nat da Silva. While she was definitely hostile to Pip, I could thoroughly understand why she felt the way she did…and empathise with how everything Pip had done previously brought up old, emotional wounds. To be honest, though, I didn’t like her brother. From what little I saw of him, he seemed to let personal bias get in the way of doing his job and…well, he just wasn’t a nice person.
I liked the inclusion of Sal in this book and the fact there was a memorial to both him and Andie, even though the memorial was what set off the events of this book.
It was good to see that Pip had a wider reach in this book, due to the site that she’d created. I also thought it was good to see that, for as many people who were willing to actually help out (one commenter actually giving an idea for further investigation), it was obvious that there were trolls; people who said things that were deliberately hurtful, or who made threats because of the public attention everything was gaining.
I really didn’t like Ant and Lauren in this book. Pip kind of describes them as a single entity…and I can’t really say that she’s wrong. I’m not sure I can describe them as friends of Pip, Connor and Cara…honestly, if I was any of them, I would have cut off the two the moment they proved they didn’t care about their friend’s brother having gone missing.
I thought it was really good that, like the first book, this one contained transcripts of the interviews Pip conducted, along with the details of her notes. Both of those helped to add more to the story, as well as to gain a little more insight…not only to Pip, but to other characters as well. And I thought the inclusion of the photos worked really well too.
I found this book really easy to read and I got quite emotional towards the end. I would completely recommend reading this book if you like reading young adult thrillers. I’m not even sure you need to have read the first book in this series, as I think this one stands well on its own, but I would highly recommend reading the first one too.
So, I have seen this movie twice now at the cinema. And both times, I did thoroughly enjoy the movie.
There are a lot of issues with Ezra Miller as a person, but I have to say that they truly are Barry Allen. They capture the feel of the character especially well. I felt for Barry when he was in the sandwich shop, waiting for his sandwich, knowing he had to get to work three minutes ago…only to get a call from Alfred that he was needed. And unlike a lot of the superheroes (even Batman), I really liked the fact that Barry has a weakness directly related to his energy levels and, it seemed, related to his blood sugar levels. As long as he had enough, he was virtually unstoppable…but it was touch and go there for a while, right at the beginning of this movie.
I did like seeing the fact that Barry had to juggle his job along with being an on-call superhero, as well as trying to prove his dad’s innocence. The struggle to get his dad out of prison added an extra element to his character, and I especially liked how Henry tried to talk his son out of spending his whole life proving his innocence. It made me like and respect Henry a lot more than I did already.
There were a lot of good elements of humour, especially when Barry went back in time and met his younger self. However, I felt like the younger version of Barry was dumbed down in a way that didn’t really fit with the fact that Barry was clearly highly intelligent…and probably even a genius, based on the amount of calculations he was trying to fit on the page. I thought there was one scene that was played only for laughs, rather than staying true to the character, despite the changes the younger one experienced compared to his older counterpart.
I really did love Kara in this movie. Yes, she was much darker than any other version of Supergirl. At the same time, it made sense with what she’d been through and what she’d seen. I particularly liked her interactions with the older Barry…and to be honest, I would have liked to see more scenes with her in.
I also really liked Michael Keaton’s Batman and the contrast between his original appearance and when he put the suit on again. There were a couple of scenes where it seemed like Bruce was nearly indestructible, which stretched my suspension of disbelief a little…but then he was shown treating his injuries, so that fit with the character.
All in all, this movie was very engaging and I enjoyed watching it both times. I’d love to see more of the version of Kara shown, along with the different versions of Batman. And there were a lot of nice Easter eggs for those familiar with the different versions of the DC characters.
If you enjoy DC, I would suggest giving this movie a try. It was a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting…and made me seriously rethink my stance of, ‘Marvel makes the best movies. DC makes the best TV shows.’
When I saw the cover of this comic book, I was immediately intrigued. After all, Stephen Strange is supposed to be the Sorcerer Supreme, able to do extremely powerful magic, with a cloak that enables him to fly…but the Stephen Strange on the cover pictured above isn’t wearing the normal cloak. And he’s preparing to shoot an arrow, so…what’s going on? At least, those were the thoughts that went through my head when I initially saw this.
It was really good to see the opening scene of this comic, where Stephen was trying to find a way to fix his hands. I did feel bad that he was so clearly going through a lot of difficulty…and so obviously failing at finding a solution.
From that initial flashback, the comic moved to the present, showing a Stephen Strange with less access to magic. I found it really interesting to see him needing to resort to using what amounted to tricks and gadgets…and I also liked seeing the kinds of weapons he ended up using, such as a sword and a bat. Like he said, there was no rule against using a baseball bat in a fight against a magical enemy.
One of the particularly effective parts of this comic was when Stephen opened his third eye. There was a huge difference between that reality and the rest of the world…and I thought it was especially good to see the art style choice, in the complete lack of colour when Stephen opened his third eye.
I was especially interested in seeing the different enemies that came at Stephen, as if reacting to his reduced magical power. The title made me think that the enemies were sharks, scenting blood in the water…and I did feel bad that Stephen didn’t seem to catch a break. On the other hand, however, I felt a tiny stab of empathy for Mister Misery, who was actually Stephen’s own creation and, according to what I found out, was basically a vessel for all the negative things about magic. Really, that felt like one enemy who was justified in going after Stephen…though not in involving innocent people.
A lot of the danger to Stephen through this comic felt real…and I did like his brief interactions with Wong, even though those didn’t make up much of the story.
On the whole, I did really enjoy reading this comic book. It was good to see Stephen’s interactions with his various enemies and how much tension there was. This comic book did end on a cliffhanger, which is slightly annoying…because then I have to find the next issues that follow on, so I can find out what happens next. But that was probably the whole intention anyway!
So. I have watched most of the Transformers movies by now, so I was pretty interested in seeing this movie…and was able to see it only one day ago.
The opening scene of this movie did a really good job of setting up the tension. I was really confused about why there was an ape transformer called Optimus Primal, since I know that Optimus Prime is an autobot who changes into a large vehicle…but things did make sense towards the end of the movie.
I liked the initial scene that showed Noah and his family. The relationship he had with his brother, Kris, was especially sweet…and I liked the fact that Kris insisted on using the codenames of Sonic and Tails from them.
It was good to see Noah and Elena’s characters developed outside of their interactions with the Autobots. I didn’t know as much about Elena’s history as I did about Noah, since I only saw her interacting with her boss and not any of her family members. However, I did see enough to feel that Elena was clearly being used by her boss in identifying items in the museum. It just wasn’t clear why Elena, as an intern, had that knowledge that her boss claimed for her own.
One of my favourite characters in this movie was Mirage. I loved his interactions with Noah and the friendship that formed between them, along with how Mirage later interacted with Kris. I have to say, though, I’m a bit confused by the fact that Optimus Prime keeps on reverting back to his ‘humans aren’t to be trusted’ phase. It seems like there’s little development each time Optimus Prime appears in a Transformers movie. It has been a while since I saw the other ones, though, so I could be misremembering a good reason for this.
There were a lot of really good action scenes in this movie, and I really liked the fact that both Elena and Noah had different motivations and reasons for what they were doing.
I also really liked the Maximals, especally Airazor. I would have liked to see more of her history, especially as it’s made clear she’s the only one of her group of Maximals left. I would have liked more details about the Maximals all round, to be honest. No one seemed very surprised to see them, but what was their history with the Autobots?
This movie is really good for an action science fiction movie that includes the Transformers and Autobots, but it’s definitely not a complicated storyline. It was a lot of fun to watch and I did really like the friendship between Mirage and Noah. Plus, I always think Bumblebee is a really great character…despite only being able to communicate by using different voices through his radio.
So yeah. If you enjoy Transformers and lots of action, you will definitely enjoy this movie. It was a lot of fun and easy to watch.
This is probably my favourite movie of 2023, not gonna lie.
I was 100% looking forward to seeing this movie. I’d seen and thoroughly enjoyed Into The Spider-Verse; it was so much fun and so different to anything I’d ever expected it to be. I’e actually seen it twice now!
One of the great things about this movie was being able to see more of Gwen and her history. I knew some details of her story from the comic books, but it was great to see her conflicts within her relationship and herself. I was really sad to see how, in the opening scene, she revealed her identity to her father and he couldn’t accept her.
I absolutely loved seeing Miles trying to juggle being Spider-Man along with dealing with his personal and school life. His interactions with the Spot were pretty amusing, and I loved the fact that he had interactions with his father as Spider-Man. It was actually really nice and wholesome to see a Spider-Man who had a good relationship with the police.
I also really loved being able to see the different versions of Spider-Man, although I’ve got to be honest that it did get a little ridiculous after a while. The Lego version of Spider-Man was cool to see, but a cat version? And a T-Rex? Very difficult to suspend my disbelief at those points. And speaking of suspending my disbelief…Gwen was with the group ‘for a few months’, in her own words. Yet Jessica Drew seems to have a noticeable baby bump still by the time she appears later in the film. So how long was she actually pregnant for?
Speaking of baby bumps…it was pretty awesome, if very irresponsible, to see Peter from the first movie with his own daughter. And while I did feel bad that he and Gwen (not to mention the others) left Miles alone for so long…I really liked how Peter mentioned that Miles was the reason he had his baby. Basically, I enjoyed his interactions with Miles – even though I felt that both him and Gwen did abandon Miles.
There was a lot of tension in this movie, along with the moments of humour. One of my favourite parts of this movie was right at the beginning, where Gwen and Miguel are fighting together against the Vulture. I loved the silent communication; the nod when Gwen rescued the officers from the helicopter and Miguel grabbed them. It was a scene that really showed how good the characters were, in my opinion.
On the whole, I loved this movie. I truly enjoyed seeing how Miles interacted with the different versions of Spider-Man. This movie was a lot of fun, while also dealing with some serious issues. I definitely intend to watch the third movie in this trilogy – I need to, since this one ended on a cliffhanger.
So. Once again, I have to be honest – as much as I love going to see horror movies, I was actually quite disappointed in this film.
From the trailers, this movie had a lot of potential. It looked like it might be more of a psychological horror, where the main threat isn’t actually seen, and that’s something I don’t see very often…and would love to see more of in horror, where what you don’t see is infinitely more scary than what you do see.
Sadly, that was not the case here.
Okay, so a positive in this movie was the relationship between the two sisters: Sadie and Sawyer. It very much felt like Sadie had stepped up to parent Sawyer after their mother’s death. Will was clearly making an effort with his youngest daughter, but he did ignore Sadie’s needs…even when she tried to talk to him about how she was feeling after her mother’s death. I mean, I know that he was grieving his wife’s death, but come on!
Unfortunately, the majority of the characters in this movie (apart from Sadie and Sawyer) were either really unlikable, or just felt like they were there as filler. I thought perhaps there’d be something of a relationship shown between Sadie and Bethany, but instead, the movie seemed more focused on the conflicts between Sadie and Natalie. And to be quite honest, her entire ‘friend’ group (minus Bethany, but she really wasn’t a very good friend) just seemed to hate her. And to be honest – as the viewer, it definitely seemed to me that the group slammed the door shut on Sadie when she was showing them where Lester hung himself. She was clearly traumatised and grieving and none of them saw a problem with Natalie telling her she shouldn’t be wearing her mother’s dress, that clearly had a lot of meaning to her? Yeah, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
Unfortunately, the rest of the secondary characters in this movie were just as disappointing. The whole movie seemed to be about tormenting Sawyer. She was the one the boogeyman was mainly after (although it did target Sadie as well)…and the police officer, instead of showing some small measure of compassion, decided to question Sadie about a man’s supposed suicide while Sadie is holding her frightened sister. And Will just stands there and lets it happen? I take back what I said about him making an effort with his youngest daughter. Just because her mother died, that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly okay to talk about whether or not a man really did kill himself in front of her. Oh…and don’t get me started on the psychiatrist, who exposed Sawyer to her fear so much, the girl actually wet herself!
On the whole, the only good thing about this movie was Sadie and Sawyer’s relationship. The horror was just cheap jump scares and as soon as the monster was shown, it removed the fear.
Come on, filmmakers! Give me something really good, with characters I’ll actually root for and a monster that’s actually scary!
I can’t recommend watching this movie. Even if you like horror you can just switch off for…this movie isn’t that good.
So. I have to be honest. I was a little hesitant about going to see this movie at the cinema. Not because of any particular dislike of Disney (I grew up watching Disney movies, including the animated Little Mermaid), or of the actors, but because I was worried I’d just be watching a shot for shot remake like when I went to see The Lion King. Still. I did end up going to see it, because the trailer made me think it would be visually appealing, at the very least. Again, just like The Lion King – which was beautifully made and shot, but added nothing to the actual story.
I wasn’t wrong. At least, not about the visual beauty. The film was absolutely stunning, especially the under the sea parts. Yes, it was obviously CGI; but it was still all very pretty to look at.
I was wrong about the movie basically being the same as the original animated classic. Yes, the core storyline was the same. It’s still a Disney movie, after all. But it was different enough that I didn’t feel bored while watching it.
One of the things I really liked about this movie was the fact that Eric’s character was really well developed. It was really good to see him as more than just the Disney prince who Ariel happens to fall in love with. I also really loved Halle Bailey as Ariel. When she sang Part of Your World, I got goosebumps.
I also particularly liked Scuttle in this movie, although a lot of that is probably because I truly love Awkwafina in whatever role I see her in, whether it’s live action or voice acting. I did find it a little bit weird that Scuttle could apparently breathe (and talk!) under the water to Ariel, but although I was wondering how that was possible, it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the movie.
I also really loved being able to see more of the island that was Eric’s home. And considering that Ariel sings she wants to see people dancing in Part of Your World, it was great to see her getting to do that…as well as the culture shock that was to be expected, since Scuttle wasn’t nearly the expert on humans she believed she was.
All in all, I really did enjoy this movie. It was visually beautiful and I loved the songs, especially Part of Your World and Kiss The Girl. I would definitely recommend going to see this movie, particularly if you’re a Disney fan, and especially if you’re a fan of The Little Mermaid.
So, this movie was the fourth of the two weeks of Unlimited showings at Cineworld. And I’d had a bit of a mentally draining day, so I did hesitate over going ahead and seeing this. But in the end, I’m glad that I did watch themovie.
The idea of a comedian who’s famous because he tears his shirt off and yells, “I’m the Machine!” is one that just seems absolutely ridiculous on paper. Of course, the whole movie makes it clear that the whole thing became a viral sensation – which did make a certain kind of sense.
One of the good things about this movie was seeing the impact of Bert’s (aka the Machine) actions on the rest of his family. Even though he was going to therapy and trying to a certain extent, it seemed clear – at least to me – that he hadn’t taken full responsibility for his actions. While there were some hints about exactly what had gone on, it wasn’t until much later in the movie that it was revealed exactly what had happened with his oldest daughter and that he finally took responsibility for what his own actions had caused.
There were quite a lot of moments of humour in this movie and it definitely didn’t take itself too seriously. One of my favourite parts of the movie was the use of the flashbacks, and the gradual reveal of what had really happened in Bert’s past. I thought it was particularly interesting to see how the glamour and excitement of going to a new country changed to something much darker and more sinister. By the end of the movie, I felt like I had a much better understanding of Bert’s character and motivations.
I also really liked Irina, even though I really didn’t expect to when she first appeared. I enjoyed the bonding experiences she shared with Bert…and although it was a bit disappointing to see her bonding with Albert glossed over (while Bert was unconscious), I still thought she was a really great character, with motives that gave her more depth…unlike her brothers, both of whom just seemed like carbon copies of each other.
All told, I really did enjoy this movie. It was a lot of fun and didn’t require a lot of thought to watch. I don’t think it’s a movie I’d get anything out of watching a second time, but it was definitely entertaining and worth watching a first time, in my opinion.