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Kate & Leopold Review

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It’s time for one of those romance films where you’re really hoping that the romance will be good but have serious doubts the whole time. Unfortunately your gut would be correct on this one because the romance is very weak. At least we have some time travel shenanigans to help with that. It keeps the film interesting but otherwise I don’t think this is an all timer or anything like that. Instead it all goes a bit too quickly and the ending doesn’t seem particularly happy.

The movie starts out by introducing us to Leopold who has a rather restrictive life. He is being pressured into marrying somebody for money since his royal line isn’t doing very well at the moment. He’s been resisting but can no longer fight against the social pressures. Before this can happen, he sees his future ancestor taking photos so he chases the guy and falls into a portal which leads to the modern day. The other guy (Stuart) gets injured and had to stay at the hospital so Leopold has to try and survive a few days in the modern world before he goes back. He bumps into Stuart’s ex girlfriend Kate though and quickly begins to like her. He will have to compete with an inappropriate boss of hers though as well as the big cultural divide that comes with the passing of time. Can he really get used to the present?

So why is the romance weak? To start with, it’s all a bit too fast. Initially Kate finds Leopold annoying and then she quickly begins to see his charm and all that. He saves her from a petty thief and also calls out her boss. The whole thing made Kate look rather naive though as she was warned not to eat dinner with the boss since he would obviously try something and of course that was the case. Now of course he is the worst character here and by a large margin but you would expect Kate to have more street smarts. Instead she fumbles her way through life, gets drunk, and doesn’t really seem to react to situations very quickly.

She makes snap decisions and those are usually not a good idea. Like her decision in the ending which seems like a terrible one because there may be no take backs. You have to assume that the future home crew will pay her a visit a some point because that’s the only way to make this feasible. Otherwise I think she will realize a little too late just how unsophisticated

Also, we have to consider the fact that Leopold was going to marry someone in the past. Yes, he was pressured to do so but that is a very small comfort to me. It means that this can happen again with people pressuring him not to marry an ordinary person. He needed to have a whole lot more agency here. I would also say it’s probably not a good idea to date your ancestor’s ex girlfriend in general but since the relatives don’t really know each other I suppose I can cut a little slack there. It still doesn’t make the romance any better with none of them seeming like serious characters.

Also, while Kate should leave the company because she can never trust that boss again, leaving right as she got the promotion is pretty crazy. I definitely can’t say that I agreed with that option at all. Especially not for a past life where she’s now going to be super broke. Hopefully Stuart finds another way to go back to the past and reads when the next portal will be around. He was surprisingly chill about helping his ex meet a new guy but I guess he put that whole relationship behind him. In a way that’s pretty healthy.

Then we have the side character Charlie who wants to be a good comedian. He seems to have decent skills and perhaps just tries a little too hard. He can be a bit annoying at times but at least he had Leopold’s back from the start. So I’ll give him points for being a solid character even if he was mainly around to slow the plot a bit. Additionally he bombed so hard at the club I don’t know how he managed to salvage things the second time around and get a girlfriend with Leopold’s help. I suppose alls well that ends well.

The way the time travel works here is pretty fun as the past seems to basically be happening at the same time. So it’s more like one of those things where everything is moving forward to you’re quickly sotted into the moment that you want to go as opposed to it making a whole new universe. The film isn’t focusing on the time travel too hard but still something that’s good to notice. To me that’s where the hook is that separates this from a random film.

Leopold could be a little slow at picking up on things here but it’s not played up too much like other films would. So he can come off as a bit dense but for the most part is just trying to do his best. He has some morals too like how he wouldn’t continue to advertise a product that was no good. The other characters including Kate seemed to think that this was a good gig either way but Leopold wanted to only do things that would leave the world proud of him. In a way it shows how society had already started to fall from his time to the present. Then again, he’s the one getting married because he can’t defy social expectations back in his day so he can’t talk much. Yeah I keep bringing that one up because it is a massive blow to the film the entire time.

Overall, This is a reasonable film. I think the boss got off way too easily but on the whole this is more of an uplifting movie. It’s a very light toned comedy film with some romance and every character running around. The cast isn’t particularly big so that lets the individual dynamics play out. I tend to always choose a good rom-com over a rom-dram and this is why. Even when it’s not the best film, it still ends up being a fun watch. The pacing is good and there is a reasonable amount of replay value. You really just have to overlook the poor romance.

Overall 5/10

Logan Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Wolverine’s had a checkered history with his films. Most people didn’t care for the first one or even the second all that much. This was the one that finally made the books as a definitive title for the character. At least for most people because after seeing this one I can confirm that it is the weakest film in the X-Men franchise. Yes, weaker than X-Men origins. It’s a very depressing look at how the Marvel Universe could have turned out for the mutants and Wolverine never really got to have his happy ending.

The movie starts up in the future where Wolverine is even more of a drunk than usual and doesn’t have any qualms about using his claws on people now. He’s just sick of everything turning out so badly so he’s been saving up money for a while now. He’ll take Professor Xavier away and they’ll both basically die. Wolverine even got himself some adamantium bullets to finish the job. Before any of this can happen, a lady appears asking for his help. Wolverine definitely says no since his adventuring days are over but she is murdered and her daughter Laura ends up hitching a ride.

Professor Xavier insists on their helping her so Wolverine is stuck now. He’ll have to try and get her to her final destination which is supposed to be a safe haven from the mutant hunters. This won’t be easy though as something is up with Wolverine’s abilities and his healing regeneration has been greatly reduced. Meanwhile Xavier has a lot of seizures now and can barely use his abilities either. Time is not on their side so the race is on.

I definitely have a lot of issues with the film, mostly just around how depressing it all is so lets go with the positives first. The fight scenes are very solid. I think that characters with a strong regeneration ability should be used to fighting a little recklessly because any trade is actually in their favor. So they can be good with either landing hits on their own, or dealing out equal damage. It makes sense so I’m cool with that and Wolverine does get in some good combos once he gets going.

I do think he feels very nerfed but at least there is a story reason for it. Otherwise I would expect Wolverine to look much better in this film. Another positive is that Laura’s character was handled very well. She has grown up with a rather lousy life at this point and so she is doing her best to move on forward. She doesn’t dwell on the past all that much and only talks when necessary. She really just wants to complete her mission and get to safety to put this life of violence behind her. When she does fight Laura is calculated and ruthless in destroying her opponents.

She’s not some kind of super hero so she doesn’t have to worry about the mercy rule. Laura’s life has always been in a do or die scenario so if she doesn’t strike quickly then she knows that it could all be over. I thought she was definitely the highlight here and in general I always liked her character. It would be a lot of fun to see her more in some future movies.

Okay now lets talk about some of the iffy stuff. First we have to talk about Wolverine. I’m cool with a main character being reluctant to help and not wanting to get back into the hero game. So when he turns the lady down the first few times you can understand. There is no obvious threat at the moment and there are presumably others who can help. Once she asks him for help again by flagging his car (Wolverine runs an Uber type operation) and it’s obvious that she is in critical danger, he shouldn’t have left her again.

Bring her and Laura with him in the car. Abandoning her was just an awful look and I can see why Laura was so upset. Logan tries abandoning Laura several times as well later on in the film. He also puts Caliban in a rather bad spot by having him drive off with the villain. This version of Logan has absolutely 0 qualms about killing so just stab the guy a few more times to make sure that he doesn’t get up,. I’ll give him less grief about this though since he thought that the guy was dead.

Logan is just way too depressed here though to the point where he acts like a villain. It’s almost like Bruce Wayne nearly murdering Terry McGuiness back in the first episode of Batman Beyond by turning off the suit. There’s a line that you cross when you go too far into being a thorn in the way of justice. That’s just how Logan is here and it takes an extremely long time until he finally gets ready for action.

Then you throw in the fact that he’s a lot weaker here and it’s annoying to see him lose just about every fight that he’s in. Common thugs are beating him up left and right, never mind the X-24 clone who really lays him out. Even if Wolverine’s not a nice guy anymore, you hope to see him getting some wins but until his rage mode near the end he is getting thrown around a whole lot. It’s not cool and it definitely doesn’t help him as a character. I just didn’t like Logan here, his days of being the Wolverine were definitely long gone.

I can’t say that I liked how Xavier was portrayed either. The guy is half crazy and can’t even control his own abilities with the seizures now. I have a super hard time believing that this could happen to a telepath, particularly one of Xavier’s ability. The twist of how this affected the X-Men was also awful. It’s certainly a convenient way to make sure that nobody else shows up but it’s not satisfying at all. To think that this is how it would all end after so many battles and fights to achieve peace between humans and mutants.

This ending is certainly not what anyone would have hoped for. I’d have much preferred Xavier to go out in a blaze of glory or something like that. In the end, the world went from being fantastical to quite normal since the world seems like any everyday place now. At least Caliban seemed like a reasonable guy right from the start for the heroes. He was probably the only one who seemed like a nice guy with no drawbacks so of course things get really rough for him here.

As for the villains, Pierce is the main one and he’s okay I guess. There’s just not a lot to him and you could think of the guy as an average thug only he’s got some tech so he can fight a little bit. I think with a bit more screen time he could have been better as the charismatic kind of villain but the film was not able to pull that off. Dr. Zandar is your average twisted scientist villain who just likes to be as evil and cruel as possible so there’s not much to him either. Not a quality villain.

The only one who seemed solid was X-24. At first I actually thought he was Sabretooth who somehow managed to return to the main lines once more but the twist worked out rather well. I like the idea of this guy being as savage as Wolverine was in his prime so the dilemma is in how to take this guy out. He really is quite strong and made for an impressive threat. Whenever he was on screen you knew that things were going to get really tough for the heroes.

As you’d probably expect, this film gets very violent. You really have the claws in full force by both the heroes and villains with the usual human experimentation going on as well. It’s trying really hard to be the most violent of the X-Men films to live up to the Wolverine rep and it earns this but at the detriment of the film. You don’t need all of this excessive violence and it takes away from the action scenes. The movie definitely should have toned things down and it would have helped out.

At least the ending of the film is solid enough. I didn’t have any issues with it and it seemed like a classic way to end things. I absolutely would have preferred a happier ending with more room for big sequels and all that but it still wasn’t bad. It’s not a grim dark ending either, just more of a bitter sweet one so the heroes couldn’t win on all fronts and had to settle for a few.

At the end of the day, part of the problem with this film is that it’s going more for an apocalyptic future vibe rather than being a full blown comic book movie. You don’t have too many big battles with lots of super abilities and flashy CGI. Instead you usually have very dreary backgrounds with the characters fighting very ordinary humans aside from X-24. The fact that the humans do well is sad in itself. At least by the end you have them taking the Ls as the heroes finally get ready for combat.

Overall, Logan’s not a good movie. It really wrecks Logan’s character quite thoroughly and I would say that Xavier was really mishandled as well. Laura was a shining point in the movie at least. You’re better off watching Dark Phoenix as the true end point to the X-Men series as that one soared above expectations and did deliver with a lot of fun fights and cool plots going on. If Wolverine does get another film, I’d like them to just put him in a fun setting and let us see Wolverine the superhero as opposed to Logan, the jaded old timer.

Overall 4/10

Van Helsing Review

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It’s time for a vampire film review! After Twilight, I know that it can be a little hard to take vampire films seriously anymore. To my defense, I have always been against them. They just don’t make for very interesting characters. Luckily, we also get Dr. Hyde, Frankenstein’s Monster, and a vampire hunter. Adding in all of these fighters should help to make things better….I hope!

The plot revolves around the hunter known as Van Helsing. He’s notorious around many regions of the world and everyone has heard of him. He has quite the reputation after all. He finishes off a few monsters and his boss sends him to go meet Anna. He has to keep her alive to foil Dracula’s plans. Unfortunately, her brother has already been taken down so Dracula’s plan is almost complete. Will the heroes be able to put aside their differences and defeat him? It’s a longshot, but it may be possible!

Well, this is essentially how I pictured a film with Dracula as the main villain. I’m sure that Dracula may become a cool character someday, but I’m just not buying it. I really didn’t like him here and disliking the main villain can definitely hurt in the long run. Before we really discuss the film, let’s look at the cast involved.

Van Helsing is our lead and he’s basically the Jonah Hex of the group. He’s the confident professional who always gets his man and he doesn’t back down from a fight. That’s pretty noble is it not? Well, I’d argue that he’s all talk. His first fight scene against Mr. Hyde is supposed to show us just how hardcore he is. It only serves to prove the opposite as Van Helsing continues to brag despite being outmatched. He should have been destroyed several times during the fight and he only makes it out thanks to Hyde’s overconfidence.

After that, he gets beaten up on by Dracula’s two henchwomen before getting knocked around by Dracula himself. Van Helsing may not be human, but he may as well be for all the good that it does him. He’s just completely outmatched and that makes it tough for him to pose a threat to anyone. His personality is really generic in the end and there’s nothing to separate him from the other main leads of a hollywood film.

Anna is certainly not the next Black Widow. She takes pride in her overall ability, but it’s simply not enough in this film. Perhaps she could give the average human a run for their money, but she definitely wasn’t prepared for Dracula and his cronies. Due to her family history, you would expect her to have a little more experience. Unfortunately for for her, Anna gets thrown around for the entire film. Van Helsing even takes her out with his handy dandy sleeping gas. Anna continues to talk tough until the very end, but it’s very hard to take seriously.

How can anyone really take a fighter seriously when they talk tough and get defeated the next moment? I believe that it’s supposed to be inspirational to see the hero mocking the villains even while being kicked around, but I can’t say that it’s very good character development. Anna essentially serves as a parody to the tough female lead that we are used to seeing nowadays. She never really had an edge in any of her fights and it definitely wasn’t a fun showing for her. Perhaps things will turn around if this film got a sequel..too bad it won’t get one at this rate. At least she beats most of the other characters in the film…it just isn’t saying much.

Dracula is the big bad. He’s the head honcho and the ultimate evil in the film! His design is a little off putting since Dracula’s hairstyle is usually a little more subdued. Nontheless, it’s always good to have a powerful villain. Unfortunately, Dracula loves to squander his power as he holds it all back until it’s too late. He spends a lot of time talking to his minions and showing us why he’s such a terrible villain. It’s impossible to root for him while he’s so preoccupied in doing things that don’t really help his plan. His minions are constantly distracting him.

Dracula is also supposed to be immensely powerful, but we don’t really see a lot of this. His two guards seem to be a lot stronger than him. They could move at super speed! Dracula didn’t really show a lot of that, but he does have a good amount of regeneration at the ready. If it could have worked more towards the ending, things would have gotten pretty interesting. This is one of those times where power isn’t enough. Dracula is powerful, but he’s still not a great villain. He simply doesn’t have what it takes and that’s the way that I see it. Dracula’s brides were no better. They were mostly there to be really dramatic and help Dracula in his inevitable downfall. They didn’t have much of a role as characters.

Carl is Van Helsing’s assistant and he’s here to keep things light. It’s sad when characters are really just in a story for comic relief. Carl should at least try to be helpful and get some big moments. Technically, fans could argue that he had a crucial role at the end, but I can’t say that I buy it. They were really generic moments meant to make us like Carl a little more. No! Carl is the type of sidekick that I just can’t root for. Give him a few years to learn how to fight and improve his tech…then we’ll talk. As it stands, Carl was definitely expendable.

Frankenstein’s Monster disappears for most of the film, but he finally comes back towards the end. He’s played off pretty accurately from the book. He’s a misunderstood hero and everyone wants to destroy him as per usual. It’s definitely not fun to be a monster. His design was definitely hard to look at and while he could fight..he was pretty slow. Making him so traditional may not have been a great move. At least he helped to add to the monster count, but he was mostly unnecessary.

Igor is one of the more minor villains in the film. He defected to the side of the villains so that he could fulfill his evil ambitions….or not. I wish that it had been for such a deep reason. Regardless, Igor just isn’t a good villain. He’s very weak and he doesn’t stand a chance against any real character. He likes to hit people when they’re down, but he’s no match for a real opponent. Igor typically isn’t a likable character in the films and this one is no exception.

Velkan is a supporting character at best. He does get a decent number of scenes though and he may be stronger than we thought. There’s a plot twist that keeps him relevant for a while. Needless to say, he lacked strength of character and I can’t say that he was very impressive at the beginning of the film. Everyone looked bad though, but the overall plan was terrible. His reaction times weren’t great either and it’s a lose-lose situation. If only he had been stronger!

It should be noted that some scenes will stretch your limits for disbelief. The “plot hax” in this film isn’t concealed very well. Anna is thrown through a window and she bangs a lot of wood beams and the wall as she went crashing down. It was a pretty big blast that a human likely wouldn’t survive. Likewise, Dracula’s brides kept slapping her around while throwing Van Helsing into walls. Both of them should have been out of commission considering how powerful they were.

The biggest moment where you may have to facepalm is the final fight between Dracula and a powerful creature. By all accounts, Dracula should have crushed his opponent. The film didn’t show us anything to suggest otherwise so I don’t see why it was such a close fight. In fact, Dracula is on the defensive the entire time and he seems very worried. He should at least try to act tough on the outside since that’s what all of the heroes do anyway. This film just made the mistake of making the villains too powerful. When that happens, the heroes always have to win in really fake ways like what we saw here.

The fight scenes ranged from pretty good to decent. The final fight with Dracula is pretty fun to watch since it’s essentially a monster bout. It was also good to see Dracula’s brides take on the village. Their super speed feats were pretty impressive and they should have destroyed everyone without any real effort. The plot wouldn’t allow it, but that’s how powerful they were. Other battles were less interesting like Van Helsing versus Hyde. It was way too one sided and the fight was pretty boring.

The soundtrack was mostly absent from the film. Luckily, there is still a really good theme that plays during the ending and at one point near the beginning. It’s very operatic and that’s the kind of theme that can make a scene become a lot cooler. It would have been cool if it had played more, but it’s enough to grant the soundtrack a passing score.

Finally, the film did have some unnecessary romance. It’s squeezed in at the last second for the heroes so you can tell that they just wanted to throw it in. Dracula and his brides also have some wince worthy scenes that are pretty sad. Sure, it could be worse, but this certainly didn’t help the film win any points.

Overall, This film lived up to my hopes for a Dracula film. I’ll never like Vampires at this rate and there will likely only be a few exceptions by the end. (Strauss is epic) There was a moment where some animal violence concerned me, but the animal lived, which was great. Still sad to see it get hit, but at least it managed to tank the blast. The film mostly suffered from the fact that it dragged on for too long and it wasn’t terribly interesting. Cutting out Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster would have helped it a lot. Or, make Dracula a compelling character as he punches people out instead of biting them. That could have been a nice twist. This film felt like I Frankenstein, but the normalized version that can be more acceptable to the crowds. Unfortunately, the crowds didn’t include me this time. If you like Vampire movies, then you should like this one. Otherwise, I’d advise you to steer clear of it. Watch I Frankenstein if you want a film with lots of magical creatures going at it. Perhaps I was a little harsh on the film since it could have made more mistakes, but it definitely made enough of them. A cooler cast with better action scenes could have potentially bumped this up to a 6 if handled right. Maybe next time.

Overall 4/10