For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighbourhood hero’s identity is revealed, bringing his Super Hero responsibilities into conflict with his normal life and putting those he cares about most at risk. When he enlists Doctor Strange’s help to restore his secret, the spell tears a hole in their world, releasing the most powerful villains who’ve ever fought a Spider-Man in any universe. Now, Peter will have to overcome his greatest challenge yet, which will not only forever alter his own future but the future of the Multiverse.
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon with Marisa Tomei
Directed by Jon Watts
Based on the MARVEL Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighbourhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon with Marisa Tomei
Oscar nominee Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival,” “Blade Runner 2049”) directs Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ “Dune,” the big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal bestseller of the same name. A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
The film stars Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet (“Call Me by Your Name,” “Little Women”), Rebecca Ferguson (“Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep,” “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”), Oscar Isaac (the “Star Wars” franchise) Oscar nominee Josh Brolin (“Milk,” “Avengers: Infinity War”), Stellan Skarsgård (HBO’s “Chernobyl,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron”), Dave Bautista (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, “Avengers: Endgame”), Stephen McKinley Henderson (“Fences,” “Lady Bird”), Zendaya (“Spider-Man: Homecoming,” HBO’s “Euphoria”), Chang Chen (“Mr. Long,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), David Dastmalchian (“Blade Runner 2049,” “The Dark Knight”), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” Netflix’s “Sex Education”), with Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling (“45 Years,” “Assassin’s Creed”), with Jason Momoa (“Aquaman,” HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), and Oscar winner Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men,” “Skyfall”).
Villeneuve directed “Dune” from a screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Villeneuve and Eric Roth based on the novel of the same name written by Frank Herbert. Villeneuve also produced the film with Mary Parent, Cale Boyter and Joe Caracciolo, Jr. The executive producers are Tanya Lapointe, Joshua Grode, Herbert W. Gains, Jon Spaihts, Thomas Tull, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt and Kim Herbert. Behind the scenes, Villeneuve reteamed with two-time Oscar-nominated production designer Patrice Vermette (“Arrival,” “Sicario,” “The Young Victoria”), two-time Oscar-nominated editor Joe Walker (“Blade Runner 2049,” “Arrival,” “12 Years a Slave”), two-time Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert (“First Man,” “Blade Runner 2049”), and Oscar-winning special effects supervisor Gerd Nefzer (“Blade Runner 2049”). He also collaborated for the first time with Oscar-nominated director of photography Greig Fraser (“Lion,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”); three-time Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West (“The Revenant,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Quills”) and co-costume designer Bob Morgan; and stunt coordinator Tom Struthers (“The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Inception”). Oscar-winning and multiple Oscar-nominated composer Hans Zimmer (“Blade Runner 2049,” “Inception,” “Gladiator,” “The Lion King”) is creating the score.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures Present a Legendary Pictures Production, a Film by Denis Villeneuve, “Dune.” The film is slated to be released in Australian theaters beginning 2 December 2021
For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighbourhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon with Marisa Tomei
Summary: A rogue artificial intelligence kidnaps the son of famed basketball player LeBron James, who then has to work with Bugs Bunny to win a basketball game.
Year: 2021
Cinema Release Dates: 15th July 2021 (Australia), 2nd September 2021 (Thailand), 16th July 2021 (UK), 16th July 2021 (US)
VOD Release Dates: TBA
Country: USA
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Screenwriter: Celeste Ballard, Keenan Cooglar, Jesse Gordon, Terence Nance, Tony Rettenamier, Juel Taylor
Cast: Harper Leigh Alexander (Xosha James), Kenny Apel (Albus Dumbledore), Eric Bauza (Daffy Duck/Porky Pig/Foghorn Leghorn/Elmer Fudd/Marvin The Martian (voice)), Bob Bergen (Tweety Bird (voice)), Jeff Bergman (Bugs Bunny/Slyvester/Yosemite Sam/Fred Flinstone/Yogi Bear (voice)), Sue Bird (herself), Don Cheadle (Al G. Rhythm), Rosario Dawson (Wonder Woman (voice)), Anthony Davis (himself), Kris Davis (Malik), Draymond Green (himself), Jalyn Hall (Young Malik (13 Years)), Wood Harris (Coach C), Gabriel Iglesias (Speedy Gonzales (voice)), LeBron James (himself), Cedric Joe (Dom James), Michael B. Jordan (himself), Stephen Kankole (Young LeBron (13 Years)), Damian Lillard (himself), Sonequa Martin-Green (Kamiyah James), Candi Milo (Granny (voice)), Nneka Ogwumike (himself), Justin Roiland (Rick/Morty (voice)), Xosha Roquemore (Shanice James), Sarah Silverman (Warner Bros. Executive), Mike Strong (Jim West), Fred Tatasciore (Taz (voice)), Diana Taurasi (herself), Klay Thompson (himself), Aja Wilson (himself), Ceyair J. Wright (Darius James), Steve Yuen (Warner Bros. Executive), Zendaya (Lola Bunny (voice))
Running Time: 115 mins
Classification: PG (Australia), U (UK), PG (USA)
OUR SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY REVIEWS
David Griffiths’ Space Jam: A New Legacy Review:
If you a fan of NBA basketball you will know that over the past few years there has been a huge debate over who deserves to be called the greatest basketballer of all time. Is the great man of the 80s and 90s – six time championship winner Michael Jordan. Is it the sadly deceased Koby Bryant or is it the man quickly closing in on Jordan’s championship and MVP records – LeBron James.
Well know Warner Bros. have entered a new chapter into that debate. First Michael Jordan was the star of the orginal Space Jam movie back in 1996 and now they have made LeBron James the star of its sequel – Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Storywise the brand new film is pretty basic. James plays himself although in this world he is at logger-heads with his youngest son Dom (Cedric Joe – Loving Him). Dom is a gifted young video game maker who wants to attend an elite Gamers Camp while LeBron wants his son to follow in his footsteps and to attend a Basketball Camp.
Those two worlds then collide when Warner Bros. high successful algorithm, literally a digital figure named Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle – Crash), makes the decision that the company needs to hire LeBron and digitally insert him into some classic shows and movies. LeBron laughs and rejects the idea and in anger Al G. Rhythm lures both he and his son into the Warner Bros. world where he challenges him to a basketball game to show who has the ‘skills.’
Al G. Rhythm then sets out to create a super-team using the nearly unbeatable players that Dom has created for his game while LeBron is reduced to putting together a team with the forgotten Looney Tunes stars – including the fan favourites Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Roadrunner.
The premise behind the film is basic but somehow director Malcolm D. Lee (Girl’s Trip) manages to make it all work. It is obvious that the film is supposed to be a vehicle to not only bring the Looney Tunes back to into popularity with a younger generation but to also showcase the entire WB World. There are a plethora of characters appearing from other WB franchises throughout this film so no you aren’t seeing things if you suddenly see King Kong or Voldermort appear… and at times the film itself plays up to that with heavy references to films such as The Matrix.
While some may view that as a negative it does actually become a positive for the film because it ends up meaning that this is a film that can be enjoyed by the whole family. In fact you could argue that while this is clearly a film aimed at kids it is a film that will largely be loved by adults because of the nostalgia factor. If your kids are not fans of basketball or haven’t raided your own Looney Tunes VHS collection then chances are they are going to wonder what on Earth is happening throughout the film.
Of course what WB is actually hoping for is that your kids will fall in love with the good old Looney Tunes characters off the back of this film and that is something that could certainly happen. The animation team behind the film do change-up things up during the film and try to make the Looney Tunes characters look more modern and to a certain extent it does work.
The other big question that people are going to wonder going into this film is does LeBron James have the acting ability to pull off a movie like this. The simple answer to that is yes, the long answer is don’t expect to see him in any Oscar winning roles anytime soon. James does what it takes to make this film work and he is more than passable even in scenes where he has to reach for his emotions. The man who steals the show though is Don Cheadle who seems to be channelling Jack Nicholson’s performance in The Witches Of Eastwick throughout the film.
To sum up Space Jam: A New Legacy is not a waste of time but be prepared as an adult to get more out of this film than your kids will. It’s loud, it’s funny and at times is a walk down memory lane.
Oscar nominee Denis Villeneuve directs Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ “Dune,” the big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal bestseller of the same name.
A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
DUNE stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, David Dastmalchian, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling with Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem.
DUNE releases in Australia and New Zealand in cinemas on December 26, 2020.
Summary: Peter Parker balances his life as an ordinary high school student in Queens with his superhero alter-ego Spider-Man, and finds himself on the trail of a new menace prowling the skies of New York City.
Year: 2017
Australian Cinema Release Date: 7th July 2017
Australian DVD Release Date: 18th October 2017
Country: United States
Director: Jon Watts
Screenwriter: John Francis Daley, Christopher Ford, Jonathan Goldstein, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jon Watts, Steve Ditko (original comic book), Jack Kirby (original comic book), Stan Lee (original comic book), Joe Simon (original comic book)
Cast: Isabella Amara (Sally),Tunde Adebimpe (Mr. Cobbwell), Abraham Attah (Abe), Michael Barbieri (Charles), Jacob Batalon (Ned), Garcelle Beauvais (Doris Toomes), Christopher Berry (Randy), Hannibal Buress (Coach Wilson), Michael Chernus (Phineas Mason/The Tinkerer), Kenneth Choi (Principal Morita), Kerry Condon (Friday (voice)), Jennifer Connolly (Karen/Suit Lady (voice)), Tyne Daley (Anne Marie Hoag), Ethan Dizon (Tiny), Robert Downey Jnr. (Iron Man/Tony Stark),Tiffany Espensen (Cindy),Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America),Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan),Donald Glover (Aaron Davis),Laura Harrier (Liz),Tom Holland (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Michael Keaton (Adrian Toomes/Vulture), Stan Lee (Gary), Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (Jason), Selenis Leyva (Ms. Warren), Hemke Madera (Mr. Delmar), Michael Mando (Mac Gargan), Logan Marshall-Green (Jackson Brice/Shocker #1),Nitin Nohria (Dean Crimson), Gwenyth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), John Penick (Mr. Hapgood), Tony Revolori (Flash), Angourie Rice (Betty), Martin Starr (Mr. Harrington), Marisa Tomei (May Parker), J.J. Totah (Seymour), Gary Weeks (Agent Foster), Bokeem Woodbine (Herman Schultz/Shocker #2), Zendaya (Michelle)
Runtime: 133 mins
Classification: PG
OUR SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING REVIEWS & RATINGS:
Kyle McGrath’s Spider-Man: Homecoming Review:
Spider-Man: Homecoming follows the title character and his alter ego Peter Parker on his early steps of becoming the hero he yearns to be. After being enlisted by Tony Stark/Iron Man to assist in Captain America: Civil War (2016) Peter Parker is dropped off home, given a shiny new Spider-Man costume and pretty much told “don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Ambitious to prove himself worthy of being an Avenger he sets out to fight crime wherever he can while also struggling with the pitfalls of being an otherwise normal high school kid. His enthusiasm may soon gets the better of him when he discovers an underground operation in dealing weapons made from the stolen technology leftover from previous Avengers battles.
The elephant in the room with Spider-Man Homecoming is that this is the 3rd big screen incarnation of Spider-Man since 2002. This time the web crawler officially being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The previous films each had their ups and downs but the general consensus seems to be that Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films were better with Tobey Maguire making a better Peter Parker whereas The Amazing Spider-Man films found a better Spider-Man performance in Andrew Garfield with some other fan preferences such as Gwen Stacy as a love interest rather than skipping straight to Mary Jane Watson and mechanical web-shooters rather than organic (a distinction I never cared about).
Spider-Man Homecoming brings some new interesting things to the table while some others feel weaker. I believe Tom Holland walks the line quite well and works quite well as the younger less experienced and still in high school Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
Otherwise the films visuals and musical score felt a little generic never coming close to standing out as well as Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman did all the way back in 2002. Speaking of which the CGI of Homecoming itself looks not much better after 15 years of technological progress, often characters looking like something from a computer game or the transition between CGI to live action, such as Michael Keaton’s character leaving his “Vulture” wingsuit, appears quite jarring. Most of these large CGI sequences seem to take place at night too, it could have just been poor lighting in my cinema but it was extremely dark and felt like a possible shortcut with CGI usually looking more real with less lighting.
The film’s story itself reminded me of Kick-Ass be it without the style or comedy of Matthew Vaughn & Mark Millar with Peter trying to be a “friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man”. I found this to be an interesting new take on the character and something we’ve not yet seen in the MCU: a small time loser hero trying to do his thing in the shadow of giants like Thor, The Hulk or Captain America.
With any reboot certain changes had to be made so that the filmmakers aren’t just making the same film again. Flash Thompson Esther than being a stereotypical jock bully and symbol of everything Peter wished he could be is now a weedy little prick. The once elderly aunt May is now “hot aunt May” as the characters like to remind us and the less said about the new “MJ” the better.
Other major changes are that this is not another origin story. Rather picking up in the middle of Peter’s journey of self discovery as a super hero. An issue here is that while films like Tim Burton’s Batman or even the MCU’s The Incredible Hulk showed you don’t NEED to do an origin story to introduce your hero, you still do need to introduce them and Homecoming really does not. The feeling is that Spider-Man’s powers and back story don’t need to be given much thought because they’ve been done to death already. Well too bad. This is potentially people’s FIRST Spider-Man film and outside influences shouldn’t play any part in it. Not giving a proper set up because everyone should already know is like not introducing Harry Potter correctly in the film adaptation of Philosophers Stone because “well everyone’s read the book right?”
Peter’s character development this time comes more from his desire to prove himself than his feelings of guilt over his indirect involvement in his uncle’s death like before. This was an interesting change but to be honest the time Peter spends in this naive phase goes on way too long and most of the film seems to be him rescuing people from disasters he himself caused or his selfishly helping people in the first place only because he seeks glory and to be considered one of The Avengers. This would be like if Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins stayed in “scared angry man with a gun mode” until nearly the end of the film.
I think Peter himself is obsessed so much with the Avengers as a symptom of this film being obsessed with being considered part of the MCU. Again it’s an interesting way to approach at first but the Avengers just overshadow EVERYTHING in this film. Even the film’s title itself seems to more reference a “return home to the MCU” than anything in the film itself. The very first thing you see is a child’s drawing of them and the very last thing you’ll see is a post credits cameo from one of them and rarely 10 minutes will go by without some reference to them. Spider-Man’s motivation revolves around them, the film’s antagonist revolves around them and Tony Stark while barely making much of an appearance in the film is still focused on more than Michael Keaton as The Vulture leading to him feeling like a lackluster villain. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad he didn’t just want to turn the whole city into birds using a gas or something but when his entire scheme is spending 8 years stealing Avengers related tech, turning it into odd weapons and selling it out of the back of a van to random street thugs under bridges I have to ask “who cares?”.
The worst part of this is that the movie barely feels like it stars Spider-Man at all. Even his suit is some sort of Tony Stark designed super tech nonsense which only manages to downplay the ACTUAL superpowers Peter is supposed to have. Effectively he’s a super strong, super agile kid in a suit with a bunch of gadgets. It may as well also be what allows him to walk up walls as it does everything else for him!
If the film can’t go 10 minutes without an Avengers reference it also can’t seem to go 30 seconds without making a funny. In some kind of spray ‘n pray approach to comedy Homecoming is so afraid of being seen as taking itself too seriously that it hardly ever allows a scene to end without some gag tacked on just for the sake of it. Comedy relief only really works if you allow tension to build in the first place and when there are multiple gags happening it just drives a truck through the middle of a scene that’s designed to have you on the edge of your seat. Then when the big heavy scenes come along such as Michael Keaton trying to be intimidating they just don’t work. The film hasn’t earned that response from the audience because any other time it came close to a similar tone someone immediately then had to slip on a banana peel.
Spider-Man Homecoming unfortunately doesn’t hold a candle to Sam Raimi’s 2002 film. It’s lacking as an introduction to this new Spider-Man and feels too focused on latching on to the hugely popular MCU films to be comfortable in telling its own story and too eager to make its audience laugh to build any drama for its underdeveloped characters. As an addition to the mountain of superhero films it’s entertaining enough and different enough to warrant a viewing but not interesting enough to be very memorable.
Average Subculture Rating:
IMDB Rating:
Other Subculture Entertainment Spider-Man: Homecoming Reviews: N/A
