VENOM

                                                Venom: Marvel's Story Without Heart
Journalist Eddie Brock is trying to take down Carlton Drake, the notorious and brilliant founder of the Life Foundation. While investigating one of Drake's experiments, Eddie's body merges with the alien symbiote Venom leaving him with superhuman strength.

Marvel's Venom is a blockbuster movie without heart, it's a movie without beginning and an end, it's a movie without the necessary highs and lows, it's a movie without the required build up to the climax, and we conclude that it's a movie that is flat and without taste and class. But don't get us wrong, it is an out and out action movie.
Now lets get down to what marvel got right about this movie!
  Marvel did a marvelous job of casting Ton Hardy. Tom Hardy's onscreen performances as Brock were scintillating and smooth, he had the swag of an unstable character; exactly what the host of Venom is supposed to be.
We also loved the fact that the production team elected to go for an out and out action movie rather than a superhero love movie. The character of Venom is aggressive( although not as aggressive as Carnage), and violent and we are impressed with the aggressiveness and violence portrayed in this movie....that is about as much positive the movie offered up.
Everything the movie got wrong;

The Choice of Riz Ahmed as villain; Who made the choice of Riz as villain? The man is a top notch actor, he is brilliant on the job, his carriage is however that of a baby face, that of protagonist or a vulnerable support for the protagonist. His role defining performance in 'The Night Of ' perhaps should have highlighted his unsuitability for the role of villain in Marvel's Venom. The character carved out for Riz in Venom failed to utilise the exceptional talent of Riz Ahmed and we put all of the blame on the scout and the producing team. We rate the choice a solid 4/10 for choosing an unsuitable character for the role of villain and In the process destroying the credibility of the actor. Riz Ahmed, we are sorry for what they did to you.   Where is Character Development? Marvel's Venom was marked as the Origin Story of Marvel's apex Villainous Hero, and the producers and the scripting team made a total mess of the plot and theme, making the movie a total fail In telling the origin Story of Venom. Let me make a very clear comparison of what an Origin Story is in contradiction with what Venom is; Spider Man 1( Toby Maguire) is an Origin story. And it perhaps the best Marvel Origin story ever told. It captured the persona of Peter Parker, built on his follies and his strengths before proceeding to create his spider man alter ego cum super hero persona. Let me point in the direction of Captain America : The First Avenger, it did the same thing that marvel studios did with Spider man 1 and even did more in the field of developing the character of Captain America in one installment of the franchise than it did in Spider Man 1....Perhaps mention can be made of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, another brilliant example of an Origin story!
   How then did marvel fail with Venom? It's a tough question with a very simple answer ; 'rush job'.
Marvel tried to cram in a lot of action and detailed stories into the first installment without necessarily wasting resources on a lengthy piece of art. It came off as though the producers were telling us 'Venom is a One time thing' and we are deeply saddened. Regardless of the future or otherwise of the franchise, it may perhaps have been very prudent to not have made the fact so obvious even though we have the inclination that this is not the last we will hear of the Blue Monster.

Thus, we had a movie that failed to build up the character of Eddie Brock, and failed to give us a ride with the character of Venom. Venom had no testing phase with Eddie, neither did the creative team deem it fit to create a compelling personal conflict for Eddie and Mr Venom, not so awe inspiring yea!??.
  We further failed to be impressed with the way everything felt so convenient for the final hosts of the symbiotes, i.e Venom and Riot. It felt as though Venom was tailor made for Eddie Brock, while Riot wrecked all of the hosts it possessed on its journey to the 'rocket' and it's intended host, who could pilot it. Didn't it also seem ridiculous that while Riot found it necessary to be 'intelligent' enough to cross oceans to find a host by keeping the body it possessed working till it found another to possess, the unnamed symbiote failed to do same, but rather went on a wrecking spree? It's awfully convenient.
  We will conclude with the verdict that Venom was a movie without character development, lack of plot depth and a Weak conflict element borne out of a Weak Villain and a poor choice of character for villain. We were hard pressed to rate the movie B+ for action sequence and hardcore fight scenes and 18+ violence, but upon a closer inspection and to the trained eyes, the fight sequences were not too good, compared to the budget of the movie and the astonishingly good CGI in use. The fights were slow for Venom and when the choreographers thought to make it fast in Venom Vs Riot, it was outright messy and even the very trained eyes could not keep up with the ridiculous pace no matter how strained the eyes were. Plus who heard Annie reference Kryptonite? It was supposed to be funny, but it was outright annoying.
  This is an out and out action movie, but it's a total fail for an origin movie. It lacks buildup, it lacks heart, it lacks story and it totally fails in character development which is one thing an origin story needs the most. It's a movie I will definitely recommend to thrill seekers, to lovers of pure action, but to the devoted reader of comics, you may not be too impressed.

It's failure to impressed may not be unconnected with the fact that the concept of a Villainous Hero is one that is difficult to develop and bring to the screens. Perhaps it may be easy to animate in a series, but ridiculously difficult to bring to the big screens with limited time. A perfect example of outstanding success is Professor Snape in Harry Potter. His character success is down to long planning, ingenious back story and an incredibly amazing mastery of storytelling.  But then again J.K. Rowling is a literary Genius that Jeff Pinker or Scott Rosenberg aren't.
With a budget of 116 Million USD, it has received generally negative reviews from critics and we also find some negative things to say about its script and inconsistent tone, although we must still have some words of praise for Tom Hardy's performance. The movie has however grossed over 829 million USD worldwide, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 2018 and set several box office records for the month of October.
Starring Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, Reid Scott.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Produced by Avi Arad Matt Tolmach Amy Pascal
Written by Jeff Pinker and Scott Rosenberg
 
We here will give it a shaky  FCA AppR of 7.3/10 for action and thrill.

THE INCREDIBLES 2

               The Incredibles 2: A Triumphant return for Disney's Superhero family.
Everyone's favorite family of superheroes is back in "Incredibles 2"--but this time Helen (voice of Holly Hunter) is in the spotlight, leaving Bob (voice of Craig T. Nelson) at home with Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell) and Dash (voice of Huck Milner) to navigate the day-to-day heroics of "normal" life. It's a tough transistion for everyone, made tougher by the fact that the family is still unaware of baby Jack-Jack's emerging superpowers. When a new villain hatches a brilliant and dangerous plot, the family and Frozone (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) must find a way to work together again--which is easier said than done, even when they're all Incredible.
  We had waited for so long for the sequel of this movie and when it finally came, boy did it hit us with brilliance. The strong points of this movie is that it has the strengths of the original prequel and has done some improvements. The movie stayed true to the original animation concepts, the character design remain practically the same save for some few CGI upgrades. It is a noticeable improvement as the characters moved well, the fight sequences were smooth and conversation/ dialogue simulations were smooth and In sync.

Perhaps the only fault we have with the movie is the strength of the conflict, the lack of plot depth and the simplicity of the storyline.we must still mention thag even though The story was lacking in depth, the storytelling was amazing,  the back stories of each character made for a compelling watch. The message behind the story, pushing out the female lead sent a subtle message that the feminists out there would definitely appreciate; and while we are not overly impressed with the choice of the message, we can at least relate with the humour and the humour seeing the stronger sex struggle with coping with family duties. Returning to the conflict, the villain seemed a little too obvious from immediately the Hero legalisation campaign was offered to the family. We knew it had to be one of the two either Winston or Evelyn Deavor, and we were spot on in our prediction. We also noticed the fact that the heroes never returned to the case of the Underminer. It felt a little off that the villain who cost them their lives will be let off the hook throughout the duration of the movie. It didn't go well.
   Baby Jack-Jack had to be the secret weapon of the movie. The big reveal of his power or powers so to say had to be the peak of the movie. His conflict scene with the raccoon was epic, was hilarious and it was overall entertaining. So whereas the Big Villain reveal was anti-climactic, the super power reveal of baby Jack-Jack had go be the climax of all climax.
The conflict was weak, and the conflict resolution was weak as well. The villain was the crux of all problems. The villain's weakness transferred itself to the movie and made the movie weak. The characters were definitely stronger than the villain  and thus it weakened the conflict element. The fight against the villain was boring. In fact the movie deserved a better villain and conflict than it got. The movie was just a message to the world nothing more than that. 

The movie may have been an epic fail had it not been for the few incredible fight scenes and the great amount of humour imbued into this. It kept us interested, it kept us wanting more and it left us smiling and laughing. It's the stuff dreams are made of, and it would have perhaps been in the running for animated movie of the year had it not been for the anti-climactic ending to the movie.
   A good movie, superb humour, great action / fight scenes, not too great conversation, weak plot, weak conflict and zero character development( we are not complaining, as this is a sequel).  It is a family movie, and I will recommend it to every one, both young and adults. The adults will love this for the message while the young will enjoy it for its humour and fight scenes.
  Starring Holly Hunter, Craig T Nelson, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner and Samuel L Jackson.
Produced by Nicolas Paradine Grindle and John Walker.
Directed by Brad Bird
Production Companies Walt Disney and Pixar Production company.
With a Budget of 200million USD and a box office mojo of 1.240billion USD, the movie has done more than enough to currently rank as the 4th Highest grossing movie of 2018, and the 2nd highest grossing animated movie of 2018, and the 15th highest grossing movie of all time. These are incredible numbers for an animated movie and we are deeply pleased with the job done by the company and the production team. We must mention that it's successes at the Box Office is down largely to the massive success of the prequel and the anticipation the company created by waiting for near over 6 years before releasing a sequel.  The movie itself is not as great as we would have hoped. But all in all, it's a great watch and a Hollywood success story.
 We at FCA will give this one a solid  FCA AppR of 8/10 for humour, content, action sequence and overall character design improvement.

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP

           Ant-Man and The Wasp: A Weak Conflict for a Weak Villain!

  

Two years after Scott Lang was placed on house arrest because of his role in skirmishes between the Avengers in violation of the Sokovia Accords, Hank Pym and his daughter Hope van Dyne briefly manage to open a tunnel to the quantum realm, where they believe Pym's wife Janet van Dyne might be trapped after shrinking to sub-atomic levels in 1987. Because he also visited the quantum realm, Lang is now quantumly entangled with Janet and receives an apparent message from her. 

   A sequel to the 2015 Marvel movie, Ant man, the second instalment started off with the after effects of Scott's participation in the events of Germany and the apparent breach of the  Sokovia Accords, after which he was put under a 2 year house arrest. The concept was to present a hero under house arrest and trying to run a company as well as get by with everyday duties as a father, and the opening scenes were brilliantly brought to life.
The plot was good, not something excellent, but just good enough to thrill fans and viewers alike. Not a lot was put into telling the story or developing the concept, as the production team didn't really want to thinker a lot with the general concept, but rather chose to go little on creativity and hit more on Originality of concept.

 Where the movie failed in most parts was creating a compelling conflict, which in turn could have provided for a rivetting narrative. The creators forgot the first rule of telling a super hero tale, creating a strong and easily relatable villain. The production unit totally failed at presenting a villain the viewers could relate with or love to hate. Sonny Burch and Ava Starr(Ghost) just didn't feel like the villainous bunch that could keep the Hero engaged or even keep viewers glued.
   Plus mention must be had of the fact that the character of Ghost was pushed out too quickly, came off as emotionally unstable and she was a villain we knew was totally half and half, not someone who could go the distance. We did however love her combat scenes, her moves were natural and seemed to have really worked with a combat instructor. Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne on the other hand were totally in sync. Though it's to be expected, having done it once before, but their screen performances were brilliant.  Hank Pym once again delivered some brilliant tech. Even though we felt that some of the tech on display were rushed to the screens, regardless of the fact that there has been a 3 year break, it still felt rushed.  Janet Van Dyne finally got screen time. Her introduction towards the concluding scenes was refreshing and brilliantly timed. We did however feel that her final contributions to the movie was a hack. We didn't like it and it's overall effect on the movie.

  The special Effects and CGI had to be the strong point of the movie. It was nothing over done neither was it underutilised. It was just perfectly employed.  It was amusing the way everything in the movie could shrink.
   Perhaps now that we have gotten this arc out of the way, the Ant man can finally become a real super hero rather than a small time Robin Hood. The two instalments of the Ant man franchise has had him fighting on the lower scales of the Hero verse. It's time to write Ant man a story truly befitting of a Marvel great.
  All In all, a good movie with a somewhat slow start, but a strong finish.  Not rich with relatable characters, but the characters we have were colourful, they were enigmatic and they were brilliant at what they did. Ghost for one did deliver some really good piece of combat scenes. It's a great movie for both the young audience and the old folks, perhaps the quantum realm aspects may not be too relatable, but the battle on Earth was spectacular.
 Starring Paul Rudd, Michael Pena, Evangeline Lilly, Walton Goggins, Judy Greer, Tip Harris.
Directed by Peyton Reed.
Produced by Kevin Feige.
Written by Chris Mckenna
 FCA'S AppR 7.8/10

A WRINKLE IN TIME

      A Wrinkle in Time: Or an Aberration in Hollywood?

  
 Meg Murry and her little brother, Charles Wallace, have been without their scientist father, Mr. Murry, for five years, ever since he discovered a new planet and used the concept known as a tesseract to travel there.
A Wrinkle in Time is a Colourful mess. It's a poorly told story. Jennifer Lee did a really poor job of telling the story and Ava Duvernay who ought to have complemented the poor storytelling with brilliant directing totally failed viewers. Being based on a very well acclaimed novel, the brilliant concept was already there, the general plot idea was set on stone, and the direction for the scripting was almost certain, leaving only the art of storytelling to be decided, and my world was it poorly told.

   We recognise the fact that it being based on a novel, it didn't leave a whole lot of room for creativity or maneuverability in aspects of the movie such as character diversification or perhaps plot depth and conflict solidification, but it did however leave some room for a good fantasy story, which if properly brought to our screens would have been a hit movie.
   The problems with the movie are multitudinous. First we have the story and plot theme development. In fact, the opening scenes from the movie felt awful, it came off as though it was a flashback or at best a highlight reel. The point at which the movie began perhaps ought to have been the point at which a sequel began or maybe at least the tail end of the movie, and not the start point. It technically left viewers grasping at thin air,
while trying to figure out the mess that was the whole point of the movie. So story was poor, plot development was nonexistent and character development was missing.

  The conflict element was poor, boring, despicable and tremendously stupid and lacking in creativity. Not only was there no buildup to the conflict, but was presented with little to no panache. For the Love of God, what is "the It" ? So they couldn't have come up with a better name for the villain, or at least present the "It" with a little more finesse, something awe inspiring. Still on the lack of creativity, really? Tesseract?  They had to go there. Viewers were disappointed in the concept of the tesseract and the act of tessering! It's so poorly developed it came off as stupid, shallow and ridiculous.
    The acting itself was in shambles. Oprah Winfrey was poor, her performance shallow and her contribution insignificant. Perhaps the only performance that we can Smile about is that of Reese Witherspoon. She is a good performer, and even though we are sad she signed up for this sham of a movie, we can at least take comfort in her brilliance in character performance.Mindy Kaling on her own part was neither here nor there. It is the type of performance you could easily forget or overlook. Not impressive and not too shabby. Michael Peña's cameo was superb, but a little too short to have any significant effect on the overall outlook of the movie. Chris Pine could not have any positive impact on the movie as well. In a nutshell, it was a case of the wrong people having more screen time than the right people who had little to no time to effectively affect the movie.Storm Reid and Deric Mcabe do have a lot of potential, and we hope they do get the right mentors and sufficient guidance to become the stars the movie tried so hard to make them be.
  It can't all be dark and gloom for the movie. We can at least point to an element of the movie that did have a lot of viewers excited. The Special effects were brilliant, the CGI was stunning and magnificent. Thus where the movie failed in so many aspects, it was resplendent with a lot of colour. This we feel at least made it worth the watch, it took away the bore and made us watch till the end. Others have opined that the over reliance on CGI perhaps weakened the plot by Diverting much of the attention to the effects rather the story? We may be inclined to agree to that line of thought.

  Overall a very poor cinematic experience, poor character and plot development, weak conflict, very dismal attempt at story telling, abysmal character performance / acting,  all culminating in a ridiculously over budgeted colourful mess. It'd make for a good watch for the young ones or the young adults, but it would irritate the mature mind.
Starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Storm Reid, Deric Mcabe, Michael Pena, Chris Pine,David Oyelowo, Zach Galifianakis.
  Written by Jennifer Lee
Directed by Ava Duvernay
Produced by Jim Whittaker
Walt Disney Entertainment Studios.
With a budget of 130 million USD and a box office gross of 132.7 Million USD, this movie even though being a box office hit, actually lost Disney 82 Million USD in terms of revenue. The budget just didn't produce results expected.
   We will magnanimous rate this one an FCA AppR of 5/10 for effort and CGI effects.
  Plus, who did character makeup though. Perhaps they could have held back a bit on Oprah? We wanted an elegant character, not a masquerading old warhorse.