leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Review

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) – Natural 20

Released: 30th March
Seen: 30th March

In 1974, the very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons was published and it pretty quickly became a mainstay of pop culture. Every decade seems to change how people look at it, be it back in the 80s when it was a very large part of the Satanic Panic bullshit or in the 2000s when we were talking about the first film adaptation that carried the name or even the 2010s when Stranger Things reminded people of why they enjoyed playing this game back in the 80s when the adults said it was evil and satanic. Even now it still maintains high popularity with an untold number of web shows and podcasts dedicated to variations on this classic tabletop RPG… I’ve never played it once, so I went into this movie completely blind and had a great time but who knows how a fanboy might react to this.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Comedy, Review

Shazam: Fury Of The Gods (2023) – Less Fury Than Expected

Released: 16th March
Seen: 18th March

In 2019, DC released one of its few good films, Shazam. At the time it felt like somewhat of a revelation, after years of a dark and dour DC universe being built with several below-average films that refused to even try to have a little fun, we finally got a film that seemed to understand why this genre is so popular while also having one of the biggest heartfelt stories in all of Superhero media (The Billy Batson story with his mother is still heartbreaking, I will die on that hill). It might not have been the biggest box office hit, possibly because the DC well was basically poisoned even by that point but somehow it got a sequel that got somewhat delayed by the recent plague but is here now… it’s fine, I guess.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Netflix, Review

The Sea Beast (2022) – Beastly

Released: 8th July 2022
Seen: 4th March 2023

The Sea Beast Info

The Sea Beast has taken up the spot of the surprise 5th Oscar nominee in this years Best Animated Feature category, it’s the film that’s seemingly there just because they had to round it out to five nominees. The other four are getting nominated time and time again in several other awards shows but The Sea Beast is basically the one in this category that scraped on in. Theoretically, that means it could probably be the one that was missed out of all of these nominated films due to its likelihood of winning being minimal, but it’s also one of the easiest to get a hold of since it sits on Netflix… and you should go watch it because it’s actually pretty damn fantastic.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Comedy, Review

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – Otherworldly

Released: 16th February
Seen: 22nd February

Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been somewhat polarising for people who are fans of this cultural juggernaut. In the aftermath of the Infinity Saga and dealing with the events of Endgame, Phase 4 has felt somewhat uneven to some viewers who have been vocal about not really knowing where it’s been going. Personally, this hasn’t felt like a big deal since it felt pretty obvious to me that phase 4 is pulling the double duty of dealing with the aftermath of Endgame (This being the major thread of films like Multiverse of Madness, Love and Thunder and Wakanda Forever) and setting up the Multiverse that will clearly be a large factor for phase 5 (This idea is explored in things like Loki, No Way Home and What if?). Sure they’ve been a little haphazard about how to use these ideas and haven’t really made it clear on what’s to come but the groundwork has been laid… and now with Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania they’ve decided to start showing their hand.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Review

Avatar: The Way Of Water (2022) – Aquatic Boogaloo

Released: 15th December
Seen: 16th December

In 2009, Avatar came out and was genuinely revolutionary. It caused a surge in sales of 3D TVs, becoming a benchmark for what 3D could look like and basically creating a brief 3D revival around the early 2010s, it was one of the most visually astounding films ever to be released and quickly became the highest-grossing film of all time, a title that it would hold up until 2019 when Endgame came out. Then it would take back that title with a re-release in 2021. Avatar absolutely dominates the discussion on the box office, proof that you don’t bet against James Cameron… and no one gives a single damn about the story of the film. 

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leebutler Adventure, Drama, Horror

Beast (2022) – Not Lion Around

Released: 24th August
Seen: 2nd December

Man VS Beast is possibly the simplest and oldest story type that exists and one that has certainly been a mainstay of cinema for years. From big-time blockbusters like Jaws to smaller-budgeted films like Crawl, putting a human being up against a ravenous animal is a pretty simple and effective way to create some decent horror. In the case of Beast the man is Idris Elba and the creature is a lion, so you pretty much know what the entire film will be from start to finish and it doesn’t really do much to deviate from the exact plot that you have already begun writing in your mind.

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leebutler Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Review

Pinocchio (2022) – Wooden

Released: 8th September
Seen: 18th September

Pinocchio Info

In 1940, high off the release of the first feature-length animated motion picture, Disney released Pinocchio. While we look back on Pinocchio as an absolute classic that would eventually be a box office success upon its 1945 re-release, the original release was a complete flop thanks to being released during WW2 which cut off several major markets. Since then, Pinocchio has become an absolute staple of the Disney company, Jiminy Cricket was basically a secondary mascot for a period of time considering how many specials he turned up in and the song “When You Wish Upon A Star” not only became the first Disney song to win an Oscar but became the Disney theme song. This film has been a core moment of pop culture that still resonates in some form… and because we are living in a time where Disney must remake every one of their classic films, we have another D-make and it’s just kind of bland.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Jurassic World Dominion (2022) – Terradac-dull

Released: 30th June
Seen: 1st August

It’s time for us to call it, Jurassic Park as a franchise is dead. Hell, let’s go one step further, the franchise probably should’ve stopped after the first movie and left when it was on top instead of just gradually getting serious diminishing returns every time they bring us back to the land of the dinosaurs. The new trilogy, headed by bad writer Colin Trevorrow, started out promising with Jurassic World which might not have been at the level of the original but at least it was watchable… and then Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom came out and it wasn’t great, kinda dull but it had some nice moments and an ending that suggested something interesting and new could happen with this franchise… but this film was written by the same guy who helped come up with the story for Rise of Skywalker, a story that can be summed up with the line “Somehow, Palpatine returned” so you can kind of guess that nothing new has been done with Jurassic World Dominion.

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leebutler Review

The Lost City (2022) – A Cracking Adventure

Released: 31st March
Seen: 11th July

The Lost City

One of the classic kinds of films we don’t get enough of is the romantic action adventure. You know the kind, films where a guy and girl randomly go to some far off land to try and hunt for some treasure, they exchange witty banter and eventually fall in love all while dealing with some overly hammy villain that’s there purely to raise the stakes. Classics like Romancing the Stone or The Mummy (the 1999 one) are great examples of this style of film. They were fun, over the top, clever and just seem to have fallen by the wayside lately. Well, thank goodness that The Lost City brought them back because they have been sorely missed.

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leebutler Review

The Bad Guys (2022) – Duh!

Released: 31st March
Seen: 5th July

The Bad Guys Info

It’s been a while since there’s been an entertaining crime caper film out, the last one that leaps out to memory would probably be The Gentlemen and the vast majority of films in that genre tend to fall under the adult rating. Let’s be honest, you’re not going to get your entire family to sit through Oceans 8 or Reservoir Dogs. So it’s nice to see that there are some family-oriented crime capers out there that can deliver on everything people love about the genre without alienating the little ones… plus the fact that all the characters are hilarious anthropomorphized animals in suits and gorgeous gowns is a bonus.

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