Rekt Reviews

Today we dissect the Marvel TV show "Legion" on FX. This series is incredibly heady, with a higher than usual barrier to entry. In fact, it took Erik and Shark about 2 episodes before really getting on board. Cinematically gorgeous, with a fantastic soundtrack, Legion looks at the B-Side of the X-Men universe, focusing on the psychological, psychedelic and psychotic elements of mutant superpowers.The show is very much unlike anything else on TV and perhaps can best be described as an LSD trip shared among Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubric and Stan Lee. If that sounds like your cup of electric Kool-Aid, you owe it to yourself to give it a viewing.

Erik, Paul and Shark offer their six cents on "Logan", the final chapter of the Wolverine trilogy.If you can get past the somberness, nihilism and brutal violence, the film is excellent, arguably one of the most well-executed superhero movies in recent history, (at least from an adult fan's point of view.) Logan's gritty down-to-erthinness gives the movie more of a hrad sci-fi/drama feel, a welcome break from those of us tired of pretty people flying through the air and shooting various energy beams out of their various orifices. 

Erik and Paul discuss their impressions of John Wick: Chapter 2. The movie's popularity is well earned by fresh and technically impressive action sequences and its grasp on what kind of movie it is and isn't. It does not take itself too seriously and delivers what it promises: Matrix legacy stunt work, stay-outta-trouble acting from Keanu, and some cool cameos.

Drinking at noon on New Year's day is a hard job but someone's gotta do it and so the Rekt krew start off the new year with a little hair of the dog and a review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.Shark expresses some high praise for the movie saying he "didn't hate it" but both he and Erik felt the main characters offered nothing for the viewer to care about and so the dangers and sacrifices have no emotional resonance. They are also annoyed by the fact that although the movie promised to be a standalone story that was suposed to veer away from the baggage of the trilogies, it still ended up being tightly bound to the plot lines and characters of "A New Hope." Paul, being the least hung over, least grumpy and thus more forgiving seems to have liked the movie the most, particularly for it being less focused on all the Jedi woo woo and being more of a down to earth war film. The one thing everyone agrees on is that the end scene with Vader in top form, going through a squad of rebels like a hot knife through butt

Erik, Paul and Shark share their views on the HBO hit series, "Westworld". Just because a show is critically acclaimed, doesn't mean a group of functional alcoholics with microphones can't find someting to complain about. Shark is grumpy as always, prefering the 1973 movie version of Westworld, (which he went to see in a blizzard, uphill both ways.) Erik and Paul feel that although the show started out incredibly strong, as the plot twists start piling up, so unfortunately do the plot holes. The season finale delivers some cool mind-twisting reveals but time will tell whether this show has a good idea of where exactly it's headed, aside from the contrivance of machines being more human than humans. 

While America licks its wounds from this week's presidential election, the Rekt Krew focuses on the truly important issues. In this episode we review the latest addition to the Marvel Universe - "Dr. Strange". On one hand the movie is visually very imaginative and trippy but copies too much of it's mind-bending visuals from Christopher Nolan's "Inception", something Erik and Shark have a hard time forgiving. Another sticking point is that Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Dr. Strange, while sharp and entertaining, seems to also be a very near copy of Robert Downey Jr.'s version of Iron Man.Paul seemed to enjoy Dr. Strange the most, being a sucker for metaphysical mumbo-jumbo and medical jargon that doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence. Eric was most impressed with the movie's ending, where Dr. Strange triumphs by relying on his intellect and cunning, rather than the typical choice by comic book movies to end a conflict with the biggest punch or a large explosion. 

Erik, Paul and Shark talk about their favorite and most despised horror movies, the decline of the horror genre from its 70's heyday and delve into Shark's irrational fear of little people. 

The foul year of our Lord 2016, seems to be some unholy axis of remakes and reboots and the Reking Krew dives into the ill-conceived rehashing of The Magnificent Seven. Using beer-regression therapy we delve into our impressions of the movie, which seems to have some sort of a racial message, albeit one so diluted and obscure as to be incomprehensible. Mag 7 is entertaining enough as far as action goes, though it is very "Hollywoody" and does not have much to offer in the Western tension department. Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke  and Vincent D'Onofrio give the movie just enough A-List acting to keep it out of Fast--Furious territory but not enough to impress either Erik or Shark. Chris Pratt basically plays the same character he always does, which may or may not work for you. Paul, expecting the movie to be unwatchable was surprised to actually find it entertaining. Florentino, (subbing in for Christopher) was the most forgiving, with the only complaint being weak military strategy applied to the defense of

The Rekt krew reviews DC's Suicide Squad and this is our breakdown:  The movie is pretty fun and visually rewarding, with charismatic performances by Will Smith as "Deadshot", Viola Davis as "Amanda Waller" and Margot Robbie as "Harley Quinn" (who arguably steals the movie.) On the other hand Jared Leto's "Joker" seems over-the-top and his presence in the movie is all but pointless. There are a lot of plot holes and tropes and dumb moves in the movie, but they are for the most part forgivable. What is hard to swallow, however is the desperate sense you get of the DC franchise trying to hectically catch up with the Marvel Universe with all it's branches and spin-offs. Whereas Marvel painstakingly earned its place with over a decade of origin stories and character development, this movie (like Batman v Superman) is trying to cash in on the franchise racket too quickly, and this is glaringly obvious in the film. We end the show with Paul's "Illuminati Corner", where he points out some of the more blatant occult

Erik does his best to defend this installment of the Star Trek reboot against the onslaughts of Paul and Shark, who had some very harsh opinions and choice words for this movie. Whatever integrity or merit this movie has is held up by its (still) excellent core cast (the jibes and banter between Spock and McCoy in particular.) Sadly most of that merit is squandered through terrible direction, action sequences that amount to nothing more than vigorous camera shaking, a very thin plot, unclear motives of the main villain and utterly eye-rolling choices that border on idiotic. This movie could have been good in someone else's hands, but in director Justin Lin's it (predictably) becomes simply Fast Furious in space.

The Rekt Krew discuss the 20-year-gap sequel to Independence Day. We discuss the impact of the original movie on our (at the time) young and impressionable minds and proceed to an inebriated evisceration of "Resurgence", a movie that is an obvious money grab, aimed at a God-knows-what audience, badly written with labored exposition and weak dialogue and a parade of young 1-dimensional characters. The global-level devastation wreaked by the aliens may be visually more impressive than in 1996 but utterly fails to resonate emotionally, despite the unimaginable loss of life and the loss of loved ones by the main characters. It is just impossible to care about anyone in this movie. On the plus side it was nice to see Jeff Goldblum's familiar gangly gesticulations and signature rhythm and Brent Spiner (Star Trek TNG's "Data") was thoroughly entertaining and arguably the one saving grace of this movie. To quote Erik - "Spiner was the only one who seemed to be aware he was part of a complete shit-show and just having

The Rekt Krew weigh on the latest X-Men movie and director Shane Black's "The Nice Guys". The prognosis for X-Men Apocalypse is not good. Though filled to the brim with undoubtedly pretty people, the rekt krew finds the movie to be uninteresting, unoriginal and forgettable.The Nice Guys on the other hand was a surprisingly fresh and utterly enjoyable "buddy cop" comedy. The chemistry between a fat brutish Russel Crowe and an inept detective Ryan Gossling is crisp and hilarious. If you liked Shane Black's other triumphs - Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, this will not disappoint. 

The Rekt Krew reviews the latest bloated Marvel phantasmagoria - "Captain America: Civil War". Paul refuses to call the Black Panther anything other than "Catman". Erik seems to have reached the limit of his tolerance for superhero ensemble movies. Christopher is delighted with the new scrawny smart-alecky Spider-Man, (at long last liberated from the incompetent clutches of Sony Pictures Studios.) Shark hits the nail on the head with his synopsis: the movie is essentially working off a bad, sloppy script and the schism between the Avengers seems forced and utterly avoidable. At the same time the direction is solid, the action scenes are exciting, particularly the fresh hand-to-hand combat scenes, and overall the movie is entertaining...assuming you are not looking too closely at things like character motivation or plot coherence.

The Rekt Krew review Disney's Zootopia and discuss the ever-expanding Marvel universe in anticipation of next episodes rekening of Captain America: Civil War.

The REKT crew start off by paying respects to Prince who passed away that day and getting all the tangential nonsense out of the way before delving into reviewing Hardcore Henry (which only 1.75% of the crew has actually watched.) Chris offers his opinions, Erik having watched only half of the movie offers half his opinions, Paul, having watched only the first 10 minutes offers his 10 cents, and Shark who is absent altogether has no opinion to offer.The crew then goes on to talk about the semi-live action remake of Jon Favreau's "The Jungle Book". A gorgeous movie by all accounts, fun to watch in 3-D, works overall with a few drawbacks being songs that don't feel like they fit (and sung badly by actors who are not singers), a lot of the voice-overs being done by very well known actors (like Bill Murray) making it difficult to not picture said actor in a sound booth and thus taking the viewer somewhat out of the experience, and finally a fairly stiff performance by child actor Neel Sethi as Mowgli (though per

The Rekt Krew with all hands on deck and all brain cells anesthetized take on the beautiful mess that is Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. It is all to easy to break a leg by falling into any number of gaping plot holes and being inebriated certainly doesn't help navigate such a hazardous environment. Erik, Shark and Chris point out the numerous ways the movie failed them - sitting through the gazillionth rehashing of Batman's origin story, the uselessness of Lois Lane, Jesse Eisenberg's over-the-top portrayal of an Aspberger's Lex Luthor, Justice League characters being shoved down your throat for no reason, and the utter incomprehension of anyone's motives. Paul is basically alone in attempting to find redeeming features in BvS and gives director Zach Snyder a lot of credit for at least attempting to weave together something resembling a serious film and saving most of his usual CGI shenanigans until the end. The movie is entertaining enough if you are willing to cut it a lot of slack and if your positio

The Rekt Team is down a man this week, but that doesn’t stop Chris, Erik and Paul from forging on with drinks in hand. After a random bit of talk about the Wachowski Sister’s Sense 8, the crew moves on to the main discussion 10 Cloverfield Lane. Despite receiving glowing critical reviews, Bad Robot’s latest film wasn’t as well received with our hosts. Too bad a great opening and good performances from the actors can’t seem to save this film from a fair number of problems. What could be the problems that trouble our inebriated trio? Was it the simplistic plot? The lack of tension? An awful tacked on ending with a twist? The overuse of movie tropes? Not enough Final Destination? Lack of black actors? Not enough Slusho!? Spaceships with sphincters? Too much to drink before hand...? Probably most of these.Besides discussing Cloverfield, the crew gets geared up for the inevitable viewing of Batman v Superman. Chris catches the group up to speed on the history of BvS while Erik and Paul try to forget as much as pos

We start the discussion off with all the racial talk surround this year’s event and how the host, Chris Rock, approaches the subject. Most of us find his jokes on this subject pretty funny at first, however it’s gets a little redundant throughout the show. Moving on we discuss the careers of two nominees, Leonardo Dicaprio and Sylvester Stallone. Did Leo win because of his performance in The Revenant? Or is Hollywood playing kiss up since he’s been snubbed for so many years? Does Stallone deserve a nomination? Has he even been in a decent movie other than Creed? Find out as the gang ponders these questions in between sips of alcohol and blatant Uber sponsorship chilling.On our second round we discuss some of the best picture nominations. Spotlight won best picture, but does it really deserve it? Sure it’s a fine film, but is it better than Mad Max? Paul and Chris chat a little about The Big Short and how it stacks up to it’s competition. Somehow this leads to the crew talking about James Cameron’s filmography

The theme of the hour seems to be vengeance and the REKT crew dissect The Revenant and Deadpool, two movies that couldn’t be more different in their execution and style and yet both surprisingly similar in focusing on the hunt for the protagonist’s arch nemesis and the protagonist’s ability to survive ludicrous levels of trauma and abuse.The Revenant is a gorgeously shot wilderness drama, gritty and visceral, with powerful acting by Leonardo DiCaprio and a simply stellar performance by Tom Hardy, surely to go down as one of the year’s best films.Marvel’s Deadpool is a sarcastic teenage fanboy’s ultimate wet dream, chalk full of F-Bombs, boobies, self referential pop-culture references and cartoonish violence – all the ingredients of a terrible film, yet Deadpool manages to be fun, at times original and often quite funny. Ryan Reynolds may have finally found a B-side superhero (or supermenace really) that fits him well.

Erik, Paul and Shark discuss their impressions of the obscure little indie film called Star Wars: The Force Awakens and tackle the question – is it feasible to rekindle a 10-year old’s sense of wonder in a 40 year old man-child?The Rekt crew have some mixed feelings about “The Force Awakens”, (directed by J. J. Abrams), which undoubtedly captures the feel and flavor of George Lucas’ original pre-Jar Jar trilogy but is so scared to veer away and take a misstep in a wrong direction that a lot of the film ends up being a rehashing of same old plot lines, i.e., secret plans hidden in a droid, a bigger badder death star, etc.The movie is definitely fun and fast paced, the CGI is not overdone and the acting is pretty solid overall and is immensely boosted by Daisy Ridley, who is just outstanding in her role as Rey, a scavenger in the process of discovering her Jedi prowess and lineage.The hype, anticipation and longing to get back to the original Star Wars vibe makes it a bit difficult to critique this movie object