Higher, Further, Faster (Captain Marvel, 2019)

Set in the 1995, Vers is a Kree warrior. She struggles with no memory of her life past six years. The Kree are in a war with the shape shifting Skrulls. Vers and a few Skrulls end up on earth, and Vers is in a race against time to locate the MacGuffin. She finds herself allied with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nicholas Fury.

Vers starts to put her life back together with the aid of Fury as the Skrulls close in, all while Vers awaits the arrival of her fellow Kree.

The film is action packed. Captain Marvel (Vers) is one of the more powerful of the Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes, but hardly over powered. The action sequences are pretty exhilarating with good effects. The Skrulls are pretty cool looking, matching fairly closely their comic book counterparts. I really liked their transformation process.

The Relationship of Vers (who learns she if from earth and was named Carol) and her fellow pilot Maria works quite well. In fact, I really like the little team the film assembles. And then there is Goose the cat. Greatest movie cat ever.

The film has Stan Lee’s final cameo and it has an extra layer if you are especially observant. Since this is set after Captain America the First Avenger and before Iron Man, there is a slight bit of prequelitis, where the film acknowledges some stuff that happens in later films. You know…answering the questions we never had. For the most part, these are unobtrusive. But there was really only one bit that really made me groan. The film is largely self contained, so it does not lose to much focus from that.

Captain Marvel has faced some definite hurdles. It got pushed from 2017 to 2019 to make room for other films. The one other film to get moved (the Inhumans) actually went through a drastic change into a television series. Add to that a campaign against the film by certain folks who saw it as the opportunity to send a message to Disney and Marvel about “SJW Politics”. These folks also went on a crusade against star Brie Larson. Larson made a reasonable concern over a lack of diversity in journalists at press junkets, only to have people twist her words into a caricature and accusing her of saying things like she “hoped white men did not see Captain Marvel”. On Jimmy Kimmel, she joked about how she and Sam Jackson “hate the same people” and this was made out to be a reference to fandom (she made no mention of fandom).

Add in attempts to review bomb (put negative reviews of a product in order to create a false view of a majority of negativity. Often this is done to new product from creators who have committed the crime of having opinions) and the film had a bit of an uphill climb.

So…is Captain Marvel a hardcore Feminist and SJW screed?

No. In fact, if that is your perception of the film? Actual Feminism will kill you.

What the film actually is? Quite a lot of fun. No, it does not rewrite the script on the MCU. But I had a great time and the audience I saw it with were very into the film, even clapping after it ended.

March 8, 2019 0

4K Review: Feel the Magic (The Harry Potter 8 Film Collection, 2018)

So, this one is going to be pretty short. I have already explored the films themselves. So here I am just going to look at the set itself.

Really quickly…this is my set-up:

The Television:
Samsung – 49″ Class – LED – NU8000 Series – 2160p – Smart – 4K UHD TV with HDR

The Sound System:
Samsung – 3.1-Channel Soundbar System with 6-1/2″ Wireless Subwoofer and Digital Amplifier – Charcoal Black

4k Ultra High Def Blu-Ray Player:
Sony – UBP-X700 – Streaming 4K Ultra HD Hi-Res Audio Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-Ray Player – Black

The audio in the films includes DTS:X for the 4K discs. With my sound bar, the movies all sounded great. None of the audio was muddled, and I could hear the dialog without the old pain of turning up the volume, only to rush to turn it back down when the action started.

And then there is the picture. The films benefit greatly from the High Dynamic Range treatment. This is especially noticeable in the first five films. This makes sense as they were all a bit more colorful. Honestly, the only film that just does not seem to get anything specialized from the 4k Treatment is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Since the film’s colors are so dreary and desaturated. It is still a good and crisp picture…but it just cannot get the full benefits offered by the HDR. But still, the movies all look great.

The set includes all eight films on 4K Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray with a code to redeem a digital copy. There are no special features included on the discs, though the digital copies do appear to include the “Creating the World of Harry Potter” features included with previous blu-ray sets (at least mine do through Vudu).

I do think the video and audio make the set worth purchasing, but if you value special features, you won’t want to get rid of any earlier sets you might have.

March 7, 2019 0

4K Review: Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid, 1989)

The Little Mermaid is famous for being the film that brought Disney back to prominence as the source of classic animation. With top notch animation and memorable songs, it really earned this reputation. Borrowing from Hans Christian Anderson’s fable, Disney worked its magic by ignoring, you know, the super depressing bits.

But the film’s visual flair, music and vocal performances are effective and charming. Ariel is a lovable lead, you really root for her. In part, Jodi Benson and completed by the fluid animation. The attention paid to Ariel’s body language and facial expressions make her a character the viewer cannot help but adore.

Of course, you cannot ignore one of Disney’s finest villains. Ursula (inspired by John Waters Muse Divine) is a visual treat. Instead of a fish’s tail, Ursula has an octopus body (which doubles as her dress). She is brash and revels in her wickedness in that way only certain villains cannot without losing the audience.

And Menken’s score along with the songs he and Howard Ashman wrote are infection.

Now, what does the new Signature 4k offer? There are some new features, the most notable being Menken sitting down with five of the voice actresses from some of Disney’s biggest hits, including Ariel herself, Jodi Benson. This is not greatly illuminating but it is pretty fun.

The set also imports all the special features from the Diamond edition several years back.

The audio is great, and I don’t have much to say beyond that. The songs sound wonderful and unless you are just using your TV speakers, I did not notice anything that should trouble a viewer.

But what about the video? I was a bit concerned because, as I understand things, Disney simply used the scan of the film from the previous blu-ray edition. And at first, I felt like the 4K picture was not really any stronger than the blu-ray. However, once you get to more colorful sequences, you start seeing the benefits of the High Dynamic Range.

Overall, if you have a 4k TV and player, I think this is a pretty worthy purchase. If this is a double dip, you may want to take that into account. If you don’t care about the new features, then really, you should be fine with your prior blu-ray. The 4k version is not so drastic that you are cheating yourself with the blu-ray.

March 4, 2019 0

Tripping Further

Welcome to March! I have been contemplating this feature for awhile. Since I see a lot of films on Blu-Ray, streaming and 4k Ultra HD Blu-Ray, I plan to review some releases covering not just the film itself, but the full release. I plan to focus this a bit on older films hitting 4k for the first time.

I will explore the special features, the picture and audio quality. Is it worth it? What is included? Does the film benefit from the higher resolution? I hope anyone reading will enjoy and appreciate these reviews and will find them helpful if they are unsure about buying a certain film. Especially in a case where they might be double (or quadruple) dipping.

The first review will be dropping in the next few days.

March 1, 2019 0