This movie came out the same weekend I was at Starfury: Witchbomb, so I decided to go and see it the day after I came back from London…and, to be honest, I really enjoyed this movie.
When I saw the trailer, this movie looked like it was more of a comedy than…well, like most of the movies in the DCEU. I still wanted to see it, as the superhero genre is one of my favourites; right up there with the horror genre. And don’t get me wrong…there is humour in this movie, but it’s also more serious than the trailer portrays it as. I think it’s a shame that wasn’t included in the trailer, as I think some of the serious elements made the movie much stronger.
Jaime was an easy character to like in this movie. The casual racism he and his family had to deal with was a strong element of this movie. For instance, there’s a scene where a receptionist deliberately mispronounces his name…and it’s one of the very few times I wanted to reach through the screen and punch a fictional character. Interestingly enough, that feeling was also triggered with the main villain of this movie: Victoria Kord. For different reasons, but I think the root cause of deciding someone who looked different was somehow beneath them lay underneath her actions at one point.
I thought it was interesting to see how Khaji-Da had its own personality, even though the trailer seemed to make it come across as merely a robot or an AI. One of the most important parts of this movie was Jaime and Khaji-Da finally completing their bond, which I thought came across really well…especially when Jaime’s mother did treat Khaji-Da as a separate entity from her son.
I did, unfortunately, find Milagro to be quite an irritating character at first, when she snatches the scarab from Jaime and refuses to give it back. I understand the whole sibling relationship, but there’s something I absolutely hate about one person snatching something from another and refusing to give it back. However, I liked Milagro later on in the movie, along with the rest of her family. I liked how they all came together…and I truly loved how Nana reacted to things after it all went so badly initially.
On the whole, I really enjoyed this movie. It was a great superhero one which also tackled some really heavy issues. There were some quite powerful scenes in this movie that really spoke to me. I really hope that this reboot of the DCEU won’t result in Jaime and his family getting written out of the universe, because I’d really like to see more of them in future movies…especially as a mid-credits scene indicated there was more of this story to be told.
I have to be honest…I haven’t seen Warrior Nun and I’ve only seen two episodes of Motherland: Fort Salem. But Taylor Hickson was lovely to meet last year, at the final Survival event, and one of my friends was going to Witchbomb, so I went to meet her as well.
In any case, I booked my ticket quite late…although I wasn’t the last attendee number, at least to the best of my knowledge. I know the event was really close to selling out…and I was surprised it didn’t end up doing so, given that there were eight really good guests who all seemed really excited and happy about being there. At the opening ceremony, they all seemed to have this really great energy, which was awesome! And the cheering when Amalia Holm and then Taylor Hickson came up on the stage was deafening.
I hadn’t planned to get any photos with any of the guests, having only budgeted for autographs. However, I mentioned to my friend that it would have been nice to get a photo with Amalia, who plays Raelle’s (Taylor Hickson) love interest in Motherland: Fort Salem. And she kindly paid for most of the photo, so I ended up getting one…although not in my normal photo outfit, since I didn’t bring that with me.
When I have photos with actors, I always try and see how they are with other attendees. If they seem to be open to hugs, I’ll ask if I can hug them…and Amalia was incredibly sweet, as you can probably tell from the photo above. I’ve seen some of the double photos with Amalia and Taylor and they clearly had a lot of fun with doing the shoots.
Unfortunately, Kristina Tonteri-Young (Sister Beatrice in Warrior Nun) had to leave immediately after photos on the Sunday, so she very kindly signed for everyone on the Saturday night. I’m not sure how late she ended up staying for, but the cosplay competition ended up having a delayed start, so I think it must have been quite late! Anyway, despite having to get through about 500 attendees (and perhaps double that in autographs, since there was a maximum of three for each attendee and she was included for free), she still took the time to talk to attendees and it didn’t feel like she was rushing through the autographs…even though I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did!
I really enjoyed the cosplay competition, although it was very much Motherland: Fort Salem and Warrior Nun themed. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but there are normally a few other themes sprinkled in when I’ve seen the competitions in the past! All of the outfits were super awesome and it was also really good to see the reactions from the guests. Unfortunately, I missed some of the announcements about who had won due to reporting to a staff/steward about someone breaking the rules. It’s very disappointing to see peple persist in filming, even after all of the warnings given about it.
Lyne Renee (General Alder in Motherland: Fort Salem) also had to leave early, specifically after the autograph session on the Sunday. When me and my friend got into the room, I was shocked to see that her line was so short, since I was expecting it to be long. And just like Kristina, she wasn’t rushing through people. There was no sense of ‘she needs to leave soon,’ even though I knew that she actually did.
Diana Pavlovská and Emilie Leclerc (Willa Collar and Izadora in Motherland: Fort Salem respectively) were the two whose autographs I got next. As you can see from her autograph, Diana outlined the i in her name in a blue heart balloon…and she did that for every single autograph. It was such an awesome touch, but I couldn’t help feeling bad about how many autographs she probably ended up doing that to. And Emilie was awesome! She did stars on my autograph (as you can see) and while she was doing them, she told me she didn’t know why. I was just like, ‘I’m good with whatever you want to do!’
Amalia Holm (Scylla Ramshorn in Motherland: Fort Salem) and Olivia Delcán (Sister Camila on Warrior Nun) were the next two autographs I got. They were both lovely to meet, though I moved on quite quickly due to the long line building behind me.
Kandyse McClure (Nicte Batan in Motherland: Fort Salem, though I got a picture of her as Anastasia Dualla from Battlestar Galactica) was the final autograph I got. Her line was really long…and she was very chatty and easy to talk to. I had a good couple of minutes with her before I moved on!
Now, Starfury wouldn’t be Starfury without a few autographs included in the price…and I had six out of eight of the guests included in my ticket. I was very happy about this – I’ve always said and belive that Starfury is excellent value for money!
Another important aspect of Starfury for me is the access for disabled attendees, since I now have type 1 diabetes. The team has taken to having stewards who can be a stand-in for the attendee in an autograph queue…and for me, that turned out to be a good thing. Because I had two overloads, one on Saturday when we were waiting for an hour for Amalia photos, and one on Sunday, during the autographs. I actually didn’t realise that was coming on, but my friend with me realised and got one of the stewards to take my place. (I thought I was fine, right up until everyone around me started yelling and cheering at one of the guests when she was leaving). Another really good thing that the stewards were doing was going around offering attendees water. I didn’t feel too hot in the rooms, but I know quite a few other people did. Kandyse told me she thought her deodrant had stopped working!
I love Starfury. It’s 100% the best convention company out there, and the organiser does his best to keep the costs for attendees down. And the addition of helping with queues and offering water has really made a difference.
If you’re a fan of Motherland: Fort Salem, or Warrior Nun, or both, check out next year’s event. Heck, even if you’ve never heard of the shows but would like to be at an event that doesn’t oversell and is less stressful for both guests and attendees than signing events, Starfury definitely fits that bill!
To be honest, this wasn’t a movie I would have chosen to go and watch. I’d seen it advertised once and it didn’t really grab me…but I went to a secret showing at Cineworld and it happened to this movie, so I ended up watching it.
The movie starts off with a very familiar quote: ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ And then those words are scribbled out and a response scrawled: ‘I can raise myself, thanks.’
The biggest problem I had with this movie was that it was really hard to suspend my disbelief. I know, it wasn’t supernatural/paranormal/fantasy/etc., but it was set in the real world…and it came across, to me at least, that many of the adults were aware that Georgie was living on her own, but did nothing about it. For me, that didn’t make a lot of sense. In fact, a lot of the movie felt like it wasn’t all that realistic…such as a twelve-year-old paying the bills for her house. Sorry, but I 100% don’t believe that the tiny amount of cash she got from fencing stolen bikes was enough to pay for the TV, mobile phone, landline, etc.
I really didn’t like Jason. To be honest, from his first appearance, the way he handled everything was just wrong…and I didn’t really trust that he was there for Georgie at all. There were a couple of bonding scenes later on in the movie, but I could understand why Georgie was so hostile towards him to begin with, after he just came back into her life and started blackmailing her instead of explaining the truth to her.
There were a couple of amusing scenes in the movie, such as the one where Ali is naming the spiders…and when he and Georgie are making up stories about what Jason could really be doing. However, those moments of humour were few and far between. I found the clips of other characters talking on video interesting, but although it gave the movie a little bit of a documentary feel, those scenes were really confusing. Who was interviewing these people about Georgie and why? And there were three random triplets and…a teacher?…who seemed to have no interaction with Georgie, yet talked about her like they knew things about her. And yet not one person cared that she’d lost her mother, so…yeah. Most of the other characters in this movie were really unsympathetic. There was an interesting scene between Layla and Georgie, though, which I would have liked to see explored further, as Layla seemed to have a bit more depth to her than her other appearances had suggested.
On the whole, this movie just didn’t really resonate with me. The actions of the characters didn’t make sense, and while I really liked and was able to empathise with Georgie, I didn’t like the way Jason handled things at all. Personally, I wouldn’t watch this movie again.
I did watch the first film when it was in the cinema, and it was actually quite a fun movie…one that didn’t require much thought and was actually pretty engaging. So when I saw the second movie advertised, I was immediately interested in going to see it.
Firstly, I have to say that the trailer wasn’t fully accurate to the movie. From the trailer, the movie seemed like a very different one to what I actually went to see. That’s not to say that the movie was bad, because it was actually pretty good…but it wasn’t all about the megs escaping the trench and going after humans, even if that was part of the plot.
The movie opens with a prehistoric scene, showing a fairly typical ‘there’s always a bigger predator’ scene involving dinosaurs. The rating of this movie was actually surprisingly low…and I think it could perhaps it could have done with showing a bit more of the reality. Since the movie didn’t really shy away from showing animals eating each other (and humans), there was a very small amount of blood and gore, which didn’t really fit with what was showing.
There was actually quite a lot of tension in this movie, at least at the point when Jonas and the others took an expedition down into the trench. I was fascinated by the idea that there was this whole other world that no one had seen before…and while the events surrounding the characters needing to walk across the ocean floor were pretty far from ideal, I really liked the fact that I got to see more of the underwater world, even though it was fraught with tension and there were very dangerous animals down there.
I did think that the strongest part of this movie was the relationship between Jonas and Meiying. I liked that he’d taken on more of a father role with her and that she was his priority…although I did think it was all a bit predictable with the rebellious teenage girl sneaking on board the submarine she’d been told not to go on. I also found Jiuming an interesting character, even though I thought he made some incredibly stupid choices when it came to the megs…and I definitely wouldn’t have trusted a meg enough to swim with it, even if it had been raised by humans.
On the whole, the movie was entertaining and there was a lot of tension throughout. I also enjoyed the relationship between the core main characters. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch the movie a second time, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of those children’s shows I used to watch all the time with my sister while growing up, so when I saw this movie advertised, I was interested in going to see it.
This movie was very similar to the storylines of other versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with the four of them wanting to be normal and join the human world.
I liked seeing the story of how Splinter found the turtles and became their dad. I’ve always loved seeing the father and son relationship between Splinter and the turtles, and it was really sweet to see him trying to protect them from a very early age…and that he was still trying to protect them, even though his actions were clearly more stifling than anything else.
One of the main things I really liked about this movie was the fact that the turtles weren’t amazing fighters. The first scene where they fight, it seems more like they win by accident, since they start off experiencing ‘friendly fire’.
I did think April was an interesting character, and I liked the fact that, despite her wanting to be a reporter, she suffered from a severe case of anxiety the first time she tried speaking on live television. I definitely thought that made her seem like a well-rounded character.
I did find it a bit hard to follow the action scenes of this movie at times, as there were so many mutants working with Superfly. I think condensing down those mutants would have been better, as the movie didn’t really take the time to expand on more than the basics about those characters.
I did really like the visuals of this movie, although there were some scenes between Splinter and a cockroach towards the end that I just felt were…very inappropriate. Especially as there was more of a story between Leonardo and April, and nothing was really done with them.
I did think that Superfly worked really well as a villain, especially as I had the chance to see his origins at the beginning of the movie, which made me a little more sympathetic to him…even though what he was planning to do was completely wrong. Plus, it was interesting to see him trying to get the turtles on his side, rather than outright trying to attack them.
I did find this movie entertaining for what it was, but I can’t really say it added much to the franchise. It’s worth watching if you ever enjoyed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I don’t think it’s a movie I would watch a second time.
I watched the first Haunted Mansion movie when I was much younger, so when I saw this movie advertised, I was immediately interested in seeing it…although I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a remake, or a sequel, or an entirely new storyline.
Although this movie does share some similarities to the first Haunted Mansion movie (such as a disembodied head in a crystal ball), it is also clearly an entirely new storyline. The movie starts out with a very sweet scene between Ben and Alyssa, with them meeting for the first time…although there was a very obvious goof, where Alyssa’s drink changes obviously from the beginning of their conversation to the end (she isn’t shown getting a new drink at all). And…while things did work out well between them…her accepting a drink someone had already bought did make me cringe.
Considering how Ben was in his initial appearance, it was very obvious that something bad had happened from the opening scene to the present day, although it was good that the movie didn’t immediately show what had happened with Alyssa and let that be revealed gradually.
I liked the fact that Gabbie didn’t follow the normal horror movie main character trope and was actually prepared to take Travis and leave the first moment she saw something supernatural. It did confuse me about why they were back in the house when Ben arrived there, but that was explained later in a way that made sense.
I really liked the secondary characters in this movie. Kent and Harriet were both really interesting characters, and I felt that they both had a lot of depth to them. I didn’t really get to know Bruce to the same level, but I thought he was still a good character…and it was fun to see him trying to take the lead and do dangerous things, even though Ben was trying to protect him.
I liked the fact that this movie was darker in tone, even while it had some elements of humour in places. However, I was disappointed in the fact that most of the ghosts just looked almost cartoonish. The effects used in this movie didn’t really mate the feel of the rest of the movie, so I think that was one thing this movie fell really short on.
On the whole, I did enjoy this movie. There were really good moments of tension along with the humour. I also really cared about the characters and the situation they were in. If you enjoy Disney movies with some darker themes and don’t mind more cartoonish special effects, I would recommend watching this movie.
I enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, so I was quite eager to read this…and thanks to my oldest nibling, I got the chance to read this.
I really did enjoy this book. It’s a prequel to the original trilogy, and seems to have been written after the others, but I would personally say that it works really well as an introduction to the storyline and characters if people haven’t read the trilogy yet.
I really liked the beginning, with the invitation that came to Pip. I do have to say, though, I felt that the murder mystery game didn’t make things easy for the players, even disregarding the ending of the book and the big reveal. I feel like it would have made playing the game easier if the players were able to read their character booklets before the game was actually due to start…but then again, I guess the story wouldn’t have been as effective if the game company had done the logical thing.
I liked how each of the friend group got involved in the roles they were playing, even Lauren, who was showing signs of her irritating clingy personality with her constant need to message her boyfriend. Cara was my favourite when it came to playing her role, as she seemed to really get into the spirit of the game…plus, I really enjoyed her dramatic gasps every time something happened, or was revealed in the game.
I liked the fact that what had happened with Sal and Andie permeated so much of the book, whether it was Pip thinking about the connection of the murder with the town itself, or the group freaking out because of things that happened during the course of the evening.
If you haven’t read the trilogy, I would say to give this novella a try, as it works as a good introduction to the storyline and the characters. And if you have read the trilogy, I would still recommend reading this…as it’s easy to read and allows a good glimpse into more of the characters from the original books. I would definitely read more books about Pip, Cara, Connor, Jamie and Zach…less so about Lauren and Ant.
So, thanks to the same friend who bought me the last Doctor Strange comic I read, I got this comic book as well…which immediately intrigued me through the title and the blurb of the book.
It was interesting to see that, by this point, Doctor Strange had the use of his hands back. I did think that he was clearly trying to juggle too much, from performing surgery, to dealing with magical threats, and teaching students…so it did make me think he was obviously taking on too much.
I liked the feel of the murder mystery around this book…and it was pretty interesting to see the contrast between Doctor Strange of the present and Doctor Strange of the past. I did find myself getting amused by the exclamations of, “Zounds!” as well as Mordo commenting that he’d forgotten what Doctor Strange used to call himself.
I found the three mothers and their monstrous baby to be really intriguing villains, and I would have liked to see a bit more detail about them. Where did their baby come from? It probably wasn’t a biological connection, considering each of the mothers were so vastly different to each other and to the baby, so it would have been good to see a bit more about their history.
I really liked seeing the Avengers appear in this comic. I really liked the fact that they clearly had close friendships with Doctor Strange…or, at least, that Steve did; there wasn’t so much interaction with the rest of the group. And I really liked the dog, Bats. It was pretty awesome to see that Doctor Strange had a spirit dog (I assume) who he could talk to…and I liked the fact that his younger self acknowledged that he’d always wanted a dog.
It was interesting to see the younger version of Doctor Strange trying to navigate people and situations he wasn’t aware of. I also found Clea to be an interesting character, and it would have been nice to see more about her history with Doctor Strange.
On the whole, I found this comic book to be a really engaging storyline, with good villains and great use of foreshadowing. I definitely want to read more of Doctor Strange’s story in other comics.
(I received a free advance copy of this book in exchange for a review).
I have to admit, this book was very easy to read. It only took me a few hours to get through the whole thing…and the blurb had sounded really interesting. And I did find it quite easy to care about Amy as a character.
Unfortunately, the secondary characters in this book didn’t feel nearly as strong. I didn’t like the fact that all of the men were obsessed with Amy, and that all of the women (with one exception) seemed to hate/be insanely jealous of her. Even the parts of the book not written from Amy’s third person perspective basically had her be the main focus of everyone else’s world.
I think the two police officers could have been really interesting, but with the way that both were trying to warp the narrative (Brandon trying to make it fit Amy being innocent; Mindy trying to make the evidence fit Amy being the culprit). I also found the narration really hard to take seriously when one of the characters was written as literally ‘shaking her booty’. Unfortunately, that threw me straight out of the story and it took me a little while to be able to get back into it again.
Learning about Amy’s past gradually, through the course of the book, rather than all at once worked really well. I did feel bad about what she was going through and what she had gone through…and when it seemed like she’d found someone who would treat her well in the past, I was happy for her, despite knowing things were going to go very badly wrong.
I did figure out the truth behind the ‘friend’ who was messaging Amy fairly early on, although it was still good to see how the events unfolded in any case. And I did like how much Amy ended up second-guessing herself through the book. If there wasn’t the weird, obsessive, instant!love connection (at least on Brandon’s end), I would have liked reading the interactions between Amy and Brandon…although Brandon did seem to pick up a bit by the end of the book. Throughout most of the book, it was easy to suspend my disbelief, even though certain things that happened were a bit weird.
On the whole, this book was easy to read. I would recommend giving it a try if you enjoy reading thrillers and mysteries. Despite the issues I had with the secondary characters, I did keep reading to find out what would happen by the end. I wouldn’t read it a second time, but I think it was worth reading once.
Ink of Blood 