Movie Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse may not be as good as First Class or Days of Future Past, but I interestingly didn't feel disappointed all that much either. The film covered familiar themes with a fairly solid narrative and impressively strong cast, but the pacing felt clunky as it took a lot of time to set things up and the struggle to find its tone and focus was noticeable. The writing was also a tad uneven especially Apocalypse's dialogue, which at times were reduced to a bunch of cliches. The excellent cast made the material work though. Michael Fassbender was outstanding adding a great deal of pain and tragedy to his character. James McAvoy and Sophie Turner were also pretty terrific, as well as Evan Peters who stole the show once again with Quicksilver. Of course, the visuals were good and that's already a given. Was X-Men: Apocalypse a reboot? A sequel to a prequel? A final chapter to a trilogy? I don't know, but it was, on it's own, a decent X-Men film. 7

DAM NATION: May 2016 Playlist

It took a while, but here's another list of 15 songs that I (personally) fancy, that are already doing good on it's own and maybe some new singles from different artists that will probably - or maybe not - be hits in the next coming weeks in whatever format.

Enjoy!

1 Can't Stop The Feeling! Justin Timberlake

2 Me Too Meghan Trainor

3 Crush Yuna (ft. Usher)

4 The Fighter Keith Urban (ft. Carrie Underwood)

5 Hair Little Mix (ft. Sean Paul)

6 I Found A Girl The Vamps (ft. OMI)

7 True Colors Zedd (ft. Kesha)

8 Needed Me Rihanna

9 When I'm Gone Before You Next

10 If I Ever Fall In Love Pentatonix (ft. Jason Derulo)

11 Just Like Fire P!nk

12 Write On Me Fifth Harmony

13 All I Ask Adele

14 Into You Ariana Grande

15 This Is What You Came For Calvin Harris (ft. Rihanna)

DAM NATION

Password: The last movie DAM NATION reviewed prior to this post?

The Voice 10: Top 8

Not sure what it was - maybe it's the looming bloodbath? - but almost everyone seemed to be on their best form tonight. So while the usual suspects were still underwhelming, the rest delivered some strong performances hoping to snatch one of those coveted Final 4 slots. At this point, I'm still not sure who'll prevail - although there are obvious choices - but I expect some shockers tomorrow especially given how close the rankings currently are on iTunes.

On with the show!

The Voice 10: Top 9

Surprise! Surprise! This wasn't a terrible episode! Yes, there were a couple of weak performances and one that's annoyingly over-the-top, but for the most part, it was a pretty good week. Maybe their setting themselves up for a bloodbath that will happen next week? I don't know, but it's a good sign, right?

On with the show!

The Voice 10: Top 10

This season is turning out to be fairly disappointing. What happened? Yes, I've been b*tching about how underwhelming this season has become since the live shows started and yet, nothing! The quality of performances tonight were too extreme - you have an incredibly BAD performance and something impressively outstanding - and I can't wrap my head around it. Can they finish this season already? Somehow, I'm looking forward to the Miley Cyrus-Alicia Keys season.

On with the show!

Movie Review: Captain America: Civil War

I went into Captain America: Civil War with unfairly gargantuan expectations, and somehow, the film managed to exceed all of them, which is rare in the realm of tiring sequels and lazy remakes. The narrative was simple but tightly focused, the script sparked up the exposition with some sparkling dialogue, and the characters were very well defined. It was astoundingly impressive how the film managed to fit in so many 'big' characters into one film and yet it never felt unbalanced and convoluted - there was a fluid coherence to everything that was quite striking. On a technical standpoint, the film, as expected, was beyond reproach from the flawless visual effects down to the spectacularly choreographed action sequences. Captain America: Civil War was an absurdly entertaining action spectacle that may just be, bar none, the best superhero movie ever! This made me do something increasingly rare in these over-franchised times - root for a sequel. Ha. 10

Movie Review: The Huntsman: Winter's War

No, The Hunstman: Winter's War was far from being a great movie, but it remained to be a perfectly watchable one. The visual imagery was exquisite, the cinematography was glorious, the costume design was stunningly beautiful, some of the fight choreography looked awesome, and Charlize Theron was absolutely crazy majestic. The film somehow overreached though as the story departed more radically from the context of the classic, but I also can't deny that the concept to turn this fairy tale into a straightforward fantasy-adventure was strangely appealing. If only the execution of the plot was handled better and not rely heavily on lame genre tropes, the movie would've had a stronger emotional foothold. The Hunstman: Winter's War may be flawed and somewhat disjointed, but it was aesthetically confident and quite entertaining. That is all. 7