Review: ‘F9’ is ridiculous, but knows its audience

F9

I feel like writing this review might be a little redundant. This is the tenth film in this franchise, so if you’re not on board with the fambly at this point, I’m not sure you ever will be. The franchise shifted from “people who drive good” to “international super spies” over the last few films, and this one continues the cycle of one-upmanship with a trip to space.

Yes, they go to space in this one, so it’s an apt comparison when I say that this might be their Moonraker moment when they finally abandon all pretence of realism. Please note: I like Moonraker.

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Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy

The marketing for _Guardians of the Galaxy_ has basically been omnipresent for the last few months. Hardly a day went by without a new poster or image or teaser or whatever. The reason for this is simple: this is the first real test of Marvel’s brand. Guardians, like it or not, is a lesser known property and while this film connects with the over reaching continuity of the established Marvel Cinematic Universe it doesn’t actually feature any characters that we’ve already met meaning that they can’t trade on the popularity of Iron Man or Captain America they have to rely on the corporate brand. In this world of “new things are risky let’s remake something from the 1980s” that’s kind of a big deal.

So it’s a good job they knocked it out the fucking park with this movie otherwise they’d be in trouble. Yes, it’s great and you should see it. No need to even finish reading this review. Just go. Or finish reading this review and I’ll give you a few reasons why.

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Furious 7 Finishes Filming, Read A Heartfelt Letter To The Fans

Vin Diesel / Furious 7

I love the Fast and Furious franchise. I love it because it’s a series of movies that are really just a series of ludicrous car chases (some of which feature Ludacris!) which aspire to be more than the are with an overreaching theme of family, and comic book like continuity.

When Paul Walker died they lost a member of their family and, kinda sorta, so did we. Today it was announced that the 7th film in the franchise has completed filming, and they did so with a heartfelt letter to the fans. Hit the jump to read it.

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Review: Riddick

Riddick

_Apologies for the tardiness of this, I’m on holiday again._

You know it’s been 13 years since Pitch Black hit theatre screens. Not an amazing movie by any measure, but entertaining enough that it made a bunch of money and put Vin Diesel on the map.

In the movie a transport ship crashes and the few survivors have to deal with Richard B. Riddick (Diesel), a sociopathic mercenary who happens to have night vision being transported in said ship but then it turns out that the planet is infested with monsters that only survive in the dark and that there is an eclipse coming, so they have to work with Riddick to survive. Talk about shitty contrived luck.

Both of these facts lead to a sequel in 2004 in which Riddick turns out to be the prophesied hero who will stop an army of dead guys who are killing their way across…. you know what? I’m not even going to finish that because it doesn’t matter. _Chronicles or Riddick_ wasn’t that good, and this new movie basically doesn’t pay any attention to it. In fact this movie is pretty much literally just _Pitch Black 2_. Or maybe _Pitch Black Again_.

Is that such a bad thing? Well…. yes and no.

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