Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3

 Pretty good overall- give it an 8/10. First half is fairly dull and it feels like a bad movie, actually wanted to leave the theater early on. Gets significantly better in second half with the final act (last hour) being really excellent and having a lot of great moments. It wraps up the guardians arc super well without closing the series off for more adventures if need be. 

Spoilers below:

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Rocket is essentially the core of the movie as he is out and needs saving. His flashbacks are actually really good and there's some dark + very sad material in there that's done well and typically the MCU is more lighthearted. His final scenes and also redemption like material are fantastic. 

The villains are really mediocre/forgettable. Not terrible but Adam Warlock is really underused and not in it much. His mom is annoying and has zero impact. The real villain is fine but not especially fleshed out or intimidating. 

Most of the characters are pretty good and have their moments. Mantis and Drax are both called out as being useless by Nebula and then it's cool to see Drax actually knows a language they don't and Mantis calms down the beasts at the end. Star Lord is pretty good and has good moments. Wasn't a big fan of Gamora. 

Thoughts on Fast X

 Really mediocre movie- 5/10. Wasn't expecting it to be great, but definitely fell short of the recent movies at least having great action sequences. For the most part, everything was just okay- it was never terrible or unwatchable, but there were few good moments either. 

The good:

-Dom/Vin Diesel is better than usual. He's still a bland character, but it feels like there's less stupid Dom stuff than usual (like him jumping into the water for no reason in F9)

-Similar John Cena/Jacob is way better. Went for a somewhat comedic approach which was a much better fit for a John Cena actor. His scenes aren't great, but they're not bad either, and at least he's not Dom. His last scene in the movie seems really pointless.

-Han and Deckard are some of the better characters in the franchise and their action sequence was on the better of the one. Unfortunately Jason Statham was not in the movie much at all. 

-The post credits scene is a good and at least confirms that a character that has been missed is returning. 

The okay/whatever:

Many of the characters: letty, cipher, tess, little nobody. None are bad, but none are particular good either. 

The bad: 

-lack of exciting action. All the other issues are expected, but for a fast movie this far in to have so few action spectacles is disappointing. F9 clearly has a ton of issues but it was one of my favorites in the franchise because the action sequences were great. The same can't be said here of the boring, less big/explosive sequences or the final action sequences where the CGI is awful and the picture is so stupid looking it's bad. 

-the tej/roman/ramsey combo who I thought was pretty funny and had enjoyable banter throughout F9 has horrendous dialogue here and are easily some of the worst characters. 

-Dante. Jason Momoa should be a good addition, but his villain is absolutely terrible. So poorly written with the character supposedly motivated by revenge but acting like an absolute child at all times seemingly just there for fun and never actually hurting Dom or his friends. So many times where he could have been taken down and then randomly gets away because of ridiculous plot situations. 

Series rankings:

1. Furious 7

2. F9

3. Fast Five

4. Fast and Furious 6

5. Hobbs and Shaw

6. Fate of the Furious

7. The Fast and the Furious

8. Fast X

9. 2 Fast 2 Furious

10. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

11. Fast and Furious

Narcos: Mexico

 Just finished. Better than expected for sure- very solid overall with some great moments/episodes. Overall, not quite as good as the original Narcos but absolutely worth watching.

Season 1- 8.5/10. Starts a bit slow but intense storyline towards the end. Felix is actually likeable for most and interesting seeing him build his empire. Last few episodes thrilling.

Season 2- 9/10. Great season- lot of good and exciting storylines. Felix becomes an absolute scumbag which is pretty entertaining. The walt storyline is pretty good.

Season 3- 6.5. Still semi entertaining but the loss of Diego Luna hits hard. Highlight is definitely the battle between Sinaloa and Tijuana. Missed opportunity with Amado, not much going on with him. Walt suddenly is terrible for some reason. Awful subplot with the reporting. Great subplot with the cop stuff.

Characters

Great- Felix, Victor, Don Neto

Good- Amado, Benjamin, Chapo, Hector Palma, Kiki

Okay- Ramon, Jamie, Rafa

Bad- Enendina, Azul

Terrible- Andrea

Thoughts on "You" (TV Series)

 S1- 6/10. Entertaining but awful characters.

S2- 9/10. Pretty great. Peak characters, fun twisty storyline.

S3- 6/10. Good characters, but plot gets really dull in middle. Some unsatisfying directions the show goes.

Overall Season 2 was great TV but the other two were heavily flawed. Highlight is definitely Penn Badgely as Joe. 

Character rankings:

Best- Joe

Good- Love (great S2, weak S3), Cary, Sherry, Marrienne, Ellie, Delilah, Forty

Okay- Matthew, Will

Bad- Beck, Theo

Awful- Peach, Candace

Thoughts on Uncharted

Just okay overall. Pretty generic action blockbuster film, entertaining throughout but very little innovation and a lot of weak spots. 5.5/10, worth watching but not a much and definitely got butchered a bit.

Pros:

-Tom Holland is surprisingly pretty good and by far the best performance/character. It's not quite authentic Nathan Drake but works as a young adventurer vibe. Really zero flaws in his character/performance except some goofy comedy bits/one-liners

-It's entertaining throughout, not really a boring moment. This doesn't mean its great but overall moves at a decent pace and isn't a movie one would regret watching.

-The ships/cove reveal is well done and a nice callback to Uncharted 4.

-The after credits scenes are surprisingly pretty good, wish the movie had been more like this.

-There is one pretty cool cameo.

Cons:

-Besides Holland/Drake, the performances and characters are largely awful. Generic forgettable henchman that borderline on cringe (the scottish jokes did not hit at all), Chloe Frazer was horrible and a butchering of her character, the black girl was one of the worst characters of the last few years. Mark Wahlberg/Sully isn't quite as bad but is generally dull and Wahlberg is clearly miscast.

-The twist. Props to them for trying that in a relatively safe blockbuster (it was not expected) but Banderas was probably the second best performance in the movie so changing that dynamic with a much, much weaker character did not pan out. Also very little time was actually spent on any shocking/brutal nature of the twist so it ends just not working at all.

-Many of the video game callbacks trying to showcase real Uncharted video game moments are pretty bad.

-Some of the visuals are rough. 3rd act is not good.

-Script issues. A lot of stupid dialogue and moronic character decisions. Made zero sense that the villains would go after them with the ship and helicopter intact given how risky that was and the likelihood of destroying the only things they came for. 

Thoughts on Recent Movies/Shows

 Everything since beginning July. Spoilers.

Thor: Love and Thunder- 7.5/10. Solid but disappointing. Christian Bale, Natalie Portman great and Chris Hemsworth another good turn as Thor but everyone else gets left behind. Thought Crowe as Zeus was cringe and the comedy there didn't hit at all. Just a mess of a movie that doesn't live up to Ragnarok at all, but still some cool, the best being the black and white scene where Gorr captures and tortures them. Also, it was really dumb how Jane becoming Thor wasn't really explained or shown at all.

Train to Busan- 8.5/10. Wow, great movie and much better than expected. Dull/boring first 15 minutes then non-stop exciting thrills, one of the best zombie films I've seen. Great thriller. A little ridiculous how much the COO villain character was able to pretty much kill everyone and the end was silly (the army is really just going to shoot potentially safe humans just because they can't tell if they're zombies down a dark tunnel?). Every Korean film I've seen has been pretty violent/disturbing and this was no exception (I Saw the Devil, Oldboy, Parasite).

West Side Story- 6.5/10. Pretty solid musical, might be higher if I enjoyed musicals more. Thought some of music hit really well, other ones I didn't love. Ariana DeBose was good but not sure why everyone thought that such an awesome performance rather than a good one, thought Rachel Zegler's was better. The super fast transition to everyone getting killed could have been done a lot- rushed and a lot of deaths where people grieving went from upset to nonchalant very quickly.

War Dogs- 6.5/10. Seen this several times now. Entertaining throughout, but just solid all around. 

Death on the Nile- 5.5/10. Pretty mediocre, but mostly entertaining at least. I guess Armie Hammer will never act again but he was pretty solid here. Not as bad as Murder on the Orient Express, but can't say the reveals were super satisfying here. It takes a long time to get to the action and most of it is underwhelming. Decent performances by Kenneth Branagh and Tom Bates, Russell Brand surprisingly not actually bad. Gal Gadot unsurprisingly very bad.

In the Heights- 5/10. Didn't love this one. I preferred the style of West Side Story where they'd have musical scenes and plot scenes, but here they'd just burst out singing at any time which I've never been a fan of. (Much prefer having a set number of musical pieces rather than just signing any time). I don't like singing their everyday casual lines- it doesn't sound good to me and comes off weird. Anyway, just didn't find this to be good or satisfying, I didn't like how he gave up on his dream of moving at the end when that was the whole plot of the movie.

Casino Royale- 9/10. Best bond movie, just can't beat it. So many fantastic action sequences and lines. 

The Gray Man- 4/10. Trash movie, disappointing coming from the Russo brothers who have struggled post-marvel. I thought the Prague crazy action scenes were solid, but generally a big waste- bad characters, bad plot and mostly really incoherent and shaky, blurry action made this one a disappointment. Chris Evans was decent, Ryan Gosling and Ana de Armas totally wasted on terrible and bland characters. The other villains were just awful and really cringe. 

Dirty Harry- 7.5/10. Classic thriller, short and not an unenjoyable movie. Clint Eastwood kills it. 

Lost City of Z- 7.5/10. Surprisingly good historical epic. There are slow bits but Charlie Hunnam is really good throughout, probably his best performance and really carries the movie. The points in the Jungle exploring are really fascinating and the historic setting is very well done.

Shows: Started the show "You". Not sure why, it's not high on my list compared to many other shows but it just seemed like something that would be really entertaining. So far, I'd say it's good but flawed on not great. Big issues- it's 75% romantic drama, 25% thriller. The thriller stuff is great but way too much time is devoted to cringe over the top drama that can be hard to watch. Another problem is that while Joe is great to watch the rest of the characters suck and anytime the spotlight is taken off Joe, it becomes a short to watch. The episode (E4) surrounding Beck and her Dad was just really tedious and unenjoyable. I just watched E6 and it was really uncomfortable to watch him sneaking around the house and eventually get caught due to his stupidity. Just frustrating to watch Joe, a smart character, be put in tough situations due to stupid decisions he absolutely would not make. Hated Peach, she was starting to ruin the show for me so I'm glad she's out. If the cringe romantic drama plots dominate so much of the show in S2, I'll probably switch to something else.

Rewatching Fate of the Furious and F9

Recently rewatched Fate of the Furious and F9 for the first time. I find I don't remember a movie well or gain complete clarity until I watch it a second time (some movies I think are great the first time around then the second time I'm able to see its shortcoming or vice versa). I thought both were not quite as good as I thought initially in theaters but still solid overall. Fate of the Furious makes great use of Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, but isn't a great cohesive experience and the story is so bad it's distracting. The story isn't anything to write home about in F9 and not having Statham and Johnson is a loss but I find it flows better as a cinematic experience and the action set pieces are awesome. 10 should hopefully be good following up on those action and adding Jason Momoa + the return of Statham. 

Overall: 

Fate of the Furious- 7/10. Fun action, set pieces, decent cast. Horrible plot/villain/use of Dom Toretto

F9- 8/10. Awesome action, backstory is surprisingly interesting. Lack of plot/main characters not compelling.

I've seen 7-9 a second time and Hobbs and Shaw a second time so I'll need to watch 1-6 to gain complete clarity/understanding. I doubt I'll ever watch 1-4 again though. Hobbs and Shaw is a lot of fun and probably my favorite tone with comedic action hints but the action isn't as good as the mainline series and the story and villain, even for Fast and Furious standards, is embarrassingly bad. 

Ranking of Series:

1. Furious 7- by far the best. Outstanding action and peak characters/story. A lot of really cool blockbuster moments. The closest the franchise has come to being a cool superhero/MCU like movie without being bogged with F&F nonsense. 

2. F9

3. Fast Five. I know people love this one, I'll need to rewatch. Possibly better than 9 but I really like the blockbuster feel of the new ones and this one feels more old school thriller. Certainly some great scenes though and not too many flaws.

4. Fast and Furious 6. Don't remember this movie at all, but I think it was solid all around without too many flaws.

5. Hobbs and Shaw

6. Fate of the Furious. I think I had this way higher but the plot and villain is just so awful, even with the low standards the franchise has. I'm not looking for a great story in these kinds of movies but I'm not expecting it to be distractingly bad either.

7. The Fast and the Furious. Solid but flawed overall

8. 2 Fast 2 Furious

9. Tokyo Drift. Apparently people like this one. Can't defend why I don't like it since I don't remember but I doubt I'd want to watch it again

10. Fast & Furious. Absolute trash

Favorite Characters

1. Brian O'Connor. I like Statham and Johnson much more but they always play the same characters and O'Connor certainly has much better character than probably anyone in the franchise without Paul Walker being a horrible actor like Vin Diesel.

2. Luke Hobbs. Can't beat Dwayne Johnson in action comedies. Just so fun to watch

3. Deckard Shaw. Love Jason Statham but prefer Johnson and Johnson has more movies