Cloak and Dagger

A Marvel show for teens. But don’t be fooled. It has a lot of serious and crushing moments. The main characters can be angsty, but they have good reason to be.

Cloak and Dagger, or in their normal names, Tyrone and Tandy respectively, have been linked since they were young. Both of them were present at an accident, and in that event, both of them lost someone close. It’s also where they got their cool powers.

If you want super heroes and hero activity in your superhero show, you’ll want to look elsewhere. These young adults are focused on other things. One of them is actively a terrible person through most of the season. But if you want a character-based drama that shows the trials and growth of the main character, Cloak and Dagger does it fantastically.

The show is entirely focused on the titular characters. There’s only one side character that sort of has a plot not related to Cloak or Dagger, but also not really. I’m speaking of Detective O’reilly, how has her own reasons for being involved. But almost everyone else is only around to serve Tyrone and Tandy’s growth and development.

Which makes it a great thing that that Tyrone and Tandy are both great characters. I like Tandy better. She starts off as a sweet kid, but as a result of the accident, she grows up to be selfish and manipulative. As long as she gets what she wants, it’s fine. Over the course of the season, she fights with Tyrone, grows closer to him, pushes him away, pushes him to be better and comes to rely on him.

Tyrone changes a bit less. His emotions are in constant turmoil, but he pushes it down a lot. It leads to him lashing out, yet he’s the one that is always trying to be optimistic. He’s the one trying to keep Tandy a good person, and he’s the one that’s trying to be hopeful despite his feelings telling him otherwise. The actor, though, can come across a bit stiff at times.

The two of them work together really well, which makes the show work. Cloak and Dagger doesn’t have much heroics. This season is about their growth and learning about their powers. Both main characters are compelling. They’re flawed, but you want to see both of them happy and succeed, even when they’re straying into being full jerks.

So if you want superheros, this show will probably disappoint you. But if you want to see the characters react and grow after a horrible event in their lives, and for that problem to continue even during their current lives, this show does it well.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Okay, mild spoilers for something that happens in the first ten or so minutes of the movie. This movie is about time travel, suprisingly enough. Yeah, I didn’t get that from any of the trailers at all. But Jake wants to feel closer to his grandfather, so he goes to his grandfathers old group home. His granfather has been telling stories about the home and about all of the peculiar children that live there and the woman that runs it, Miss Peregrine.

And when I say peculiar, I mean all this children have some kind of ability, like X-men.

Of course it’s all true. And so, Jake gets drawn into a strange new world of time travel. It’s kind of confusing time travel, too. There are some stories that don’t make time travel so confusing. This one just rolls with it and hopes people don’t think about it that much. It just feels like a really convoluted way to hide the peculiar children.

I have not read the books, but I think it was that way in the books, too. Might as well keep it the same for the movie.

The movie is a bit slow paced. It takes a long while before we get to know why the peculiars all need to hide within a time loop. I do not mind that at all. I really liked the parts where Jake is just getting to known the children. There’s a lot of them, and they all get some cool or cute scenes to show off. I hear most of them are pretty different from the book, but I do like the movie versions. The group is a family, and that comes through over the first part of the film where they’re just living and getting along.

Miss Peregrine is a sharp figure that has a tight control on keeping the children safe. It’s also a prison of sorts, but there are dangers out in the world for the peculiar children.

The atmosphere of the movie is pretty nice. Miss Peregrine’s home is locked in a loop back in World War 2, and everything has that old feel charm without the horrors of war. Overall, the feel of the movie is engaging and really adds to it.

Once the action starts, things get weirder than before. The CGI could use some work, but the monsters are still really creepy. And Samuel L. Jackson is great in the film. He’s just so over the top in all instances, and it’s hilarious how he acts like minor things are personal affronts to his very being.

It is a peculiar movie that builds up a great atmosphere throughout. The pacing in the beginning is really slow. I enjoy it, but I can see it as being a bit too much consecutive moments of just building characters. Then the second part happens with all the danger and action. It still retains the feeling of the first half, which is good, but I felt it was weaker than the first part.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is enjoyable, especially for someone like me that enjoys a glance at people just living their strange life.

The Accountant

It’s like John Wick, but with an accountant! Alright, perhaps not as badass as John Wick. No one is. Still The Accountant strikes up a good tone and an interesting main character.

Christian Wolff, a total fake name, is an accountant. He has some sort of autism, which makes him socially awkward but also really great at certain things. His father, wanting to toughen him up, gives him all sorts of harsh training ever since he was a kid. It leaves him really skilled not but social at all.

As an adult, he works as an accountant since he’s great at numbers. He gets hired to check over the numbers of a company and he finds something weird. That’s when people start to die and everything goes wrong. Someone is trying to cover things up, and Christian Wolff can’t have that. He needs to finish things, and he also needs to protect his new friend, Dana.

Aside from the main character, the other characters all just come and go. They still feel important to the story, but it’s just not clear how until the end. The story bounces around a bit here and there. At first, I didn’t think the out of order sequence was necessary. A lot of things just seem to happen. Once everything is explained, though, it all makes sense and really adds to the movie. For the most part, the out of order parts were alright, but perhaps one scene too many.

I think having a more stable base would help the movie.

Once the action starts, however, I think the movie doesn’t live up to what it built. The fighting isn’t bad by any means, but I guess I had some ideas of how awesome it could be. As it is in the film, Christian Wolff is merely alright within the movie realm of legends.

The Accountant is a cool film that slowly builds up an atmosphere around our mysterious accountant. I think maybe not setting up how much of a badass the main character is would make parts of the film better. And then they could go into just what the accountant did to earn his reputation. Or maybe that’s what they did in the movie, but I already knew about things from the trailer, and thus, it colored my perception of the film. Oh well.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

I know that this is based on a cartoon. I just have not seen it before. So I’ll be taking on the movie as a new viewer.

I like the premise of a dog adopting a boy. And what’s even more fun is how no one cares that this one dog called Mr Peabody can talk and is pretty much the smartest being on the planet. And it can’t even be excused to people just getting used to him as even when he time travels backwards, no one cares.

That’s right, Mr. Peabody has invented a time machine. And he uses it to teach his adoptive son, Sherman, about history. They have fun, wacky adventures with Mr. Peabody being awesome at getting out of any scrapes they get themselves into. But then comes a new adventure. Sherman has to go to school. And Sherman pretty much gets into trouble that results in a whole new set of time travel shenanigans.

Sherman gets into a fight with his classmate, Penny, and as a result, Mr. Peabody invites Penny and her parents over to try and smooth things over. Penny then gets into the time machine. The movie follows their series of events, perhaps even unfortunate events, as they try to get back home with a lot of things going wrong.

It’s fun and they don’t really gloss over the violent parts of history. Instead, they present it in a kid-friendly way that’s done really well. They go to several time periods, my favorite of which is the renaissance. That place is colorful and fun. In fact, all of the historical figures they meet are great.

And the relationship between Mr. Peabody and Sherman is really strong. They build it up over the course of the film where Mr. Peabody slowly stops being an intellectual all the time and becomes more caring.

I enjoyed Penny’s character. She starts out antagonistic to Sherman but after the time traveling starts, they become friends. It just happens really quick, too quick really. And out of the three main characters, she’s the one that’s the most useless. The movie is only called Mr. Peabody and Sherman, but Penny feels pretty much just there to fill a female character slot.

But the movie is fun with a lot of historical jokes and a great relationship between the two main characters. The ending is quite a blast, too.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

After the whammy of Infinite Wars, Marvel is coming back for a bit of fun and relaxation. Like the first movie, there’s no world-ending threat here, because that’s somewhere else. This movie is about more personal problems and smaller situations. There is a greedy businessman, finding a lost parent, strange other dimensions and a ghost. Well, it’s still a Marvel movie, after all.

I enjoyed the movie for it’s fun. Scott is great and goofy. Luis and the rest of the crew are back in the best way. The shady businessman isn’t as unhinged as the first movie’s villain, so even he’s more fun, though in the serious sort of way. The heart of the movie revolves around the Pym family. Hank is trying to save his wife, Janet, from the Quantum Realm.

There’s a lot of family stuff going on in the movie, actually, and it’s all done well. Scott has a great relationship with his daughter, Cassie. And Cassie is really adorable in this film. She brings up all the scenes she is in. Scott’s ex is a lesser part of the movie, but I enjoyed how much she was on Scott’s side throughout. They already did the plot where she feels Scott is not a good parent in the first movie. Now, the ex and her new boyfriend are both fully team Scott.

The other family here is more of an adoptive family. Ghost is the main villain of the movie, but I really liked the character. For once, I’ll say I actually read the comics featuring the character of Ghost, and the two characters are nothing alike. Suffice it to say, movie ghost is a totally different character with a similar costume and power set.

Movie ghost is a great character, though. I really enjoyed her motivation for doing what she is. And her adoptive father is trying to help while keeping her from going full-overboard. I liked this different version of Ghost and would like to see her again.

The movie has great actions scenes that makes creative use of everyone’s power. The effects look slick, especially Ghost’s. The quantum realm is wildly strange. And it has a good humor. Ant-Man and the Wasp is like a palate cleanser after the harsh events of Infinite War. It brings things back to small scale stuff around the characters rather than the world, and it works out great.

The Expanse

Thank you Amazon for giving this show another season! This is the best science fiction show on TV. It started off a bit confusing, but now, everything is settling into place and the bigger picture is being revealed. Season 3 finishes up the 2nd book and actually finishes the entirety of the 3rd book. That means the 3rd book is done in about half the season, making it feel a bit more rushed than the other parts. I’m still not sure why they didn’t do 1 season a book.

Anyway, this show is just getting better all the time. From the effects to the characters and the story, things are getting intense. And have I mentioned how awesome Amos is? Because he is.

The 2nd book ended a bit abruptly and the start of the 3rd book can seem kind of jarring. Since it happens in the middle of the season, people might feel that there’s just an unexplained timejump. Why is Prax just suddenly gone and all the other fallout of what happened skipped over? Because new book, that’s why!

Still, the second half of the season is fantastic. It gets so much more majestic now that the mysteries behind the protomolecule are unravelling. The pacing is faster, but it still manages to build up the new characters great. Ashford, in particular, is done really well. He’s a great foil to Drummer, who is now in command of the Belter expedition to the Ring.

What I wanted is a bit of a slowdown on two parts. One, I want to feel the full foreboding and strangeness of the space inside the ring. I feel everything happens too fast to give it the awe and anxiousness it deserves. They show people worrying a bit, but I really wanted more large shots of all the ships inside the space, trapped and unable to get out.

The second thing I needed slowed down was Melba. Well, this is going into spoilers, so I’m not going to say much. I’ll say that what the show gave us towards the end was enough, but more wouldn’t hurt.

The Expanse is fantastic, and I am so looking forward to what’s coming next. I haven’t read the books, so I have no idea! Let’s do this.

Fate of the Furious

This will be a bit shorter of a review. Not because I didn’t enjoy the movie. I liked it, about as much as I like the Fast and Furious stuff after they became superheroes in cars. But it’s also about on par with what they’ve been putting out. So, if you enjoyed Fast Five, Furious Six, Something Seven, then Fate of the Furious will be great for you. And me.

This is trailer information, but it is spoilers for the movie. This time around, the team is fighting Dominic! For reasons that will be revealed during the movie, Dom is now working for the bad guy. And boy, do they make for some great action and character scenes. The movies always talk a lot about family, and this one is no different. So why is Dom going against his family?

The movie is full of all new over-the-top car sequences. And I’m sure they still have much more crazy ideas for the next one. Ramsey is still here, and I think she’s a fun addition to the crew. She is a non-combatant, non-driver, but still gets a lot of great scenes. The other characters are all still doing their thing, getting a few scenes now and again.

The villain is decently threatening while not being a direct physical threat. This time, it’s Cipher, the best hacker in the world. Like some of the previous movies, Cipher is the boss without being the strongest around. She’s the boss by being smarter and planning better, and I find her quite effective.

Maybe moving into some spoiler territory here. But joining the team this time is Deckard! The villain of the previous film. He’s more fun being sort of a grumpy ally. This movie knows it’s goofy and plays it up, especially with the scenes between Deckard and Hobbs.

Fate of the Furious is a cool ride on crazy cars. You already know the characters. Now they’re trying to ramp up the villains and give more wild stunts. Still not boring, yet. Waiting for The Fast and the Furious Nine, or their own version of that name.