paul_m_haakonsen

While I have of course seen the numerous previous attempts of bringing "The Fantastic Four" to the screen, I have to admit that I sat to watch this 2025 movie with a sense of 'is it really necessary to venture down this path again?' Yet, I still opted to watch the movie, solely because I had the chance and because it was a movie that I hadn't already seen.

Though I have to say that superhero movies are not my primary go-to genre of movies for entertainment, but I do watch them as they often prove to be entertainment that doesn't involve a whole lot of cerebral interaction to stay up with the events, and spiked off with great effects.

The cast ensemble in the movie is good, but there weren't really all that many familiar faces on the cast list for me. I was only familiar with Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Paul Walter Hauser and the voice of Ralph Ineson. The acting performances in the movie were good.

Visually then the movie was good. Of course it was, as the Marvel movies have rather extraordinary special effects and CGI effects. And "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" was no different, so if nothing else, at least you are in a for a visual treat.

Sure, the movie is entertaining, as it is a newer Marvel movie, after all. But if you look at it objectively, then it is essentially a redundant reboot by and in itself. Why not make something new and original instead of trying to go back and fix stuff from the past? Had they opted for a whole brand new storyline, the movie would have had way more impact.

My rating of director Matt Shakman's 2025 movie "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" lands on a six out of ten stars.

I did enjoy the 1982 movie "The Beastmaster", and I did indeed know about this 1991 sequel, but I actually never had the chance to watch it before now in 2025. Needless to say that I needed no persuasion to do so.

Writers Jim Wynorski and R. J. Robertson didn't really impress me with the script and storyline they conjured up for this sequel. In fact, they went a bit astray with the script for this sequel, as it ventured into slapstick comedy, and sort of put the fantasy aspect in the background. They should have opted to keep the movie in a strict fantasy setting, as that crossing over to a modern day world was just too cheesy and forced; it didn't really work here, and it didn't really work in 1987 when the "Masters of the Universe" movie with Dolph Lundgren did the same thing.

It was, of course, nice to see Marc Singer return to reprise his role from the first movie. Aside from Marc Singer, there were a couple of other familiar faces on the cast list, with the likes of James Avery, Michael Berryman, Kari Wuhrer, Robert Z'Dar and Wings Hauser. The acting performances in the movie were good.

And as I perused IMDb, I found out there also is a third movie in the series. I have to see if I can track that one down as well.

Well, at least I can tick the movie off of my watched-movies list now. But I can honestly say that I am never returning to watch it a second time.

My rating of director Sylvio Tabet's 1991 movie "Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time" lands on a rather generous four out of ten stars.

Having just sat through the 2005 "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man", I continued my marathon with this 2006 entry in the franchise titled "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society". While I was familiar with the "Stand Alone Complex" being a part of the franchise, I have never actually seen any of them. So this was my first time to delve into them.

The storyline in this 2006 foray into the franchise is good. Sure, there are large shoes to fill out, but the writers managed to pull it off well enough, and the script proved to be entertaining and enjoyable.

The version of "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society" that I stumbled upon was, unfortunately, a dubbed version. I generally do not enjoy dubbing versions of anything, be it movie or animation. I prefer the original language, so this was a little bit annoying. But thankfully the dubbing by the voice actors and actresses were fair, so it helped cushion the blow.

I have to say that I am enjoying that it is fully drawn Anime, and not a God awful abomination of a mixture between drawn animation and CGI animation.

Thankfully this 2006 foray into the franchise was only running at 108 minutes, and I say "only" here because the previous one ran for 160 minutes.

My rating of director Kenji Kamiyama's 2006 Anime "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society" lands on a six out of ten stars.