My Hero Academia: Two Heroes (Film Review)

My Hero Academia.  The Japanese superhero manga created by Kōhei Horikoshi.  This isn’t the first time I’ve talked about My Hero Academia on my blog.  I referred to it in my The Last Jedi review, comparing the two favorably in their villains’s development.  Yet here I get to make a direct post about the series, or more accurately, about its first feature-length film My Hero Academia: Two Heroes.

The Nun (Film Review)

One of the stark differences between the main Conjuring films and its spin-off titles (which, up until now, were solely Annabelle stories) is their approach towards the demonic and supernatural.  

5 Reasons to Love the 90s Video Game Film Adaptations

The 1990s was the first decade to bring video games to the big screen, and it failed spectacularly.

Now hold up!  I thought this is about the reasons why I should love the 90s video game films?

Patience, I’m getting there.

There were a total of six video game film adaptations released theatrically throughout May of 1993 to March of 1999: Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and Wing Commander.  Not only were all six films panned by critics, but three of the six ended up being box office bombs.  Fan reactions to the films were polarizing, to say the least.  Mortal Kombat received praise for keeping close to its series storyline and action yet received flak for watering down the iconic gory fatalities.  On the other hand, Super Mario Bros. was near-universally bashed for forgoing its series roots for an entirely different, bizarre experience that bears little resemblance to its source material.

Some shared faults between the films’s creations were uncertainty and half-assed efforts.  Directors were unsure of what they were making and/or who their target audience was, and actors were even more confused about what they had gotten themselves into.  Half the films were cheap cash-ins on the rising video game craze, while the other half were lazy attempts at fanservice.  Even getting the series creator of Wing Commander to direct its film adaptation ended up being a horrible decision—resulting in a generic mess of space clichés, fresh to video games yet old and worn to the cinema.

Wing Commander, however, is the black sheep of the 90s video game adaptations.  The film is everything the other 90s video game adaptations aren’t—a generic, bland trope-fest that’s competently made.  Yeah, Wing Commander is actually a decently-structured story, and here, that’s a bad thing.  For what the other five 90s adaptations share in common are how bizarrely their stories are put together, and how fascinating the results end up.  Yet that’s not all these five features share in common.  They’re comical—whether intentional or not—they each have an actor who gave way more than needed, their villains are memorable, and they are all endearingly cheesy.  No, not all of them are well-made films (some I give a thumbs down to), but flaws withstanding, there are reasons to appreciate and yes, love these five misshapen, misguided attempts at adapting video games into films.

Searching (Film Review)

Searching utilizes a variant of the found footage subgenre popularized by the 2014 film Unfriended.  The film is told entirely from the viewpoint of computer screens, smartphones, news footage, and hidden cameras.  The filming style is used to tell the story of a father searching for his missing daughter with the help of his APPLE MAC computer.  With the APPLE MAC’s NORTON ANTIVIRUS protection active, the father looks for clues to his daughter’s whereabouts using GOOGLE MAPS, FACEBOOK, TUMBLR, YOUTUBE, VENMO, and REDDIT among other websites and services.

Searching’s barebones concept sounds like an internet marketer’s wet dream.  What better way to advertise then have your various product placements be the solution for a father trying to find and/or save his daughter’s life?  Show off your products under the guise of storytelling—oh, what a devilish plan!  There’s no shame in taking one look at Searching’s trailers and believing the film to be a gimmicky advertising scheme.

And you’d be right, but also oh, so very wrong.

Alpha (Film Review)

If you’ve seen the trailers for Alpha, then you know exactly what to expect from the film.