"Spider Man Into The Spider Verse" PG
Sony and some other studios, and a little Marvel, teamed up to make an animated comic book come to life in this origin story for Miles Morales, the Puerto Rican Spider Boy, who's uncle turns out to be a villain, and the blocky Kingpin gets to kill one of the Spider Men while opening a machine to suck other people from various dimensions into his, partly to save his family. The 'blurry art' and rfrantic pacing at times can be distracting, but the five versions of Spider People are interesting, and their team up is amazing. You even have Noir Spider Man and Spider Ham the pig, and Spider Gwen, and Penny Parker from the Japanese one. See it in theaters. Own it on bluray. Great film.
"Bumblebee" PG
It took the makers of Transformers 5 tries to get it right. The fans had it right all along. The sixth movie in the franchise of live action films is a spin off taking place in 1987, sort of a reboot, done by a director who knows what he's doing for once. Think ET meets Herbie the Love Bug meets Transformers. The heart of this movie is in the right place, from the stunning opening scene, on Cybertron, to the downed soldier alien who has to pretend to be a beat up VW bug to blend in, and befriends a young woman shy of her turning 18. Charlie is the Carly the show needed 10 years ago. The character needs to be a kind of unsure nerd, but not overly bombastic about it. It works. The Decepticons are two right out of the fan stories, even some of mine, and are edgy in the right places, and have actual gravity, unlike in the Bay versions. Bumblebee actually was a chattery duyde in the G1, but that's forgiven enough. The flick is worth seeing in theaters and owning on bluray.
"Aquaman" PG 13
The DC universe does a retro origin story for Aquaman, one of the most powerful and yet silliest characters in their arsenal, played by a buffed wrestler type dude, seen in the Justice League movie. He is similar to Bane, more so than Aquaman. His story seems a pastiche of The Little Mermaid, complete with redhead sidekick, with ineffective father figure, Thor's Asgard, and Black Panther's Wakanda. Distracting visuals make for enough of an adventure and enough chansing it' not boring, but it can be overlong with the forced chemistry from the leads. And also the ending rips of How to Train your Dragon 2, and Thor 2. Also there are some pacing issues. It's better than their usual fare, one to see in theaters, but it is not as good as Wonder Woman or the Batman movies. The delightful Lovecraftian squid monster was fun. The prissy king wanna be that constantly challenges the lead, and the questionable Black Manta, are noted as being stereotypes. But the story still works.
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