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Black Panther (2018)
Somehow Overwhelmed
First would like to note that I rarely leave reviews, but seriously felt that I had to with this one.
First off I went into the cinema only a week late from my original planned date to watch what was undoubtedly (personally) my most anticipated flick of 2018; within which time I had heard a lot of different and also divided reviews from separate people. I had eventually settled on the suggestion that you'll enjoy the movie more, or less, depending on how much the character of 'Black Panther' and setting in the fascinating fictional city of 'Wakanda' appeal to you prior to your first viewing of the movie. I was comfortable with this as, being a massive fan of Marvel comics, I reassured the certainty that T'Challa is my favourite superhero of all time. Because of this it is easy to say that I may very well be biased to the character, however I entered my screening of Black Panther with fairly mediocre expectations of the movie after what I had heard, and it is safe to say that I was absolutely mind blown.
The score, to begin with, is very fitting to the setting which really immerses you into the story. It had an African theme to it, which suits the movie being set near to Kenya and Ethiopia, accompanied by a classic MCU soundtrack to satisfy the whole sci-fi and comic-book action side of it. Unfortunately Toto's "Africa" was not featured, however I did love the end credits tune 'All The Stars' by Kendrick Lamar and SZA which easily connected to the whole Oakland setting and perspective of Erik Killmonger (who is safely now my favourite MCU villain). Killmonger totally kicked ass and stole the show for me, and I adored the tie-in with him being the cousin of T'Challa (Black Panther) himself.
The CGI and special effects were fantastic and clearly had a lot of effort put into them, akin with the stunts performed throughout the movie; all of which packed a punch with certain scenes that seriously took my breath away. Shuri is such a sweetheart and is easily my favourite character, having some of the funniest scenes in the entire flick and the storyline really is fantastic and very true to the Black Panther comics.
Moreover, the ending of the movie genuinely brought a tear to my eye; something which not many TV Shows or movies have done before. I realized upon Black Panther's sacrifice of his own cousin, Erik Killmonger, he was reflecting upon his fathers advice that "it is hard for a good man to be king". This tied in beautifully with the way T'Chaka killed Erik's father in the prologue; but I also loved T'Challa's sense of forgiveness towards Erik upon taking him to witness the sunsets of Wakanda, in order to fulfill his dream created by his father, as the last image he saw before he died. In that scene where T'Challa and Erik sit together and watch the sunset, it was easy to identify the sense of family between them, which I like to think they felt themselves, as cousins, too.
I am easily going to give Black Panther a 9/10, making it my highest ranked Marvel movie ever. You should definitely spend some money on watching this movie, especially if you are a fan of the Marvel universe, and more in particular, Black Panther as a character.
Stranger Things: Chapter One: MADMAX (2017)
Perfect kickstart!
So I just want to first of all make it clear that this review may get a bit soppy at times!
So I have been a MASSIVE fan of Stranger Things ever since the release day of Season 1, when I binge-watched that in a day. I fell in love with it immediately and I am proud to call it my number one TV Show. Obviously I had been long-anticipating the release of Season 2 (Stranger Things 2 as it's now called) and I can remember the very moment I watched the "l'eggo my eggo" trailer for the first time and just about passing out!
So of course, finally after just over a year, Stranger Things 2 is released. My original plan was to do an all-nighter ready for it's release at 8am UK, but that didn't quite go to plan and in the end it was 8pm when I watched it for the first time. Now I have to compress this review into (under) 1000 words, so I'm only going to mention the important parts:
I thought the beginning was very interesting and did leave me curious as to what it was all about. That was of course answered later on in the season, however I thought the Duffer's had a good idea of getting it out of the way first thing. The next mention is how exhilarated I felt when the opening titles came on and I just knew this wasn't my eighth or whatever time watching Season 1, but in fact something completely new.
Seeing Dustin straight after the titles, scurrying around the house looking for quarters was good enough to get me excited, but when Kyle Dixon's and Michael Stein's 'Kids' theme music from Season 1 was reintroduced I must say it was very welcome. I loved the flow of reintroducing the original cast, too!
A quick note on the characters of Billy and Max: Max has quickly grown to become one of my favorite TV characters. Sadie Sink did an amazing job, as did Dacre Montgomery with, well don't even get me started on Billy. But Dacre also gave an incredible performance.
Now, I loved how the 'now memories' were set out and I adored how all the episodes Will was experiencing were portrayed. But onto a (for me) more important note, I'm going to focus on the ending.
I just knew when Hopper was talking to 'someone' in the cabin, I was finally going to see one of my, if not the, most fantastic characters in any feature. When Eleven entered the scene at the end, the whole act combined with the incredible new soundtrack had me so overwhelmed. And as the camera panned out for a final shot of Hopper and El at the table tears genuinely did come to my eyes.
I decided after watching just this episode that Stranger Things had become not only my number 1 TV Show, but my number 1 TV Show and movie COMBINED. The music is so so amazing. It is exceptionally well directed, the characters do justice for Season 1 and storyline and dialogue is so fantastic. Oh, and Steve Harrington's character development (I'll explain in a review for Episode 6) has gained Joe Keery and his character a credible amount of respect and love from me.
In the end, I had an all-nighter that night because I finished the whole Season in one sitting, just like with the first one.
Incredible <3