Movie Roundup: Make-Believe Edition

If you've read the "Year In Review" post from a couple of weeks ago, then you know that I've been a little busy over the last few months. And when you're busy like that, then something's got to give. In my case, one of those things has been going out to the movies. There's been a lot of movies coming out that I've wanted to see, but it's just been a real challenge to find a three-hour-ish block of time in which to leave the house and get that accomplished.

In the meantime, Hollywood has been cranking these things out like there's no tomorrow. And since it's now been six months(!) since the last edition of Movie Roundup, I figured I'd better do a post now before the backlog becomes too large. But how can I do that when I haven't seen the movies in question, you ask? Well, that's where my skill as an author (i.e., professional maker-up-of-things) comes in handy! I'll simply talk about these movies as if I'd seen them, and then when they come out on home video or streaming or cable TV after what feels like a ridiculously short amount of time, I can try to watch them then and see if my actual reactions match what I expected them to be.

As with previous Movie Roundup posts, these are not really reviews, they're just my random thoughts. What will be different this time around, though, is that there won't be any spoilers as such, since I haven't seen the movie I'm offering random thoughts on. Or will there? Oh, and I actually have seen a few of these, so see if you can guess which ones they are. Here we go!

Ant Man and the Wasp

The first Ant-Man movie was actually, at one point, my second-favorite MCU film, so I was pretty stoked to see this one. And for the most part, it didn't disappoint. It was cool to see a separate, standalone adventure that wasn't really connected to the events of Infinity War (at least until the end). Speaking of which, I would say that after adding Infinity War, Black Panther, and this movie to the MCU list, this one probably now slots in somewhere around number nine or so.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

I love this show. Felicity and I even liveblogged an episode of it back in 2014. It's probably the most enjoyable offering by DC, especially with the way it makes fun of itself (although it may have some competition from the Harley Quinn cartoon, the trailer for which I could not stop watching when it came out in October.) So, a feature-length version? Yes please! Okay, yeah, that totally sounds like I haven't gotten around to watching this yet.

Bohemian Rhapsody

My list of best male rock singers of all time - as far as sheer technical prowess is concerned, at least - probably goes something like: (4) Geoff Tate, (3) Steve Perry, (2) Chris Cornell, (1) Freddie Mercury.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

I enjoyed this one a lot more than I was expecting. I especially loved how they retconned the mixed pronunciations of "Han." Also, the alternative version of the usual Star Wars line  "I have a bad feeling about this" put a stupid grin on my face.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Hey, so they took my suggestion to cast Jamie Campbell Bower as Grindelwald! Johnny Depp is still there too, though. Oh well. By the way, if Grindelwald has heterochromia, does that mean he could be a mutant?

I Kill Giants

The film adaptation of one of my all-time favorite graphic novels. I thought they did a great job, especially with the casting. Naturally, there were some pretty big changes (I followed along by reading the graphic novel as I watched the movie), but they were necessary and well-executed for the most part. It probably helped that the author of the graphic novel also wrote the screenplay for the film. Totally deserving of more attention, in my opinion.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

As you probably already know, I'm a sucker for meta, so that scene with all the Disney Princesses was epic.

Aquaman

They actually figured out a way to get the iconic green-and-orange/gold outfit in there! I was thinking that maybe they were going to eschew it completely and just have Jason Momoa go shirtless throughout the whole thing.

Venom

Pretty silly overall, but still fun. I guess you really don't need Spider-Man to make a Venom movie work.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Speaking of Spider-Man, I...okay, I admit, I haven't seen this one yet. But I really want to. The idea of Peter Parker as a grumpy, middle-aged divorcee is both awesome and hilarious.

Whew! So now we're all caught up. Sort of, anyway. The next edition of Movie Roundup will include two movies that I guarantee I will be seeing no matter what, even if I have to ask Joel to perform some time travel magic: Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame.