*SPOLIER ALERT*

Captain America: Civil War released on May 5th of this year. This was actually one of my highest anticipated movies of this year, and because of that, I wanted to go to the premiere. I got the chance to do so the Thursday night it came to theaters around the globe. Fun fact, I was at the IMAX experience for this movie and I have to point out that if you see it in IMAX, there is a scene in which the aspect ratio of the screen will expand to fill up the screen. I’m not sure if this applies to all IMAX locations because I saw this in digital IMAX at an AMC which is actually not as clear as other IMAX theaters, so that’s saying something. Anyways, just a little tidbit for you. The overall story of the movie is reflecting upon the events of the previous Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. It basically takes moments where civilians are affected during big fights that we saw throughout the movies. Now these aren’t shown as movie shots from those movies that were just moved into this movie for the sake of reflection, these actually had camera footage that looked less fancy, and a bit shaky, and it shows that the folks behind this movie knew what to do during that scene and avoid laziness. Captain America and Iron Man had different opinions on this particular matter so they get into some discussions and we have one side of the movie’s plot.

Another side of the plot has to do with what happened to the last movie’s antagonist, Bucky, or the Winter Soldier if you prefer to call him that. Now I will remind you, I have only seen the second Captain America movie once, so I apologize if I get some of the facts wrong. At the end of the second movie, Captain America is saved by Bucky from being harmed in a river, and they meet in a museum together in an end credits scene. Now in the third movie, they are labeled as friends. Sure, they disagreed with each other throughout the movie, but they were still companions, as suggested at an important hint of dialogue which I won’t state. There’s more to Bucky than this but I don’t want to get into too many spoilers.

Now one thing this movie does very well is introduce certain characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For example, Black Panther is introduced in this movie. T’Challa, the man behind the mask, had a motivation to join Tony Stark’s side that was shown pretty clearly in the movie to become this hero that once again, would probably get some people mad because of spoilers. The first scene with this guy in action was not the best action scene in the movie, but it definitely did give me some thrills.

Now we get to my favorite part of this movie, for fanboy reasons and criticism reasons, the introduction of Peter Parker. As you may or may not know, Spider Man was brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2015. He wasn’t in any movies that year, after all, it would have been a struggle to put him in based on how production works, but he was in this movie, and I am at a loss for words. THIS is Spider-Man. Spider-Man was played by Tom Holland, and when he took on this role, he was in his teen years, which totally worked considering Parker himself is a teenage boy. If you have seen or heard about the other Spider-Man live action interpretations, you may notice that Spider-Man was played by an adult. I personally don’t have a problem with it because of how they did it. As matter of fact, Spider-Man 2 is my favorite movie of all time so I can’t say anything negative about it. Although when I was watching the movie, I suddenly got the vibe that Spider-Man was a nerdy teenage boy. Spider-Man was actually asked by Tony Stark to join in on the fight, and he says “I can’t, I’ve got… homework.” That is ME in a nutshell, a nerd who always tries to put homework before anything else (except family). Also another thing about him, apparently Spider-Man has been around for a few months, which was something I saw coming when going to see this movie, and when the video of him flying around on the streets is shown, you get a glimpse of Spidey’s suit, it looked horrible. Now, I for one don’t have a problem with this. Why? Because this guy is a teenager. Looking at Spider-Man’s suit here is like looking at a movie made for a high school class. It’s very junky compared to what someone around the age of adulthood could possibly make. Although Spider Man wears a better looking suit in this movie, which I can see considering there’s more people to help him now.

You know that fight you may have seen in the final shot of the trailer to this movie? The one where all the heroes are coming up to each other and about to throwdown? Yeah, that one. This may be one of the greatest throwdowns in movie history. It shows what the heroes can do to each other, and what some of the newer heroes can do. Also when it comes to unleashing everyone’s personality, it’s done pretty well, especially with Spider-Man. If you’ve read the comics you probably remember Spider-Man always ranted during battles. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some of the things Spidey says. Some examples include (after Captain America uses his shield) “That thing doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all!” (stands on top of vehicle with Captain America’s shield in hand) “Hey Cap (points), big fan.” (holds Bucky’s hand in self defense) “You have a metal arm? That is awesome!” There are more than just what I stated, but I don’t want to reveal every little detail about this magnificent character. Am I overstating myself and going on for too long about Spider-Man? Personally, I don’t think so. This is a guy that you should your eyes and ears towards throughout the film.

Before going into this movie, there were two teams that fans of Marvel, and this upcoming movie joined in particular. The teams were: Team Cap (short for Team Captain America), and Team Iron Man. I can’t back myself up with much evidence here so I’ll speak for myself. I was on Team Iron Man for the hero in general, in fact, just to show that off, for the two times I saw this movie, I wore an Iron Man t-shirt. Although when watching this movie, and when walking out of it for the first time, I was able to root for both heroes. I stand by my statement that Iron Man is the better hero, but Captain America in this movie, had a more likable motivation. Also, the last half-hour of this film, I have to say, it started out dull, then it got nitty-gritty real fast for a big reason. The change in tone made me really pumped and the dialogue sugarcoats it. The CGI in this film is some of the best I’ve seen in a movie. Everything moved so fast and it is not used to fill up the screen. It’s kind of like the film’s darker moments, the film is not R, but the film uses certain tones at the correct times, and I personally don’t see how they can be changed.

In the end, Captain America: Civil War is the best Captain America movie I’ve seen to date, one of the best Marvel movies I’ve seen to date, and also one of the best movies I’ve seen in general. I give Captain America: Civil War a 10/10. As of right now, I consider the Captain America movies to be Marvel’s answer to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. I don’t have enough data to say whether each trilogy is exactly the same in terms of ratings of each movie in rank, but audiences seem to have liked Batman Begins, disliked The First Avenger, liked the sequels to those movies better than the original, and the movie after that according to most people for the Batman trilogy wasn’t as great as the second but better than the first. For what I know, Civil War was better than The First Avenger according to most people, but do audiences like it more or less than The Winter Soldier? I don’t know, something to think about. I really enjoyed this movie, I highly recommend it to big action lovers, and anyone who is looking for a good movie that they’ll remember for a long time. Stay tuned for more reviews. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Hardcore Henry is a rather unique film. I saw this last Sunday and the thought I had on my mind was if the first person aspect was going to work. In all honesty, it did for the type of movie it was. Keeping that in mind, it wasn’t really the best movie in the world. I saw this last Sunday in the afternoon. I already had seats reserved, and I was waiting for the screen to stop with the commercials, to play a video game in the cinema (sort of). If you have no familiarity with this movie, it is the movie equivalent to FPS games such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Star Wars: Battlefront, Half-Life, Halo, etc. This is due to the fact that the entire movie with the exception of a couple scenes, is in a first person view, which is the view in which all of those games are presented in. When I say first person view, I don’t mean that the main character is narrating throughout the movie’s entirety, but you see the movie from his eyes and the view is as if you, the viewer, are actually seeing what Henry’s seeing.

Let’s go over the characters, Henry is basically never actually fully seen throughout the whole movie. You see parts of him, such as his legs, hands, arms, etc. His wife that you are introduced to at the beginning of the movie provides a very interesting vibe for what’s to come. The way she’s talking makes you kind of feel like you actually are Henry. I’m a single teen, but in this moment, I felt like I was actually double my age, and married. I kind of liked the supporting characters, they were kind of interesting, although one of them I won’t mention, kind of confused me in terms of plot.

The action in this movie, is pretty cool to see. The action in this movie is constant and while it may get boring in some movies, it was fun to see what would happen. Like for example Henry would get punched in the face and it would feel like you were punched in the face too. Although I admit, when it came to explosions, I wish Henry’s ears were ringing, after all, this movie is essentially virtual reality in a sense, while VR machines such as Oculus Rift don’t really do this, it would be interesting for this movie to focus on the sense of hearing as well. Also when Henry was flying in the air it was like you were being force pushed off a cliff and hitting a random object, so that intrigued me.

Also fun fact, stay for the credits. There’s no end credit scene so when I say that, I essentially mean stay for the beginning when the cast comes up. In the cast, it says that nobody actually played the main character, Henry. Sources suggest that several stuntmen and cameramen took turns playing him. I don’t know, just thought that was interesting. Speaking of cameramen, the entire movie was shot on a GoPro, which is not that commonplace for a movie. Surprisingly it didn’t take much away from the movie at all. Also, I saw this movie in a theater with reclined seating, and I had the extension all the way back and front, the question I ask myself now is if the action would have felt any bit different if it were viewed from a standard chair. If I see it again I’ll find out.

Next thing I want to touch upon is the ending, without spoiling much, the music could have been better and personally I felt like Henry was kind of a lunatic in the ending, specifically at the VERY END. It personally reminded me of what experienced people think of younger people who play Grand Theft Auto. Although at the same time, I’m wondering if this would have been better if this was a video game. After all, the main character had no voice in the film, it’s in first person, and everyone else is talking around you. Those are cliches you’d find in multiple modern day video games.

In the end, I found Hardcore Henry to be an entertaining film, there were problems involving the plot, the story, some sequences fell flat (not going for humor by the way), but I can still give credit to the crew trying to unleash what they believe is a revolutionary style of filmmaking. I give Hardcore Henry a 6/10. Now that I think about it, this almost reminds me of Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino, although instead of “going back in time” to make their movie, they go after unused ideas. I say this because if you’ve seen either one of these two directors’ movies, instead of using the digital cameras most people use today, they use film. Not to mention, they try to get modern day cinemas to play the movie in film, and that brings a different experience to a movie rather than a traditional movie we’ve probably seen recently. That’s all for the review, but just a reminder if you’re going to see this movie, just be sure not to bring your grandparents. There were signs entering the theater stating this movie can cause motion sickness, so keep that in mind. Remember, Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

“Who is Spider-Man? He’s a criminal, that’s who he is!” In the new “Captain America: Civil War” trailer, a lot was on the minds of the viewers. We got to see an important part of the plot that may affect the movie in a big way, we got to see Ant-Man for the first time, if not the first “noticeable” time, because I didn’t notice him in the first trailer. Not to mention, we got to see a bunch of Avengers in action fighting against each other, not that we haven’t seen that in the first trailer, but in here, it’s actually more memorable based on the choices of shots put into this trailer. Although perhaps the biggest thing on everyone’s mind, is the first look at Spider-Man. If you are wondering why Spider-Man is in this movie? Sony is the responsible studio for all of the Spider-Man movies, which include Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy and Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” films. The second of the “Amazing Spider-Man” movies was a bit of a letdown for hardcore fans. From common opinion, it was for the same reason as “Spider-Man 3”, that being that the film had too many villains. In “Spider-Man 3” the villains included: Harry/New Green Goblin, Sandman, and Venom, which interestingly enough didn’t even have his villain name mentioned ONCE during the film. In “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” the villains included Electro, Green Goblin, and Rhino (which was in only ONE SCENE and the movie ended up cutting to black and credits). “Spider-Man 3” got a lot of negative criticism from fans so Sony ended up rebooting it with “The Amazing Spider-Man” which released 5 years after that movie. Now the fans, while it doesn’t seem to be as rampant as “Spider-Man 3”,  happen to hate this movie too. From what I’ve heard, it’s more of a disappointment instead of hating it off the charts, but fans still detest it. One year after the release of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” it was announced that Marvel Studios got ahold of the rights to put Spider-Man in their movies. Sony still owns him too and they actually have the right to make movies based around the character himself, but Marvel can still put the character in any of their films. Fans were unbelievably happy to hear this. Another reboot will be made too, but it isn’t that much of a complaint among most fans, myself included. Now, we’re here. One thing I want to go over is Spider-Man’s costume design. When I saw “The Amazing Spider Man,” that was my favorite Spider-Man costume design, it was one of the darkest ones I’ve seen, and those eyes were pretty sweet. The eyes are kind of interesting on this one too. When Spider-Man speaks in the trailer, the size of his eyes (specifically the white part) changes from big to small. I’m honestly OK with this, I may have to get used to it because despite being OK, it most certainly would not be my first choice for a costume such as this. It works better with Deadpool in my opinion. Next up is the actor playing Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland. For the upcoming Spider-Man reboot, the casting crew was seeking an actual teenager, since that is the age group Peter Parker can be associated with. This is a difference from the other Spider-Men we’ve seen: Tobey Maguire (Approximately a decade older than Peter’s assumed age when filming the first Spider-Man), and Andrew Garfield (Around Tobey’s age when he filmed “Spider-Man 2” when Andrew himself was filming the first “Amazing-Spider Man”). People wanted Asa Butterfield to play him, but they were let down when he didn’t get the chance. Although from the one line I heard from Holland, I can’t say much about him, but I don’t think I’ll be disappointed. Now that I think about it, I might be a little scared for what people might think of Spider-Man’s appearance. This is based on my prediction on his role in the movie. I have a feeling that he might just end up being a cameo for the sake of fan service. I understand this movie is revolving around mostly Captain America and Iron Man (despite his name not appearing in the title), but it would be nice to introduce Spider-Man to the Marvel Studios universe with at least a few memorable minutes of screen time. I could go on, but I don’t want to ramble. What are your thoughts on Spider-Man? What do you think will be his role in “Civil War?” What do you think of his costume? How do you feel about Tom Holland? Did you cry when Asa Butterfield got rejected? Leave a comment and stay tuned for more posts!

Just last week, the first trailer for the new Ghostbusters movie has released, and what did fans think about it? After seeing it a few times, checking back for curiousity reasons, scouring more than one video on YouTube of that trailer and watching a few reactions, I can just see that fans of this movie will bash all over it. I personally believe in reboots, I think they can be done right under certain circumstances. For example, I enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory released made in 2005 (I know, bad example, but it’s one of my favorite movies). Although with the case of the new Ghostbusters coming out this year, I have a feeling this movie is going to ruin the franchise. Just to clarify, I have not seen the original Ghostbusters nor did I see its sequels, I saw the beginning of the first one but I fell asleep. Although I know a few things about the movie to make me somewhat aware of what the movie is like. First thing I’m going to state is the new female characters, the actresses I know of the female leads are Kate McKinnon and Mellissa McCarthy, I somewhat appreciate McKinnon for how she was as Hillary Clinton on SNL, but for McCarthy, while I do recognize why people like her, she wouldn’t be my first choice as a humorous actress, and that is saying something, because in a way this is supposed to be a comedy. Sure, you can also say it is an action movie, but it is also a comedy. I don’t know the rating for this movie considering how it has yet to be announced. I’d guess it’s PG or PG-13 once the time comes for the MPAA to make a decision, but I kind of see this as an action movie, but it’s also one that you would take your family to see. I mean why not? It has elements of horror movies that look unbelievably cartoony. Now for other characters I will have to go off of that African American that says an Exorcist reference at the end (Leslie Jones), in the movie she plays a girl named Patty. She says she “knows New York” in the trailer, now here’s one thing I’m wondering based off of this. I have not seen the original movie, but this leads me to wonder what would happen if all of these ghosts spread out into another city, perhaps Boston or Las Vegas or even Paris. Will they have to find someone who knows the area in that region? To be honest, if I go see this movie this summer, out of all the movies I see this year, I think this will be my least favorite character of all the movies I’ve seen and will see this year. Now one thing that caught my eye in the trailer was the CGI. All of the ghosts in this movie have a cartoony vibe to them thanks to how they look in CGI. The effects, while they actually do look impressive, look like they are a bit overdone. It kind of reminds me a bit of the Star Wars prequels. Surprisingly I have not yet mentioned the very beginning of the trailer. I imagine fanboys everywhere thinking either thoughts of confusion, anger, or ignorance. It says in the beginning “Thirty years ago four scientists saved New York.” and not to mention “A new team will answer the call.” Then we get to see the female team we are going to have to care about in this movie, I imagined that was the first part of the trailer where fanboys lost their minds, and it wasn’t going to be the last. Let’s talk about the comedy in the trailer. I didn’t laugh once. There you go. What more can you ask for? Next up is something I noticed while watching a reaction video, there is product placement in the trailer. It is certainly noticable to have product placement in movies, especially those directed by Michael Bay. This is not a Michael Bay movie, and I’m beginning to wonder if stuff like this will become more noticable. Then again, the scene this happened in actually took place in Times Square so I guess it MAY be OK (Really shot in Massachusetts). I must say now that this trailer is starting to remind me of another summer blockbuster that I actually enjoyed, but others trashed, that blockbuster being “Pixels.” First off, Sony is involved with both those movies, the fonts in the trailers are similar, if not exactly the same, not to mention the style the movies convey themselves. I went into Pixels realizing that it was actually a comedy, when I was hoping it would also be an action movie. The movie succeeded in that manner. Also, the lead characters are also in similar “battle” outfits, just like the lead protagonists of Pixels. I don’t have much more to say about this trailer, but let’s go on towards the very end. We see the title about to appear, it shows the well known ghost behind a circle with a line, but guess what they didn’t show? THE ACTUAL TITLE. I don’t remember ANY trailer where that has happened. Perhaps those who worked on the movie, or at least the trailer thought everyone knew what that symbol meant so they may have thought, “Eh I don’t care, they’ll figure it out.” I did, but part of me feels this is inexcusable. On the bright side, we still don’t know if the title is not in the movie. We’ll just have to see in July or whenever I see this movie. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen such a poorly received trailer in my life, especially for something that is such a big blockbuster such as this. I haven’t seen this movie, but I will go as far to say that even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot from 2014 might even look better than this judging from the trailers, and I heard that movie was awful (unless you were a kid). This new Ghostbusters trailer had very little to impress me with, some of the CGI looks pretty good. What about everything else? I just don’t believe this. I have a feeling that if this actually does become a box office success, it would only be because families went to see it, and fanboys wanted to roast it to death, although there is no talking in the theater so I’m not too sure about that. I have absolutely no hype for this movie, and if you’re planning to see this movie, let me remind you that if you see this movie and you hate it, you might think back to what you have read here today. What did you think of this trailer? Fanboys, admit you ripped it to shreads, I know nothing about these movies, but I’m here to talk (insert smiley face here).