Tom Holland has played Spider-Man on screen in 5 films now. He was cast in the role back in 2015 and, 4 years later, he has become a huge household name. Nowadays he’s a pin-up for teenage girls as well as women who are probably old enough to know better. He was only 17 when he first got the role but now he’s at the ripe old age of 23 Marvel feel the need to have him take his shirt off whenever he can. It must be super weird having grown up in the public eye to now find yourself the object of lust for so many people. In the screening I went to, one teenage girl in the front row audibly squealed when he took his shirt off and took a photo of the screen. We’ve come a long way since Holland made his feature film debut in The Impossible. He’s certainly come a long way from that 14-year-old boy. As I’d never seen The Impossible, mostly because I knew it would destroy me, I decided now was as good a time as any. Plus, it was on Netflix so, convenient.
Who knows if there will ever be another film event like Avengers: Endgame. It was a film that had major consequences for fans and for the entire MCU. With half of the people in the universe going MIA for 5 years, we were left with an interesting situation. The people who were left behind had mourned, possibly moved on, and aged since their loved ones disappeared. How were Marvel going to deal with this in their first film after the event? And how exactly has the loss of Iron Man and Captain America had on the world as we knew it? I was excited to find out. Marvel have always dealt with the aftermath pretty well. Iron Man 3 broke the traditional superhero movie mould when it portrayed Tony Stark dealing with PTSD. And then, during the events of Endgame, Tony was coming to terms with seeing Peter Parker get snapped. So, considering how everything went down a few months ago, how is Spider-Man coping after losing his mentor and father figure?
I get bored with the argument that Hollywood has run out of original ideas. It’s an argument made by people who only give a shit about blockbuster films. Yes, we see a lot of sequels, reboots, and remakes these days but that’s not to say there aren’t original films. Independent cinema and world cinema are full of interesting and unique ideas that most supposed film lovers wouldn’t know about. Okay, there’s an argument to be made for the accessibility of these films. One that I understand the pain of. I live in the North of England and we don’t tend to get a lot of smaller films here. I mean we’ve only really just got access to National Theatre Live on a large scale. But that’s not something to go into now. So, yes, I don’t agree that filmmakers are running out of ideas. However, sometimes a film comes along where you have to think this must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel of film ideas. That they were literally out of all other ideas. The Emoji Movie was one of those films.
I remember going to see Men in Black at the cinema. Or at least I remember my friend being obsessed with the bloody cow at the beginning. She’s a bit of a weirdo. But I do remember enjoying the film. I would have been 9 so the silliness will have appealed. And we all know that the 90s was peak Will Smith time, right? Thanks to a bunch of underwhelming sequels, the first Men in Black film has become something of a classic. People have started to view it through rose-tinted glasses. In my review of the latest installment of the franchise, 
Have you heard? The latest film in the X-Men franchise is also the worst. Which, considering the third and sixth films were both such stinking piles of crap. All of the hate surrounding Dark Phoenix got me so confused that I had to go back and rewatch 
Marvel may have cornered the market for superhero movies but the first two X-Men films are still two of the most influential and well-made comic book movies of the last 20 years. Bryan Singer’s first two mutant-based films changed the game and, arguably, paved the way for the last 11 years of Marvel greatness. But it hasn’t been plain sailing since those early days. As much as we like to forget about it The Last Stand was horrific and only seemed better once X:Men Origins came out 3 years later. The reboot/prequel series that started with X-Men: First Class in 2011 and, for a little while, everything looked okay. Days of Future Past was as fantastic as we all wanted but then Apocalypse. Boy, was that a whole load of nothing. Basically, it’s been difficult being a film fan and a lover of these comics. So, when Disney took over 20th Century Fox recently, it looked as though we might finally get to see the X-Men film that we all deserve. It just might take a really long time. So, if I continue to not count New Mutants, Dark Phoenix is going to be our last real look at these characters in the cinema. Which makes it a massive shame that people seemed determined to ruin it before it even hit cinemas.
Let’s pretend it’s Tuesday 18th June and not Monday 24th. This is the film that I had intended to review last week but, at the time, I was probably holding my one-day-old niece for the first time. And, as I gave up all ideas of achieving anything last week, I didn’t even think about taking part in the Creatively Squared hashtag challenge. So, to get myself back on schedule, I decided I would post two movie reviews this week. Starting with a film that has followed me around social media since it was released. I was skeptical about Booksmart in the same way that I am about any film being given almost universal praise. It always seems too good to be true. And as much as I like Olivia Wilde, this was her directorial debut. Could it really be as good as everyone claims? I mean I’ve seen people already describing it as their favourite film. I never trust people who do that. Anyone who says the last film they saw is their favourite is either an idiot, a liar, or someone who has only ever seen one movie in their life.
As I mentioned on Tuesday, I was obsessed with Pokémon. I loved everything about it. And the first Pokémon movie was something that people my age will remember as having one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the history of cinema. I lived with a guy at university that definitely described it as the saddest films ever made but he also really loved the Hannah Montana movie. So, I’m not sure we can trust his opinion too much. I never quite went that far but it certainly stayed with you. And this year, Pokémon: The First Movie is celebrating its 21st birthday. Yep, the first ever animated Pokémon movie is finally becoming an adult. So, I decided it was definitely worth giving it a rewatch. Especially considering I’ve been pretty Pokémon obsessed since I watched Detective Pikachu. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve nearly bought a Nintendo Switch just to play Let’s Go Pikachu! At least the film would only distract me for a little over an hour. 