leebutler Horror, Sci-Fi

Brightburn (2019) – Look, Up In The Sky!

Released: 23rd May
Seen:22nd May (Advance Screening)

Later this year we’re going to be getting an animated TV series focussed around the What If comic series. A very simple setup, the series would ask questions like “What if Iron Man had been a traitor?” or “What if Sgt. Fury had fought World War II in outer space?” It’s a fascinating idea that allows for some potentially funny and potentially silly results. It’s also an idea that would allow Superheroes to appear in something other than a big bombastic action film. It’s with this in mind that I walked into Brightburn with a general sense of excitement because the promotional trailers told me right away that this was going to be answering a “What If…?” question that I didn’t even know that I wanted the answer to… What if Damien from The Omen turned out to be Superman?

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019) – Gotta Watch ‘Em All!

Released: 9th May
Seen: 9th May

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When I was growing up, the biggest games in the world were Pokémon Red and Blue. Every single person I knew had one of them; some people had both of them. I was always a Pokémon Red kind of guy who would happily pick Bulbasaur first because he would make it easier to get through the first two gyms (I know Charmander is cooler, but he’s also weak against the first two gyms and I played that game to win. Come at me). I also have vivid memories of when Pokémon Yellow came out and completing that game within a single sitting, only pausing to remove the batteries from my oversized clear Gameboy and clearing the gyms and elite four. It’s fair to say that a large chunk of my childhood included a monster that could be located in a pocket and then I did a very stupid thing… I grew up. I had less and less time to pull out a Gameboy and play whatever new Pokémon game was available; I didn’t keep up with the anime. I just kind of stopped caring about trying to Catch ‘Em All because I hit this time in life when it felt appropriate to put away childish things. I did recently pick up Pokémon Go because it’d be on the phone and a time waster but I kind of figured my love of Pokémon was dead. Then the trailer for Detective Pikachu dropped and a tiny little voice deep inside me screamed “I’m not quite dead… I’m getting better”

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Avengers: Endgame (2019) – No Spoiler Zone

Released: 24th April
Seen: 24th April

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On the 25th of April 2018, celebrating a decade as a cinematic universe, Marvel released Avengers: Infinity War. A true box office smash, the film broke records and defied expectations and at the 2-hour 5-minute and 41-second mark, Thanos snapped his fingers and eradicated half of the MCU in a sequence that was instantly one of the most iconic things in modern cinema. It was meme’d into oblivion; it was a moment of cultural shock that is easily the ballsiest thing that a movie studio has done in a long time. They made us love every single character, and then they killed them in front of us in a 3 minute sequence that was designed intentionally to destroy the audience… and then they said “Come back in a year, we’re not done tearing you apart yet” and sure enough, they came back and they were not even close to done tearing us apart.

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leebutler Action, Animation, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Hellboy (2019) – Aww, Hell!

Released: 11th April
Seen: 11th April

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In 1993 the comic book artist Mike Mignola created the character of Hellboy for Dark Horse comics. A demon-human hybrid, the character became a big enough hit with readers to get an adaptation in 2004 with the movie Hellboy that was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro who managed to turn it into a minor box office hit, pulling in almost 100 million worldwide on a 66 million budget. It got enough critical praise and a cult following to get Universal to shell out for a sequel with the same cast and same creative team, 4 years later letting out Hellboy 2: The Golden Army which fared even better, netting almost 160 million on an 85 million budget and (at least as far as I’m concerned) was just a better movie all around. Now it’s a decade later and rebooting old franchises is all the rage, and Guillermo Del Toro is coming off of two Oscar wins for his beloved film The Shape of Water so now would be the perfect time to get him to come back, drag Ron Perlman with him to don the red latex again and knock everyone out with an amazing Hellboy movie… or you could just get a bunch of completely different people to try and make money off the name alone and hope to god no one actually cares about being entertained, that’s a valid option.

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leebutler Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Serenity (2019) – How’s the serenity?

Released: 20th February
Seen: 23rd March

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In 2005, Joss Whedon was given the chance to adapt his cult hit series Firefly into a feature-length film. The film, Serenity, was an intense action sci-fi film where the crew of a spaceship tried to find out why one of them is being chased by an operative who is tasked with killing them. It’s a fascinating film that’s gloriously shot and wonderfully written with some really great action set pieces and its criminally underrated… so it really upsets me that now when you Google that film’s title, you’re  going to first have to come across the 2019 movie of the same name that’s so hilariously bad that it’s almost art.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Captain Marvel (2019) – Marvelous

Released: 7th March
Seen: 6th March (Advance Screening)

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Have you ever been looking forward to a movie, one you’re sure is going to be a lot of fun with some cool characters and funny lines but then you go online and learn that it’s an evil piece of feminist propaganda meant to cuck all the men and turn them into soy boys, or whatever the hell idiots online think feminism will do to them? Yeah, that’s basically how it’s been building up to this movie, The internet has turned into a constant barrage of idiots taking the lead actresses quotes out of context and pretending they’re anti-men or being giant raging turd monsters telling a woman to smile because they looked at 4 pictures where she isn’t and that means she never does. Oh, oh and then there’s the other thing where people who haven’t seen any movie ever said that instead they’re going to go see Alita instead of Captain Marvel because Alita isn’t at all a feminist movie and is totally apolitical, even though it’s literally a movie about a lower class being lied too and oppressed by the one percent and the only hope for anyone is a woman who is surrounded by flaming garbage dumpsters in the shape of men. Basically, I have hated every single discussion building up to the release of this movie because it has slowly sapped me of my hopes for humanity and now that I have seen it… this is what you were scared of? This? THIS IS WHAT FRIGHTENED SO MANY MEN ONLINE, PEOPLE!

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leebutler Action, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Alita: Battle Angel (2019) – ROBOTS FIGHTING!!!

Released: 14th February
Seen: 15th February

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In 1991 the first volume of the manga Battle Angel Alita, or Gunnm as it’s known in Japan, was released. The series would follow the titular Alita, a cyborg with no memories except for a very particular fighting style that she ends up using to become a bounty hunter. The series ran 9 volumes between ’91 and ’95, with several follow up series continuing the story of Alita. The series is actually still being released today with an English release date for the latest one meant to come out at the end of April this year… and, as if always the case with these adaptations, I never read the original manga. My research tells me that this movie comprises of the first 4 volumes in the series… you can tell, you can seriously tell.

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