Review: Dune – Part 2

As it was with past franchises, a second part of a narrative always feels a little… awkward. But Dune: Part 2 delivers the same quality and mystique as the first part. Following the events of Dune (2021) Paul Atreides finds himself among the Fremen, the natives of the planet Arrakis, hiding out from the Harkonnens,…

Review: Avatar – Way of Water (3D)

The film is absolutely gorgeous. But it caused a lot of head-scratching. Following the events of 2009’s Avatar, we see Jake Sully’s avatar at peace with his family; two sons, a daughter, an adopted daughter, and an adopted human son, as well as Neytiri. But when the humans return to Pandora, he sees that they…

Review: Black Panther – Wakanda Forever

Marvel could have had a real moment here… but the film is found lacking. King T’Challa is dead. Wakanda is left vulnerable to attack from foreign nations vying for acquisition of vibranium, the country’s rare metallic resource. But there is another nation, beneath the waves, that also enters this power vacuum. Losing someone is never…

Review: Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness

Poor Sam Raimi… It feels like he was left holding the bag… Doctor Stephen Strange finds himself defending a mysterious young woman whose powers allow her to move through the multiverse at will. But others are looking to take her powers from her… When Marvel Studios announced the first schedule for the MCU’s “Phase 4”,…

Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

After a pretty successful first outing, the sequel has some of the hero’s… overconfidence. Doctor Ivo Robotnik has returned from being marooned on an alien world, hellbent on destroying the blue hedgehog hero that put him there. But he isn’t alone; a new adversary joins him, while Sonic himself gains a new ally. This is…

Review: Mass Effect – Legendary Edition

As a huge, huge fan of the video game series Mass Effect, produced by Bioware, I feel it necessary to go in depth with my thoughts on the games and their recent “remastering”. The trilogy went through a lot, and changed a great deal between games, and today there is still division between fans as…

Video Games of 2021

It is this time of year again! 2021 wasn’t quite the bright new dawn expected after 2020, with the persistent danger of Covid-19 variant “Omicron” this winter. So while I might have caught a couple more films this year in the cinema, I’ve been reluctant to see as many as I originally planned to. With…

Banter: Star Wars – Ranked

Since “Skywalker Saga” has officially ended, and the franchise-to-end-all-franchises has met a sort of impasse, it seems right to rank the current theatrical released films. That is to say, we won’t be including the animated Clone Wars movie, or the two Ewok movies from the 1980s. Personal feelings definitely enter into construction of this list,…

Review: Frozen II

A film that has everyone’s attention looks to have cold feet when delivering substance… With Elsa established as Queen of Arendelle, everything seems well for our protagonists. But when Elsa starts to hear a voice in her head, calling to her, she risks everyone’s safety to discover an enchanted forest of legend. What truth will…

Review: The Lego Movie 2

Everything is average, everything is lame when it feels unnecessary. Following from the closing moments of the first film, the constructed heroes do battle against the cutesy forces from the Sis-star System, and only grisly determination can overcome the cuteness. Warning: this review contains overblown praise for the first Lego Movie. This film is a…