James' Review -Deadpool 2 (2018)

 

Happy holidays out there, folks. 

Remember Deadpool? Merc with A Mouth? Ryan Reynolds' top movie role? Sorta the Austin Powers of Marvel but R-rated? Who can forget him and his amazing first movie in 2016? Today, we're here to discuss his 2018 sequel, Deadpool 2. And, after that, no more Deadpool because I don't like Deadpool anymore. HA! KIDDING! There is no way I don't love Deadpool, you can't fall outta love with Marvel's most iconic folks. Anyways, so what is the story all about?

A while has passed since Wade "Deadpool" Wilson saved his fiancée Vanessa and killed Ajax aka Francis and the merc is killing bad guys. One night, he comes home to the girl of his dreams and plan to start a family, only for a criminal to come in and kill Vanessa despite Wade's efforts. Vanessa's death badly impacts Mr. Pool and he attempts to join her in the afterlife, but he can't die. After trying to blow himself up, Deadpool winds up at the X-Mansion when Colossus finds him. Long story short, Wade becomes an X-Man. An X-Man trainee, of course. One assignment sees him, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead go to an orphanage where Wade meets the abused pyro mutant boy Firefist aka Russel Colins. He starts killing the staff, but ends up incarcerated at a high-security prison... with Russel, after Colossus intervenes in Deadpool's attack.

Meanwhile, a cyborg from the future, Cable (played by Josh Brolin), arrives in the present day and eventually reaches the prison where Wade and Russel are at. And when Cable attacks, Wade steps forward to protect Russel from the cyborg and their battle leads to them blowing through the prison wall and Wade has another near-death experience. Following this, Wade begins putting together a "super-team" called the X-Force in another effort to stop Cable from killing Russel, who is soon being relocated from the prison that he and the merc with the mouth were in. However, the team falls apart pretty badly during their mission and, by fall apart, I mean they die nasty deaths while only Deadpool and Domino, whose superpower is luck, survive to intercept the transport and encounter Cable.

During Wade's battle with the cyborg, Russel opens a cell and unleashes Juggernaut, a super strong mutant, who derails and smashes the transport, tears our red-black antihero in half and heads off with the pyro kid. While Wade recovers at Blind Al's place, Cable shows up and reveals why he is after Russel. As it turns out, Russel will kill the headmaster of the orphanage he was at and find enjoyment in killing people, becoming a full-blown terrorist, and goes on to kill Cable's wife and child. A nice little twist on the story this movie is parodying from Terminator. Cable is deadset on killing Russel, but is humble enough to let Wade have some time to talk down the boy.

After regrowing his legs, Wade, Cable and crew head to the orphanage right as Russel and Juggernaut are starting their rampage, leading to an intense battle. Colossus and NegaSonic Teenage Warhead arrive with the latter's companion Yukio to help and Colossus battles Juggernaut, the latter of whom is defeated with an electric shock to the backside. 

In the meantime, Russel is about to kill the headmaster until Wade talks to him. However, Cable opens fire on the boy and the merc with the mouth slaps mutant power neutralizer collar on his neck before jumping in the line of fire, making a friggin sacrifice play. Wade dies and is reunited with Vanessa, however, Cable uses his time device and rewinds time to before the start of the battle, slips a coin into Wade's Deadpool suit pocket and said coin ends up saving our, uh, protagonist's life. So Deadpool lives to kill bad guys and get into crazy stuff another day. The headmaster gets killed when he's run over by Dolpinder in his taxi, all is well, and then Wade fixes Cable's time device before going back in time to save Vanessa and one of the X-Force members named Peter Wisdom amongst other things as the movie ends.

While the first Deadpool was intense and action-packed with comedic beats, the second is more action-packed and intense while continuing to carry some comedic moments throughout. And coming out at a time when Logan had released a year prior, Deadpool 2 spoils the ending of the movie at the start with Wade commenting about how Wolverine got an R-rated movie and upped the ante by dying and this is while the regenerate degenerate is trying to, uh, find a way to die and join his dead girlfriend. However, despite the somber moments from Vanessa's death to Cable's tragic backstory, Deadpool 2 is nothing short of fun and full of charm for older Marvel fans and Ryan Reynolds' acting hits the right beats, even when some jokes fall flat. The first film made pops laugh 5 to, maybe, 6 times, this one got around 14 laughs from him. Sometimes, a sequel is better than the original. I hold this film in great regard and suggest it to anyone looking for a good R-rated action flick or an action-packed comedy movie.

See ya later.

Deadpool will return... in 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

James' Review -Batman The Animated Series & The New Batman Adventures

 

He is vengeance. He is the night. He is Batman.

For decades across many comics, the caped crusader has fought injustice in Gotham and mesmerized many readers. However, his comic roots are not the only area where to find Batman. In the 1960s, a campy version of the Dark Knight, played by Adam West, graced the small screen alongside Burt Ward's Robin at a time when comic book adventures of superheroes in DC were more goofy after a big scare in the 1950s. In the 1980s, Batman returned to his darker roots and in 1989, the world saw Michael Keaton's Batman. After the success of Tim Burton's movie, a sequel dropped in the early 90s.

And it was in the 90s when a new Batman arose, starting a new era for DC on TV. But even though the DC Animated Universe wasn't fully established until crossover events came up and the Justice League aired, this was the beginning of Batman the Animated Series, starring the late Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Starting in early September of 1992 all the way to September of 1995 before returning in September of 1997 as The New Batman Adventures and ending in January of 1999 with a total of 109 episodes, BTAS, developed by Bruce Timm, followed Batman as he battled iconic enemies such as The Joker and the now-iconic Harley Quinn, Penguin, Riddler, Red Claw, Killer Croc and Two-Face. The show, despite being family-friendly, carried a dark tone with some lighter stories and tackled deep, mature themes and was a fantasy superhero noir story. However, episodes like the two part Heart Of Steel were sci-fi based and were pretty akin to The Terminator or Blade Runner. In fact, I consider Heart Of Steel one of my favorite BTAS stories. 

Kevin Conroy, cast as Batman/Bruce Wayne, provides the character with two different voices to make them sound distinct when they interact with different people. Bruce talks in a soft, kind voice while Batman speaks in a deep, almost menacing voice, especially when talking to people who know Bruce Wayne. Alongside Kevin, other members of the cast include Mark Hamil of Star Wars fame as The Joker, Bob Hastings as Comissioner Jim Gordon, Robert Costanzo as Detective Bullock, and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn. One episode features 1960s Batman actor Adam West as Simon Trent aka The Grey Ghost, the episode is called "Beware The Grey Ghost" and it's one of the best episodes ever.

My father and I spent a few years watching it and just recently finished seeing BTAS season three aka The New Batman Adventures with the episode "Mad Love", which adapts a comic story from a tie-in comic series, focusing on Harley Quinn and The Joker. Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures (which is technically seen as season three of the former) are impressive and incredibly well-animated by 1990s kids show standards and all three seasons are worth watching in their entirety. Full of action, thrilling stories full of plot and depth, Batman fans of future generations would enjoy seeing every moment of animated 90s Batman goodness. 9.9/10. 

RIP to Kevin Conroy, an incredible actor.

-James M

James' Review -Logan (2017)

 

For many decades, the team at Marvel Comics have created many iconic characters that have been viewed highly by fans in the pop culture community, from Spider-Man to Captain America to Iron Man. However, one character in the cast of the mutant team -The X-Men- has proven to be the most popular of all Marvel heroes; Wolverine aka Logan aka James Howlette aka Weapon X.

In the early 2000s, 20th Century Fox, with the rights to the X-Men characters, produced and released the first X-Men film, which starred Australian actor Hugh Jackman as Wolverine alongside Patrick Stewart as Professor X and James Marsden as Cyclops. Once again, out of all the heroes of the X-Men and other Marvel legends, Wolverine was popular and, in 2009, Fox released X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which focused on Logan. The film failed. A few years later in 2013, Fox released another Wolverine-focused movie directed by James Mangold and was somewhat more successful than its predecessor.

However, there was one issue when it came to Wolverine. The X-Men films were PG-13, geared towards a younger crowd, and the two Wolverine-focused movies received the same rating despite 2013's The Wolverine receiving an R-rated director's cut. In 2017, the game changed with today's topic, Logan. Set in the X-Men film universe (a version of it) and in the not-too-distant year of 2029, Logan follows Hugh Jackman's Wolverine on his final adventure as he fights to protect Dafnee Keen's Laura/X-23 from dark forces in a dystopian future where the X-Men are no more and mutants are near extinction. And unlike prior films, Logan was R-rated, allowing the Wolverine to be unleashed.

Loosely based on the comic "Old Man Logan" and influenced by old western movies, Logan is a deep, dark and somber action movie that doesn't hold back on the action and the moving plot. Patrick Stewart returns as a dying Professor X and Hugh Jackman plays both Logan and his clone X-24, who kills Charles midway through the movie and is the final enemy for Wolverine. Initially, this film was intended to be the end of Hugh Jackman's time as Wolverine in the X-Men films, but plans changed once Deadpool & Wolverine was in production and Hugh returned to play an alternate version of the character. The end of the movie is a gut punch as Wolverine dies after a grueling and brutal battle with his clone and he shares a touching moment with Laura, who is his daughter.

Prior to the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, I was planning on watching this film as perhaps one of the only R-rated comic book adaptations and, before seeing the aforementioned DP&W, I saw this with my dad a few months after we saw Deadpool 2 (which dropped a year after Logan) and it's available for viewing on Disney Plus. Despite the gritty tone and the extreme bloody violence depicted throughout, Logan was nothing short of fun to watch and the action scenes were pretty incredible. 

Next to Hugh, Dafne and Patrick, English actor Richard E. Grant shows up in the movie as the villain and it was thrilling to see him there, especially after I saw him in Loki season one, which dropped a few years after this film released. And watching this a few years before the year it takes place, it's pretty special. My score for Logan is 4.5 stars and I kinda want to see some of the wild west movies that influenced it, cowboys are always the best next to aliens. See ya around, folks.

-James M

2025 November Reading Wrap Up

Robin Hobb’s Assassins Apprentice #1 in the Farseer Trilogy (438) was excellent. Hobb’s writing is really good and flows. Her world building, empathy, and emotions are so well done, you’d think you were watching a movie. Looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy and explore more books in that world.  5 Stars

Andrew and Lee Child's In Too Deep, #29 in the  Jack Reacher series (224) was unfortunately a miss with me.  I’m sad to say Andrews’s writing isn’t up to par with his father, so I won’t be continuing the series from here. I’ll have to go back and read earlier novels in the series because I missed a bunch.  This always happens, same as with Tom Clancy and other writers who let others take over their series. They are subpar and I can tell the difference in the writing styles.  2 Stars

Fredrik Backman’s Britt Marie was Here (324) was a very moving story.  She’d  lived her life for some one else and lost herself in the process.  She’s socially awkward, a bit ocd, and maybe a little autistic (imho). She ends up in a small town, full of misfit, oddballs, juvenile delinquents, and more and finds her backbone as well as a found family. It’s sad and funny and the ending is a bit vague which leaves me wondering.  5 Stars

Hazel Prior’s  How the Penguins Saved Veronica (333) is a really sweet story about a 85 year old, bored and set in her ways, who goes to the Antarctic to save penguins and discovers herself. 4 stars

Julie Caplin’s The Northern Lights Lodge #4 Romantic Escapes (Ebook) (346) is a great escape, a bit of a mystery,  and a wonderful meet cute.  Lucy is hired to temporarily manage a failing lodge in Iceland and discovers someone is trying to sabotage the owners and close the place down.  4 stars  Liked it enough to explore more books in the series.

Julie Caplin’s The Little Cafe in Copenhagen #1 Romantic Escapes (Ebook) (415)  which is a great story in which the lead character, as well as her associates, all learn to find their voices and speak up for what they want and go after it, along with learning about hygge.  4 stars

Nora Roberts’s  The Seven Rings #3 Lost Brides Trilogy (454) was full of lively ghosts who make the story rich with color.  4 stars

Stats:

7 books in which three were new to me authors for a total of 2534 pages.