acting | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com Where to jump in on board games, anime, books, and movies as a Nerd Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:35:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://nerdologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nerdologists-favicon.png acting | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com 32 32 The Marvel 2024 Awards – 10MinMarvel S3E103 https://nerdologists.com/2025/01/the-marvel-2024-awards-10minmarvel-s3e103/ https://nerdologists.com/2025/01/the-marvel-2024-awards-10minmarvel-s3e103/#respond Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:33:35 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9366 It's awards time for Marvel for 2024. We're going through 8 categories and handing out our top acting and more.

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We’re doing a fun topic this week. Last year we did an awards show for all of Marvel. So from the very beginning all the way through What If Season 2 at that point. This year that plan is a little bit more focused, because, well, we’ve done them all. So it’s for 2024 and going forward, we plan on doing award shows at the start of each year. Let’s see what the categories are.

  • Best Hero
  • Best Villain
  • Best Episode
  • Best Fight
  • Best Supporting Character
  • Best Non-Powered Charaacter
  • Best Writing
  • Best Overall

Plus we of course have our news and rumors to talk about. From what the release schedule of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is, possible recasting of T’Challa, Strange Academy being set-up in Ironheart and more.

Catch up on Videos

A New T’Challa in Black Panther 3?

Rumored Plot of Nova

Szerdy Comic Covers

Thanks for Listening

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends as word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast, and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find for people looking for a fun Marvel podcast. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, and Spotify or wherever you get your friendly neighborhood podcasts.

We also run a Patreon and that is another way you can help support. The Patreon, found here, goes to help improve the quality of the 10 Minute Marvel Podcast, pay for advertising and more. It also helps improve the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel and Nerdologists.com website. Thank you, again, for listening and for considering supporting us financially.

Comments or Questions: What Is Your Top Show/Movie from 2024 For Marvel?

How did we do on our awards? Did we miss any obvious ones that we should have put in?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below, or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel. And there is now the Facebook page, as well, where you can join in the conversation here. And follow us on YouTube for more content here.

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The Marvel Award Ceremony – 10MinMarvel S3E61 https://nerdologists.com/2024/03/the-marvel-award-ceremony-10minmarvel-s3e61/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/03/the-marvel-award-ceremony-10minmarvel-s3e61/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2024 11:18:23 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=8826 What Marvel moments, characters, movies and shows stand out as the best? We're doing our Marvel Oscars on this weeks #10MinMarvel.

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With the Oscars happening just over a week ago, we thought it would be fun to look back at the Marvel Cinematic Universe and see which movies, Disney+ shows, characters, and moments would make up our own awards. So we both created a list for the following categories:

  • Leading Man and Lady
  • Supporting Man and Lady
  • Best Sidekick (no powers)
  • Villian or Hero Entrance
  • Love Story
  • Fight Scene
  • Best and Worst Script
  • Display of Powers
  • One Liner
  • Villainous Plot

Plus we have some news and rumors. In particular some rumors theorizing what might happen at SDCC and Hall H when Marvel has their panel. 

Thanks for Listening

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends as word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast, and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find for people looking for a fun Marvel podcast. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, and Spotify or wherever you get your friendly neighborhood podcasts.

We also run a Patreon and that is another way you can help support. The Patreon, found here, goes to help improve the quality of the 10 Minute Marvel Podcast, pay for advertising and more. It also helps improve the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel and Nerdologists.com website. Thank you, again, for listening and for considering supporting us financially.

Comments or Questions: What Are Your Favorite Marvel Moments?

Let us know who you’d fill into each category? There are some good options out there for a lot of these Marvel categories. We’ve really had a lot of great MCU movies and shows over the history of the whole MCU. So which are some of your favorites?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below, or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel. And there is now the 10 Minute Marvel Facebook page, as well, where you can join in the conversation here. And follow us on YouTube for more content here.

Thank you again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

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Support us on Patreon here

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TelevisionTalks: Ragnarok https://nerdologists.com/2020/07/televisiontalks-ragnarok/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/07/televisiontalks-ragnarok/#respond Thu, 09 Jul 2020 16:50:19 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4531 By now you know that I like so many shows with a fantasy and modern element to them. Ragnarok was a new one that showed

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By now you know that I like so many shows with a fantasy and modern element to them. Ragnarok was a new one that showed up on Netflix that falls into that genre, so I knew I needed to check it out. Plus the show is a Norwegian show, and having Norwegian heritage, I was very interested in that aspect as well. So was it up there with other urban fantasy shows that I’ve watched?

Image Source: Netflix

In Ragnorak, Magne, a large but not always the most confident boy due to dyslexia, moves back to Edda, Norway where he was born with his mother, Turid and brother Laurits. It’s a sleepy town with one big industry, Jutul Industries that has most of the jobs. Magne and Laurits are dropped into a new school where Laurits fits in very quickly but Magne has trouble making friends, except for one other loner, a girl named Isolde. But there’s more going on in this town than meets the eye. Magne has an odd encounter with a shopkeeper right away when they come to town and he starts to notice things changing around him. From there the story takes some fantastical turns.

Let’s talk first about how I watched this show. Fairly often when watching shows from other countries I’ll watch it subtitled, this one I did not. I watched it dubbed in English. And I will say compared to some others I’ve seen dubbed, it works well. Yes, the mouths are off because of speaking another language, but overall I felt like it worked. What really works is t hat the voice actors are the same people who did the original voices, this means that you still get the same tone to match their facial expressions since they knew how they said it in the first place. So even if the moths don’t like up with what is being said, you don’t lose the feel. And I think the fact that they are going to carry a Norwegian accent into their English works as well. Growing up in Minnesota surrounded by a bunch of second a third generation Norwegians, there are a lot of mannerisms and speech patterns that carry over into the show. If you’re not as familiar with English/Norwegian speech patterns, I think it’ll still work fine, but might be easier subtitled.

Image Source: Netflix

I won’t go too much more into the story than I did in my little introduction, but I really liked it. It definitely has some young adult elements to it, but it isn’t completely young adult. The fact that they are high school students is always going to lend itself a little bit to that, but it does a good job of not dumbing it down to that level. I really enjoy how it delves into Norse Mythology in some ways. There are definite nods to things in the mythology that I didn’t notice right away but eventually became clearer and more interesting. The story is not extremely complex, but it doesn’t need to be, it has enough layers without feeling like it’s overly dramatic or overly convoluted. And they do a good job of developing character in a short time because the season is very short and the episodes aren’t all that long, the final episode is just over thirty minutes.

The look of the show is just beautiful. Now some of that is because Norway has amazing landscapes, because when it comes to special effects those do struggle at times. They clearly don’t have a massive budget for them, but for the most part there aren’t many in an episode. The rest of the filming, that of more standard school or house shots work for the most part. The inside and outside of the Jutul household always seems a bit disconnected because we never get to see a good transition between inside and out, but otherwise everything flows well and builds out the town of Edda.

Overall, this is a very fun show. I think that they do a good job with their blending of the mythology into a modern setting. It is a quick watch at only 6 episodes but still manages to pack a lot into those episodes. If you like that sort of mythology and real world blend, this is definitely one to checkout. And if the concept of Norse Mythology is interesting, I think it’s so fast that it’s probably worth it, even if you don’t love the idea of that fantasy real world blend. One that I’m looking forward to the second season of.

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TelevisionTalks: The Witcher https://nerdologists.com/2020/06/televisiontalks-the-witcher/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/06/televisiontalks-the-witcher/#respond Wed, 17 Jun 2020 13:15:39 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4451 Netflix has put out a lot of big shows over the years, things like Stranger Things for several years now have been grabbing the headlines,

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Netflix has put out a lot of big shows over the years, things like Stranger Things for several years now have been grabbing the headlines, that was until The Witcher came out and for a hot second that was a show that people were talking about a lot. I, however, didn’t succumb to the immediate watching hype, just because I had too many other shows to watch really, not for lack of interest, but I finally got around to watching The Witcher.

The Witcher is the story of three different characters, you have Yennefer the witch who can harness chaos to perform amazing acts of magic. You have Ciri the princess who has her own powers. And you have Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher. The show is about how they got to where they are in the present and how their stories intertwine. This is done through vignettes. For Geralt, it is about how he has to take responsibility and how while Witcher’s are monster hunters, he wants to be more than that. For Yennefer, it’s about what she’ll do for power and if it was worth it. And Ciri, it’s about staying alive.

Image Source: Netflix

I’m not going to go more into what the plot is, because, firstly, it’s a lot of vignettes that are working around the main points for the main characters and how it brings them all together. I’m also not going to do it, because it’s not a cohesive story. That’s one of my biggest knocks against the show is that for basically every character but Ciri, the vignettes jump all over the place and because of that you don’t get much payoff for the story. And even the vignettes are inconsistent. Some of them are told extremely well with a deft touch, and some of them beat you over the head with foreshadowing very obvious things. And even with the characters, Geralt’s stories are generally pretty good and they do come together with a solid payoff. Geralt is also tied to Ciri, and while her story wanders a little bit, there is more of a point to it. Yennefer, on the other hand, has her story wander a lot, and they try and make her a pretty sympathetic character, but really fail at it in my opinion.

Image Source: Netflix

The acting in the show is inconsistent as well. Henry Cavill is very enjoyable as Geralt. And there are other portrayals that work well, I think that Ciri is solid. But again, Yennefer’s acting, Anya Chalotra, is just lacking for me. And I put that more on the story than Anya’s actual skill as an actor, but she is given a story that is extremely unfocused and just ends up not having enough to work with in it. For me, a lot of acting issues can probably come down to the writing, but it was a shame because Cavill really does do a good job as Geralt and he makes the show watchable, otherwise, I don’t think anyone else would have been able to carry it.

The same for the world building in the show, it’s just inconsistent. The world itself is extremely interesting, the monsters who show up and things like that are different and really cool. But, you get bits and pieces of the world and how it works given to you generally not in the right order and not at the right speed. I don’t want an information dump, which they don’t do, but they mainly just pull things out of thin air with little to not explanation in the middle of episodes. It’s something, like the acting and the writing, that I hope they can clean up in season two. It goes too much between trying to have some Game of Thrones feel to it and epic monster hunting and back again without explaining why or how things are working.

Image Source: Netflix

And really, the same again for the effects in the show. Some of the things looked really cool. I know that the dragons weren’t the favorite for a lot of people, but I liked the design used there. But the opening scene is horrible. It’s such a bad use of green screen, Geralt feels like he’s on a sound stage maybe with the monster there, but there’s nothing else that he can interact with. The trees in the shot are horrible and static and just look so obviously fake. I think that it does get better and maybe a little more consistent throughout the show, or at least after that first scene, but it’s the first thing people see and it looks so bad.

Overall, this is a show that I generally did enjoy. I thought that once it get going, about episode four, it was interesting, because they created a more cohesive story for Geralt. But then they’d keep through Yennefer’s story in as well and that would mess things up for me. From what I’ve heard, this first season was based off of a series of short stories, and it feels like that, but that’s not a good thing, it doesn’t feel like a good episodic show, it feels, too often, like the worst part of episodic shows. There’s also the timeline piece. They are extremely subtle about it, and that’s something that they needed to be more obvious about, and then there were things that they could have and should have been subtle about because it would have been a good payoff. I’ll watch the next season when it comes out, but I’d say, if it’s just kind of interesting, probably skip it.

Did you enjoy The Witcher? Is it on the list of shows to watch for you if you haven’t seen it? Should I play any of the games/pen and paper RPG?

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TelevisionTalks: The Order https://nerdologists.com/2020/04/televisiontalks-the-order/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/04/televisiontalks-the-order/#respond Wed, 01 Apr 2020 13:07:43 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4240 While working form home I’ve had the chance to binge and watch a number of TV shows. One of them was Locke and Key that

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While working form home I’ve had the chance to binge and watch a number of TV shows. One of them was Locke and Key that I wrote about already, but another one, in somewhat of a similar vein was The Order, another Netflix original show that is just one season in thus far but has a second season coming out.

The Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose is a secret organization that operates at least partly out of Belgrave University. That’s where Jack Morton’s mother went, that’s where she fell in love with Edward Coventry and became pregnant with Jack, unknown to Coventry. She killed herself after Jack was born and Coventry and abandoned her. So now Jack and his Grandfather want him to get into the school and join the order so that he can take it down and take down Coventry. But in Belgrave University, there’s more going on than just a shady magical order that might threaten all of Jack and his Grandfather’s plans.

Image Source: Netflix

There are a lot of shows out there in this vein, as I mentioned, Locke and Key feels similar but beyond that you have shows like Grimm, Haven, Supernatural, The Magicians, Lost Girl and more. So is there room in the genre for even more? Personally, this magical, somewhat comedic, monsters of the week sort of show is one that I really love. I love when there’s a bit of camp, a bit of drama, a bit of horror, and an interesting plot and bad guy. And while I don’t know that The Order is particularly shocking in what it does or turns the genre on it’s head, it does a good job of being the type of show that you expect it to be, and in my case, that I want it to be.

What I think works well is how you end up with multiple factions happening, both in the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose, but also in other parts of the college campus. I think that’s something that you see at times in other shows, but they do a good job of drawing the main character in multiple different directions because of that. There’s definitely a message to the show about growing up and taking responsibility for yourself and not just living based off of what others tell you to do. It’s played out most obviously with Jack and his grandfather, but the multiple factions piece helps solidify it as kind of the drive of the main story, beyond trying to get into the order and get to Edward Coventry.

Image Source: Netflix

I think that one other thing for these shows that you want to pay attention to is how well they do with the monsters. Obviously, the older you go the poorer they’re going to loo, Haven looks real bad in comparison, but I don’t think that The Order leans so much on having the best looking monsters. The story has comedy in it and leans into that bit campier nature, so it doesn’t need the best looking monsters and it doesn’t need to be hyper realistic. Instead, it can look a bit cheesy because the show is a bit cheesy. That helps keep the cost of the show down, but also gives it a feel that’s different from a few of the other shows in the genre that really take themselves seriously and consider themselves to be more important than they are.

Acting wise, I think that the acting is just okay. I love the actor who play Jack’s Grandpa, Matt Frewer, and I knew him previously from having played Taggert in Eureka. This show even has a bit of a Eureka vibe, just more adult. Jake Manley who plays Jack Morton does a good job as well. There’s an earnestness to his performance that comes across. There are plenty of other characters that I like as well. When I say the acting is just okay, I don’t mean that it takes away from the story or from the show, because again, it’s meant to be a little bit campy. And so we get some campy or sillier performances, Jack’s RA (resident assistant) in college is a funny character, though does have some moments of depth. They do a good job of sprinkling those moments in and generally I think that they work well and they act them out well.

Overall, The Order is a show that from the trailer looks like it takes itself more seriously than it does. It has a nice blend of comedy and monsters and offers some interesting thinking points. For me, that’s what I want in a show like this, it can’t just be heavy otherwise I have trouble wanting to stick with it, and if it’s just silly, I have to be in a particular mood for that. Would I recommend the show, I would say that it’s meant for adults, there’s swearing, murders, and plenty of things that aren’t appropriate for younger children, but yes, I do recommend the show. Just know that it’s going to be campy and it’s going to have some absurd moments to it, but overall, it’s a fun show that’s worth checking out, and a fast watch as there are only 10 episodes in season 1.

Let me know what you think of it below? Is it the type of show that you enjoy or was it too campy for you?

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Revisit, Rewatch, Review – Spider-man: Far From Home https://nerdologists.com/2019/07/revisit-rewatch-review-spider-man-far-from-home/ https://nerdologists.com/2019/07/revisit-rewatch-review-spider-man-far-from-home/#respond Fri, 19 Jul 2019 13:04:04 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=3332 I’m all caught up on Marvel movies, though it’s a bit until I’ll get to this movie in 10 Minute Marvel (now available here). But

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I’m all caught up on Marvel movies, though it’s a bit until I’ll get to this movie in 10 Minute Marvel (now available here). But I got to see the movie in theaters last night. I’m going to keep this review spoiler free and try and lock it into what was seen in the trailers, but Endgame spoilers are fair game. You’ve been warned.

Spider-man: Far From Home takes place after the snap and after the second snap when everyone was brought back. Spider-Man is having a hard time with Tony’s death. And he just wants to be a normal kid, but that is going to be too much. He has grand plans for his schools trip to Europe, getting closer to MJ and just enjoying life without the responsibility of being Spider-Man. But a phone call from Nick Fury changes that all as he has to team with Quentin Beck to defeat elementals that are destroying cities. How can Peter Parker balance being Spider-Man, but also just live his own life and not feel like he has all the pressure int he world?

This movie reminds me of Iron Man 2 in a good way. While I think they nail the bad guys better than they do in Iron Man 2, this movie is more about Peter determining what type of hero he is going to be. And it’s about him feeling and failing to live up to what he thinks Tony Stark would want him to be. And I think that it does a good job of that, you feel so much for Peter because of what has happened in Endgame, him losing his father figure in Tony Stark. It comes across that Peter almost feels guilty for it having happened, though there was nothing he could have done about it. You really get how much he’s missing him, and how much being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man reminds him of Tony. Obviously with the suit being Tony’s tech that’s a big thing. And you can feel him trying to escape that super hero pressure mantle and just be a teenager and tell MJ that he has a crush on her. And that is a fun theme to explore, the super hero who doesn’t want to be, or can’t be the hero that they need to be or the hero that they want to be.

The acting in this film really pulls it off. Tom Holland does a great job of being that nerdy teenager who is ready to make a quip to hide his emotions, but still have to confront them. We get to see a whole lot more of the nerdy side of Peter Parker in this movie, and it’s a lot of fun. And I’m not the biggest Jake Gyllenhaal fan, mainly because of his work when he was younger just wasn’t that interesting to me. But in the role of Quentin Beck, he does a very good job. You feel the emotions that he’s feeling and they all make sense. I wasn’t in love with the casting of him as Beck, but it turned out to be a really good choice. The rest of the cast is solid around them as well, but Gyllenhaal and Holland really shine in this movie.

Now, I’m not going to spoil anything, but this movie does tie into a lot of the other movies. Some of them you don’t get the payoff until the end credits, but it sets up a launching point going forward. Now, I don’t know how they are setting it up tot use them, but things change for Peter but also some other characters in unexpected ways. Homecoming definitely feels like an MCU movie, but that one doesn’t do much more than mess up the timeline for the movies, Far From Home, on the other hand is going to make differences going forward and they could be a big changes and stories for upcoming movies. So if you were thinking about putting this one off, I wouldn’t wait too long. Spoilers, I’m sure, already exist in abundance but they are only going to be become more common place, the further from the movie.

This movie isn’t perfect, and I need to think about where I rate it in Marvel movies, but it is really good. The main issues are that it sometimes is a bit heavy handed in it’s plot. The plot is well done, but sometimes it drives home a point a bit too long, or makes a point a bit too obvious. However, it does create one of the most complex villains in the MCU. I’d put the villain after Killmonger from Black Panther and Thanos from Infinity War/Endgame in terms of good villains in the MCU, which is awesome. I love a good villain to set off against a hero, and in this case, you get a good hero performance, something that I felt like we were lacking some in Black Panther.

Definitely check out this movie if you are a Spider-Man fan, if you are an MCU fan, you will most likely enjoy it. I don’t know that you need to have seen Endgame to know what is going on, but it would help make things a whole lot clearer. And I think what you’d miss does make the story stronger, but I think it would be possible to watch it without having seen the rest. I’m going to be figuring out where I rate it in the movies, coming up here soon, so that’ll be interesting to see, but for me, this is a definite top half Marvel film.

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Rewatch, Revisit, Review – Mortal Engines https://nerdologists.com/2019/06/rewatch-revisit-review-mortal-engines/ https://nerdologists.com/2019/06/rewatch-revisit-review-mortal-engines/#respond Mon, 03 Jun 2019 13:56:09 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=3183 Let me hop into my thoughts on this movie immediately. I really really wanted to love this movie. The visuals that kick off the movie

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Let me hop into my thoughts on this movie immediately. I really really wanted to love this movie. The visuals that kick off the movie are amazing. The world that the movie is set in is amazing and I want to explore it more. However, the characters are not that interesting, the story feels like a lot of tropes jammed together without really building the story that you need from it. There probably will be some spoilers, but I’ll try and keep it vague.

This is the far flung future after humanity has blown itself up and screwed up the world. There are mobile houses that people travel around in where they can mine, and make a living. There are also bigger predator cities that chew up these smaller buildings for fuel. We meet our main character, Hester Shaw as the small vehicles that is getting chased down by a predator city. On the city we have Tom who is a researcher who has noticed that things on the city are going missing, things that could be used for a weapon.

In some way the story just sounds too predictable YA Dystopia. And I think that is some of the issue. The story leans into tropes, but leans into them too much, you want the familiar, but you also don’t want it to feel like it hits upon every trope. The movie packs in too many tropes this way and also because it tries to hit on so many things, you end up with a very disjointed story. You get a predictable bad guy with an anticlimactic end. We get a few other deaths that are supposed to feel like they mean something to the audience, but we’re not connected with the characters. It feels rushed, but also feels like it doesn’t have the action that it should. And when it does have action sequences, they aren’t anything all that interesting, and the main character who is fighting is just a poorly done character.

The characters are also an issue in this movie. Hester has an interesting backstory, and I think that Hera Hilmar does a solid job, but she isn’t given much to work with. We really don’t get to see her shine as a character either, and there is some with her look if you think about it doesn’t make a ton of sense. With Tom, played by Robert Sheehan, he’s a pretty flat character, where he was great as Klaus in Umbrella Academy and playing an eccentric character, here he is a pretty thin character. Then you have Anna Fang. Talk about a great looking character but a very disappointing character. Kristen put it this way, she’s kind of supposed to be a Han Solo type character, but they don’t give her great lines to work with, and she does less than anything with them. She looks cool, maybe a little bit out of place, but that could be set-up with some better character development and story development, but that wasn’t there, and Jihae does nothing with it.

Now, not all the characters are bad. Hugo Weaving as the villain is amazing. His motivations aren’t fully developed, nor is his character, but he does a very good job with what he’s given. The real shame with his character is it’s death. It’s a cheap and not impactful death. I think you could argue that the point of it is to keep blood off of the main characters hands, but we already know that really isn’t something she’s worried about. So it feels weak and more like they hoped they could do another movie, but didn’t think that they’d be able to get Hugo Weaving again. Leila George has a smaller role in the film, but her part was interesting and she portrayed it well. I wish that we’d see more of her Katherine Valentine and Ronan Raftery who plays Bevis Pod with her. They were interesting characters that have the distinction of being the secondary characters who are more interesting than the main characters, which is too common is YA.

Image Source: IMDb

I’ve bashed this movie pretty hard. I think even with the characters who have some good development or are better acted, they aren’t given what they should have to work with in this film. I do want to knock one more thing, and that’s the weapon that is used in the movie. There are certain angles where that thing feels like a horrible mid 90’s green screen effect, not nearly as cool and polished as the rest of the world. That’s all I’m going to say about it, because I do want to jump into the visuals of the rest of the world which are amazing. The different vehicles all make sense as something that would be in the world. And while the Shanara Chronicles also do the future earth after something has happened, I think that the world of Mortal Engines is a whole lot cooler. The flying ships, the wall, and the general aesthetic of the world are cool, but the predator city is amazing, and the smaller vehicles are all slightly unique and you can see how they fit into the world. There’s are a level of dinginess in the world as well that works really well, and while you do get some Hunger Games vibes in the movie, they don’t lean into it too much.

There’s so much to explore visually and storywise in this world if someone were to do a good job of creating something cool, that it’s a shame this is the movie we got. And the movie did poorly in theaters, so we’re not going to get another one. Maybe fifteen years from now if the books have done well for Mortal Engines, we’ll get another crack at a move which will do better. There’s so much potential of the world that I want to see more of it. I don’t care that it seems to borrow from Shanara Chronicles, Hunger Games, Gurren Lagann, and Howl’s Moving Castle, and a lot more. There’s a chance for it to be unique, and I’d even read the books after having seen the movie in hopes that they are better and that I’ll get the story that I really want.

Overall Grade: C-
Critical Grade: B+ (Visuals), D (Story)
Fan Grade: C

Have you seen Mortal Engines, if so, what are your thoughts on it? Is it a movie you want to see if you haven’t seen it?

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TelevisionTalks: Umbrella Academy https://nerdologists.com/2019/02/televisiontalks-umbrella-academy/ https://nerdologists.com/2019/02/televisiontalks-umbrella-academy/#respond Wed, 27 Feb 2019 14:35:02 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=2857 This is going to be as spoiler free a review as possible. I might slip up, but I’m going to try really hard not to

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This is going to be as spoiler free a review as possible. I might slip up, but I’m going to try really hard not to do that. I’ll likely be doing another post later with some spoilers and speculations and more details as to what I really like or didn’t like in the show. I will also say that episode one is fair game in this article. By that, I mean I might mention big things that happen in there to help develop the context for the whole show, but I won’t be talking about how it unravels.

Image Source: IMDB

Umbrella Academy was originally a comic book series that ran from September 2007 to 2013, and since then has come back in October of 2018. The series is written by Gerard Way, whom you might know as the lead singer for My Chemical Romance. So it isn’t a series created by your typical writers of super hero comics.

Umbrella Academy focuses around a family of adopted children. They were seven of forty-three children born to mothers who weren’t expecting until the day and moment that they gave birth to these children. Reginald Hargreeves, an eccentric entrepreneur adopts seven of these children, Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, Vanya, and Number Five – Hargreeves referred to the children by number versus by a name. It was a tough life, but it turned out that most of the kids that he adopted had powers. Luther was extremely strong, Diego could control knives, Allison could plant suggestions in peoples heads, Klaus could see dead people, Ben could summon tentacles from another dimension or his chest, and Number Five could teleport. As children, Hargreeves honed their abilities and turned them into a rag tag team of super heroes who were loved and could stop crimes. But as they grew older, they all left and went their separate ways. Number Five disappeared, and something happened to Ben. It wasn’t until much later when Hargreeves passed away that the five remaining children that he’d adopted came back together to lay him to rest but there are suspicions that his death wasn’t naturally caused.

Image Source: IMDB

The story focuses both on the larger plot of what happened to Hargreeves, but in many ways it’s more about what happens when a dysfunctional family comes back together. Can they work together, or have they become so separated and jaded from their horrible childhood that they can’t work together? It’s very much a character piece focused show where at times you really delve into one characters background and them overcoming a demon or figuring out why they are the way they are, and in another episode it’s another character. I think that they give Allison, Klaus, and Luther good room to grow that way. Diego and Vanya are given less room, though some of that with Vanya is that Ellen Page doesn’t do a great job portraying her, and isn’t given the best writing to work with.

I will also say that I think the show is at times rocky with it’s acting. The actor who plays Klaus steals the show, and the actor who plays Number Five when they were kids does a very good job. I’d also put that a fair amount on the writing that the acting is rocky, because there are times where the writing is a little bit hacked together. Not really cliche or trope filled, but it just lacks the polish that you kind of expect to get in the show. This takes what could have been a great show and moves it down to a good show. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some trope heavy parts of the show. There are a couple of tropes that it relies too heavily on, mainly the abusive father and it makes some parts of a pretty complex and interesting story seem a little bit lazy. It takes a story that has a bunch of depth and makes it a bit simplistic.

Image Source: IMDB

With that said, I do think there are enough strong characters in it, and while the first episode itself focuses on the death of Hargreeves and the characters coming back together and it is a bit slow, the rest of the series runs at a much better pace. I would say by the time you’re done with episode three, you’re most likely going to be pretty invested in the show. And if you aren’t invested in the show at that point, and the characters in the show, it’s probably going to be a case that the show isn’t for you. If I were to compare to to other shows, I would say it reminds me of a blend of Watchmen (a movie), Dark, and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It really tries to lean into that slower moving plot like Dark does, but it just doesn’t jump into it quite quickly enough, so the story struggles to gain traction. I do really appreciate a good show that has that slower build like it is going for though.

Now, it seems like I’m knocking it a fair amount, and I have been a bit harsh with it. I did watch it through, and towards the end, it was hard to stop and not just binge it. So it does develop into that sort of show that keeps you guessing and wanting more. It also really does make you care about at least some of the characters a lot in the show. And again, I can’t get into too much because of spoilers with what I consider stronger. It is a show that you’ll need to give a few episodes too first before it will really get going, but once it does, it’s worth it. I’d recommend checking it out on Netflix, and hopefully if enough people enjoy it, it’ll get a second season as there is more to explore in the world.

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