A Ghoul Versus Safe Haven (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

Erin- ah, it feels weird calling her that, let's go back to Katie- moves in with Alex as they settle down for their impromptu family life, Josh now onboard with Katie being in his life. Awww, touching! Boozy McAsshole rolls into town, stopping at Alex's store to buy some water where he asks Lexie if she's seen Katie. She says no, as she's instantly suspicious of the drunken piece of shit like anyone would be. Kevin leaves, and Lexie never thinks to mention any of this to her father. I mean, why would she? It's not like some scumbag asking about her mommy-to-be is worth bringing up, right?

We cut to the town's Fourth of July parade as Kevin loads up on vodka and brings his gun along as he continues his search, grabbing every blonde woman in sight. At this point, wouldn't SOMEONE call the cops? He's not exactly being inconspicuous here, especially in a tiny town where everyone knows everyone else. He finally finds Katie dancing with Alex and the kids, but doesn't act. We get a glimpse of Jo watching him, looking concerned. Out of all the people, Jo's the only one who notices this guy? What is Jo's deal anyway? Up til now, she's just been this really bland character who pops up to give Katie advice and then vanishes for large stretches of time.

A Ghoul Versus Safe Haven (Part 1)

"Who wants to watch a Nicholas Sparks movie about two pretty young white people overcoming the odds to fall in love while dealing with tragedies?  No, not the Notebook.  There's cancer in this one!  No, not A Walk To Remember.  No, not The Last Song.  No, not Dear John.  It's Safe Haven, okay?!  We're watching Safe Haven!"

I've been doing this movie review thing for around five months now, and I'm beginning to notice some trends among the awesome people who read by borderline incoherent ramblings. BY FAR my most popular reviews have been the ones of Young Adult Movies, but another review has surprisingly got me a good amount of feedback: Walk Of Shame.

That's rather out of place in my usual reviews about supernatural love triangles, video game movies, and films about CGI nonsense, so I thought I'd try it again. Today we're going to be taking a look at 2013's Safe Haven. Yes, Safe Haven, a NICHOLAS SPARKS movie.

Sadly I'm something of an expert on Sparks' movies. You see, back when I was still alive I used to actually go on dates so I've been subjected to almost all of them yet I find them FASCINATING. Almost all follow the exact same formula, because just like Michael Bay, Nicholas Sparks knows his audience to a capital boldfaced T.

A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

Meanwhile, Harry strolls right into Ravencroft because I guess being fired from Oscorp has no effect on his security clearance on any of the other buildings they control. To their credit one guard does try to stop him, but Harry just kicks his ass and knocks him out with his own taser. He sneaks into Max's cell, making a deal with him: he'll free him in exchange for Max getting him into Oscorp.

Security rushes into the room, starting to drag Harry away when Max transforms into pure electricity and kills all of them. He shifts back into his physical body, somehow also forming shorts and a small power meter on the side of his head. Don't... don't ask. Don't expect ANYTHING to make any sense in this movie anymore.  Exiting the subway, Peter receives a voice mail from Gwen that she got accepted to Oxford and is leaving for England right away. Harry and Max kill their way into Oscorp tower, Max now able to form an entire bodysuit out of electricity. I don't think Kurtzman and Orci know how electricity works, I'm just saying.

A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Part 1)

Previously on The Amazing Spider-Man...

One of the most underwhelming Spider-Man origin stories EVER was unleashed upon the world, as the entire film went through the motions of the story without really putting work into any of it. No, that's not quite accurate as they put a lot of work into making his origin as overly complex as possible. He wasn't just bitten by a radioactive spider, now it's a genetically engineered spider his dad helped create as part of a human/animal cross-genetics program and you know what, I don't even care. It was WEAKSAUCE.

It wasn't all bad though, as it at least had some very good acting and a very strong female lead that wasn't just some generic badass like we usually get in these kind of movies. Writer James Vanderbilt kept his past tendencies in check and delivered a pretty coherent tale outside of how Peter got his powers, which was a very nice breath of fresh air.

HOWEVER, in this day and age of bloated films was ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE to Fox. They let Vanderbilt write the sequel but his script must have been too simple so they brought in Hollywood's Golden Boys Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to rewrite it and make it up to par for today's Hollywood.  You remember them, don't you? With them behind the helm, this ought to be interesting.  And by interesting I mean painful.  Fire up some Hans Zimmer dubstep (!) and get ready for A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man 2!

A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

Before they can throw down Peter gets called away to save a kid from falling to his death, allowing Connors to escape. The next day Captain Stacy holds a press conference to announce he's issued an arrested warrant for Spider-Man, as he was the only person at the scene that was identified. Uh-huh, in this era of people being glued to their smart phones NO ONE got a single picture of Connors as the Lizard? If you're going to update Spider-Man's origin to be more modern, you really have to account for things like this as well. Come to think of it, where is J. Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle at this point in the story?

Peter goes to talk to Connors about the giant reptilian creature he encountered the night before, and this scene is hilarious in that Connors does everything in his power to make it obvious that HE'S the Lizard. Peter, who actually is quite competent in this movie, immediately picks up on this and goes to Captain Stacy to report it. Naturally though Stacy doesn't believe a word of it, but his interest is at least a little piqued to have his men research Connors a bit further. This JUST MIGHT BE the most positive portrayal of a pseudo-antagonist police officer I've ever seen in a superhero movie.

Heading back to school, Peter notices a bunch of small lizards crawling into the sewers... for some reason. Is the Lizard spawning little sidekicks or does New York have a lizard infestation they're not telling us about? He suits up and follows them, getting jumped by the Lizard where the film makes the VERY unfortunate decision of having the villain freaking TALK.

A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man (Part 1)

“It is WAY past time for a Spider-Man reboot, after all it's been FIVE YEARS!”

Hollywood is going through a weird phase right now: they're handing over a huge percentage of their summer blockbuster movies to Indie Darlings. You currently have James Gunn, creator of legendary films such as Tromeo And Juliet, currently ruling the box office with his smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy. Christopher Nolan, Joss Whedon, and Jon Favreau are among the names who started off with tiny independent films now making movies that bring in BILLIONS.

Hoping to capture some of this magic in their own bottle, Sony Pictures hired Marc Webb to helm their Spider-Man reboot. Webb is another Indie Darling well know for his Little Film That Could, the much beloved (even by myself) 500 Days of Summer, so that means we're at the least assured a film that will have some strong characterization in it. That was definitely something that was lacking from the original Spider-Man trilogy, so that's a lot of elements already in place for a good film.

But enough with the positives, let's get to the negatives! The worst glaring one here is the primary writer of this movie, one James Vanderbilt. He is a writer who LOVES his convoluted and overly complex films, especially my personal favourite Basic which is basically Screenwriting 101 for how NOT to do a movie. He is a dangerous writer to be crafting such a simple story, as I seriously doubt he'll be able to keep his tropes in check.  Let's mix all those elements together and see how the latest Hollywood superhero reboot turned out, strap on your web-slingers and get ready for A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man!

A Ghoul Versus Hitman (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

In FULL SIGHT of a few old men sitting outside the gas station, 47 opens the trunk and lets Nika out. She's really still traveling in the trunk? She's naturally very mad at him for this, but he says it's okay because he brought her breakfast. He then roughly grabs her, drags her to the passenger seat, and THROWS the food at her. As he walks back to the driver side, he makes eye contact with one of the old men and gives a “Geez, what's HER major malfunction?” look. The old man chuckles because abusing women is downright hilarious in this batshit insane universe that is Hitman.

47 warns Nika that her interference back at the station can't be allowed to happen again, in what is easily some of the worst line readings ever from a major Hollywood movie not involving a child. The video games have better acting than this.

Nika looks down and sees he's magically produced a gun from the same inventory he had those blades earlier. She instantly cowers, apologising to the psycho as I vomit. She says if he's looking for a reason not to kill her, she doesn't have one. She's not a whore by choice it turns out as Belicoff owns her, having bought her for $300 American, which admittedly is a bargain. When I tried to buy a terrible actress, the best deal I could find was Tara Reid for $700.