Spider-Man #60 (1995) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I got to go into the grocery store on Monday for the first time in a year and a half. So that was cool. Today I'm here to review a comic book. All weekend and right up until an hour ago when I came in from sitting outside, I was having trouble deciding on a comic to take a look at this week. I scrolled through my blog and I realized that I've never reviewed a Spider-Man comic on this version of the blog before. I've reviewed them on the old blog, but never here. So today we're diving back into my childhood comic book collection and taking a look at Spider-Man #60 by Howard Mackie with art by Tom Lyle from 1995. Let's get into it.

Back in the 90s Marvel Comics was struggling to stay afloat between bankruptcy and the departure of several big name comic book writers and artist who went on to form Image Comics. This was also the era where Deadpool was created, Chris Claremont and Jim Lee revitalized the X-Men for the 90s, Thanos was introduced, and The Infinity Gauntlet was published. On the Spider-Man of things, a storyline known as "The Clone Saga" was published from 1994 until 1996, a story that became infamous due to it's long and often convoluted nature, mixed with the interference behind the scenes.

Spider-Man #60 is the third part in a four part sub-story called "The Trial of Peter Parker" where Kaine, a clone of Peter Parker, kills someone and makes look like that Peter did it, causing Peter to be arrested. In order to clear his name, Peter trades places with another clone of his, Ben Reilly, also known as the Scarlet Spider. This issue is basically Spider-Man trying to get Kaine to go to the courthouse so that Spidey can prove Peter Parker/Ben Reilly's innocence, therefore clearing his name. 

I first got this issue sometime in 1995. In fact, I think I was in the hospital with the chicken pox when I got this issue. I remember my mom went down to get a coffee and was going to stop in at the gift shop on the second floor to pick up a comic or a book for me to look at because I was done watching TV for the day and I didn't really have anything to do. She came back with this issue as well as The Adventures of Superman #525. I thought it was cool because I only had one other Spider-Man comic at the time, and mainly knew him from reruns of the 1967 cartoon as well as from the 90s animated series. I think I'd asked my mom to see if they had any Batman comics or Berenstain Bears books, but they didn't and I guess those two comics I mentioned were the only ones my mom felt were suitable for me to read, judging by the covers of course. 

This is a fine issue. It's easy enough to follow even if you haven't read the rest of the Clone Saga because it almost has nothing to do with the wider story arc. Or even with the story arc that it's a part of to be honest. We see a little bit of Peter's trial, but really not until Spider-Man shows up with Kaine, and nearly reveals his secret identity to the world. Aside from Mary Jane, nobody else from Spider-Man's usual supporting cast is present. Aunt May died back in Amazing Spider-Man #400 after having been sick for a hundred issues before that. And J Jonah Jameson is nowhere to be found. At least not in this issue. I've read other Spider-Man comics from around this period and he was never written out. Of course it's weird these days because Jameson is now aware of Peter's identity as Spider-Man and is one of his closest allies. Not to mention he and Peter are step cousins since Aunt May married Jameson's dad, Jay Jameson after "Brand New Day". That's a long story that I don't want to get into at this point.

There's a character in this issue that appeared from 1994 until 1997, mostly during this storyline, and then has had only three additional appearances from 2013 to 2014 in Superior Spider-Man #20 and 21 and Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #5. Her name is Stunner and she has a crush on Doctor Octopus. According to the Marvel Wiki her real name is Angelina Brancale, and she was a clerk at a video store who ended up getting another job with a former student of Otto Octavius. Stunner is actually a virtual projection Angelina uses to commit crimes. She goes after Kaine following the death of Doc Ock. For years I had no idea who this woman was, because she appeared in this issue, and then every other Spider-Man comic I read, she didn't show up again. And nobody talks about her when they talk about Spider-Man comics. It wasn't until I looked her up on the Marvel Wiki that I found out who she is and what her backstory is. I just thought it was cool that she was an employee of a video store. It was the 90s afterall.

The artwork is pretty good. I like Tom Lyle's art style as he did alot of the artwork for the first few Tim Drake solo Robin mini-series in the early 90s. I'm not familiar with Howard Mackie's writing though, outside of this issue and Spider-Man #56 (the comic that launched Linkara's career as a comic book reviewer on YouTube). From what I can tell he's mainly written for Marvel, though he did write for DC in the early days of the New 52 on Ravagers and Batman Black and White. Mackie does a good job at making it easy for readers to follow along with what's going on in this issue because it goes a pretty frantic pace and it's easy to miss something.

This feels like a filler issue, but there is a pretty big reveal near the end concerning Kaine's identity, so I guess you could check it out for that. Though it'd probably be easier to get the Clone Saga collected edition volumes rather than just this individual issue at this point. Then again it might be easier to find this issue on it's own in bargain bins, at conventions or at geek sales. 

One thing I want to talk about are the ads in this issue. Specifically one for Marvel merchandise at Kmart that features Iron Man and the Fantastic Four (the back page of the ad is shown above). Being that I didn't read Marvel Comics regularly when I was a kid this was my first exposure to the Fantastic Four and to Iron Man though I couldn't tell you who they were at that point being that I hadn't seen them in the Spider-Man comic I had been given a few years earlier. This ad is for the Kmart restaurant where you could get six collectible cups featuring Marvel characters from the Fantastic Four animated series that was coming out at this time.

 The second ad I want to talk about here is this one for Spider-Man toys from Mcdonald's. The toys were from Spider-Man: The Animated Series which was airing on Fox Kids at the time this comic was published. I actually had two of the toys shown in this ad. I had the Spider-Man figure and the Venom vehicle. Even though I couldn't eat at the time, my mom still got me a Happy Meal toy when we went to eat at Mcdonald's for a treat so that I wouldn't feel left out given that my brother and sister could eat the food and I couldn't. I was totally fine with this of course because that meant I got a new toy whenever we went to Mcdonald's. Unless the only one available was one we already had. But that didn't happen very much since we didn't go to Mcdonald's THAT much. 

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today. I might do a blog post of some sort tomorrow, depending on what I feel like doing. If not I will definitely be back on Friday for my review of the 2000 Nickelodeon movie, Snow Day. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you all had a good week this week. I did. Today I'm going to be talking about the 2017 sequel to the 1995 film, Jumanji, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. So let's get right into it because I am pretty excited to be talking about this movie.

2017 was an odd year for me. Especially when it comes to watching movies. I saw three movies at the beginning of the year but then ended up missing a ton of movies that I wanted to see because I spent the majority of the year, from the end of March until the end of August having major abdominal surgery and then recovering from it. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle didn't come out until December of 2017 I just never got a chance to see it. Mainly because it was Christmas time, I'd gone to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and to be honest, having not seen the original Jumanji since I was a kid, I didn't have much interest in this movie. Particularly when it comes to deciding what movies I want to see in theatres. I did think it looked pretty cool from the trailer I saw before The Last Jedi, but I decided to wait until it came out on home media to watch it. Plus I wasn't sure I could manage two trips to the movies in less than a week since I was still a bit wonky from everything surrounding my operation earlier that year. I regret that decision.

I don't think I've ever laughed at a movie as hard as I laughed at this one. While the original movie was creepier in tone, this one felt more like a fun adventure film with more nuanced characters than the first one. Movies always walk a fine line when the main characters are teenagers because they can come off as unbelievable even if they're not written that way. Here though, the teenage characters work alot better than the kid characters in the first movie. And I think that's just because the teens were the focus of this movie, while Peter and Jody didn't actually matter as the original movie was focused on Robin Williams's character, Alan Parrish and his crush, Sarah who was played by Bonnie Hunt. Also this movie got to have it's cake and eat it too because they got to have big name performers in the movie but have the movie focused on the teenage characters by having the big name performers play the teen characters in avatar form, as Jumanji is now a video game instead of a board game.

The cast of this movie is phenomenal. Like I said they really did a good job with having big name performers playing their main characters. You have Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan playing the teen characters in their avatar forms. Which is pretty cool. Of the avatar performers, I think the one I've seen in the least number of things is actually Kevin Hart as prior to this I've only seen him as CJ, Anthony Anderson's sidekick in Scary Movie 3. Everyone else I've seen in multiple things. I've seen Karen Gillan as Nebula in the MCU films, and as Amy Pond on Doctor Who, I've seen Dwayne Johnson as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King, and as a one off character on Star Trek: Voyager, and I've seen Jack Black in School of Rock, Ice Age (2002), and Goosebumps (2015). They just work so well together.

It's hard to pick a favourite character or a funny scene that stands out because all of the characters are great and there's alot of funny scenes. But if I had to pick, I think my favourite character would have to be Martha, played by Karen Gillan. She wasn't the typical girl character and it was great watching her dance fight the bad guys to Peter Frampton's "Baby, I Love Your Way", which is sung by Big Mountain in this movie. I think my favourite scene was when the kids realize their abilities their avatars have, like Spencer (Johnson) has super speed as his avatar, Dr. Bravestone, a very Indiana Jones esque character. I also laughed hardest when Bethany (Jack Black playing a teenage girl in a man's body) explores what she has in her avatar's body.

I think this movie is actually superior to the original. Mainly because the first film, while certainly creepy in places, had no stakes to it. Basically the only real danger in the first film was the number of animals wreaking havoc on the town. Yeah, they tried to add extra danger with Van Pelt hunting Alan, but it was never explained WHY he was hunting Alan and so it just made that whole storyline superfluous. Here though, you know what will happen if the kids don't return the Jaguar's Eye to it's statue and the danger Van Pelt represents is heightened when the kids are down to their final lives.

I also like how each character grows as the movie progresses. It's subtle though. Bethany doesn't become a completely different person because of her time in the game. She's still Bethany, but she comes to realize that her actions do affect the people around her. Spencer and Martha are still awkward and nervous. They're just more confident by the end of the movie. Fridge is the one with the least character growth, but he does become friends with Spencer again during their adventures in the game. So like I said, subtle and nothing over the top.

Overall this was an excellent film. It was funny, thrilling, and a fun coming of age story. I am glad I watched the first movie earlier this week though as there are several nods to it in this one that I wouldn't've picked up on if I hadn't watched it. It's perfectly enjoyable on it's own, but knowing those little references adds an extra layer of enjoyment to it.

Alright guys that's going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back on Wednesday with next week's comic book review. Next week's movie review is going to be the 2000 Nickelodeon film, Snow Day. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Batman #493 (1993) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing quite well for a Wednesday. For this week's comic book review we're diving back into my childhood comic book collection to take a look at the very first main DC Universe Batman comic I ever got. So let's get into Batman #493, written by Doug Moench, with art by the late Norm Breyfogle and published by DC Comics in 1993.

Looking at this cover, I am amazed that my mom agreed to buy this issue for me. I mean the villain of the issue, Victor Zsasz is about to stab Batman while the Caped Crusader inspects the body of a dead woman. Which doesn't happen in the issue by the way. In fact the only deaths in the issue are two male cops. But back in the 90s very rarely did the covers reflect what was actually happening in the issue. Not that that practice hasn't continued to the present day nor was it a new concept in the 90s, but in earlier times it was less common than it has been since the 90s.

As I mentioned in my intro to this review, this was the first Batman comic I ever got that wasn't an issue of The Batman Adventures. At this point I don't even remember why I was at the hospital when I got this issue. It was probably one of those times where I was there for a long day of appointments and my mom took me to the gift shop between appointments. There weren't any other issues of The Batman Adventures at the gift shop as I'd already gotten the issue that came out the same month as this one did.

Batman #493 is the third part in the "Knightfall" storyline that ran through Batman and Detective Comics (with other books being added for "Knightquest" and "KnightsEnd") from 1993 until 1994. I didn't read "Knightfall" in it's entirety until 2005 or 2006 when I got the reprints of the original trade paperback volumes, but it almost wasn't necessary since back in the 90s they were still doing standalone issues, even if they were part of a larger storyline with the occasional two or three part story mixed in. I read this issue no problem without having read the previous two parts of the storyline or the five or six issues that led up to the storyline.

There isn't much to this issue as most of it is just Batman finding Zsasz and the hostages he took, including Detective Montoya. Batman is exhausted throughout this issue and it's still quite early in the "Knightfall" storyline. Basically Bane broke all of Batman's enemies out of Arkham Asylum and Batman had to take them all down while fighting off some sort of illness that took him out for a couple of issues not long before this issue. Of course this leads to the infamous scene in Batman #497 where Bane broke Batman's back.

As some of you may know, this is my favourite era of Batman. He's still got the gray suit with the blue cape and cowl that he'd had since the 40s, Tim Drake was Robin, Dick Grayson was Nightwing, Barbara Gordon was Oracle, Stephanie Brown had just been introduced only less than a year before this issue was published and Jean Paul Valley was Azrael. This was my introduction to the character in the comics. I knew of the character because of reruns of the 1966 TV series, and the 1966 film, plus the Burton films, but I didn't know he was a comic book character aside from The Batman Adventures. Since I encountered him in other media first. 

The artwork in this issue is pretty great. Norm Breyfogle and Jim Aparo are my favourite Batman artists as they were the first two Batman artists I encountered their work in, along with Kelley Jones, who did pretty much all of the comic book covers for both Batman and Detective Comics during this period. I actually like how Breyfogle differentiates being in a lighted room and being in a darkened room without just having a black panel with only a flashlight effect in the centre the way many comic book artists do it. Which Breyfogle actually also does in this issue for one panel.

Overall this is a good issue. You don't necessarily need to have read the previous issues to understand what's going on. You don't even need to have read Zsasz's previous appearances to understand who he is here. That's what I love about comics published by DC from the 1930s to the mid 90s. They're easier to jump into Batman with since they were all standalone issues until about 1969 or 1970 when they started having standalone issues within a larger narrative which continued until the late 90s with storylines like "No Man's Land" and series like JLA and Young Justice.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Friday with my review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Jumanji (1995) Movie Review

Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well. I don't normally do two movie reviews in a week, but I decided I'd watch Jumanji in preparation for watching Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle for Friday's movie review. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's get right into it.

 Jumanji is one of those movies that I didn't grow up with but am very well aware of. I saw it when it came out on home video back in 1996 but it was just one of those movies that wasn't really part of my life. I also didn't even think it was that popular of a movie to be honest. I didn't really hear my classmates talking about it much either. Particularly those that were into film. It apparently did well at the box office but it wasn't super popular the way movies like Independence Day, Toy Story, and Titanic were. And yet, despite having only seen it once or twice when I was a kid, I feel like it was always around in a way if that makes sense. 

Because it wasn't a movie I watched constantly, there was very little in the movie that I actually remembered from that initial viewing. For example, the entire opening scene in 1969 with the young Alan Parrish is something I completely forgot about. Mainly because I remember the trailer for the movie more than the movie itself and the trailer focused on the 1995/present day part of the movie, since that's where Robin Williams appears. In fact, the scene that stood out to me most from the trailer which I carried over to the movie itself, was when the animals come stampeding through the wall of the Parrish mansion. That's literally the only thing I remember from the movie and it's because of that trailer.

Aside from David Alan Grier, who plays Carl Bentley, the Parrish Shoe Company employee turned cop, and the actor who plays Alan in the 1969 scenes, I'm quite familiar with the cast of the film. Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst are probably the two actors I've seen in the largest number of movies just because they were both everywhere in the 90s and 2000s. The rest of the cast are also people I'm familiar with. I mean Bebe Neuwirth was on Cheers and Frasier as Frasier's wife, Lilith, and guest starred in season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a Malcorian nurse named Lanel in season 4, episode 15, "First Contact". Laura Bell Bundy, who plays Sarah Whittle in the 1969 scenes, guest starred on How I Met Your Mother from 2010 until 2014 in like five different episodes. Bonnie Hunt, who plays Sarah in the 1995 scenes, voiced Ms. Flint in Monsters, Inc. and is currently reprising the character on Monsters at Work. Bradley Pierce, who plays Kirsten Dunst's brother, Peter, voiced Chip in Beauty and the Beast. So that's pretty crazy.

Before this viewing I actually thought that Jumanji was about Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce's characters, because, again, that trailer focused heavily on them. However, the movie is actually about Alan and Sarah. Which is interesting because normally, these family fantasy adventure films that were coming out in the 90s and the 2000s were about the kids and the adults were almost nowhere to be seen. And I guess in a way it is about the kids, since Alan and Sarah start out as kids at the beginning of the movie and then revert back to that time period once Alan wins Jumanji, but for the majority of the movie, they're as adults.

  I saw the 2005 film Zathura: A Space Adventure probably about seven or eight years ago now, and thought it was pretty good. Nothing special, but a decent kid flick. I had no clue that it was actually a spin-off of Jumanji. The DVD cover said, "A new adventure from the world of Jumanji" above the title, but I didn't even read the top of the DVD cover, so it didn't even occur to me that it had any kind of connection to this movie.

As I said earlier, I watched Jumanji on VHS once or twice when I was a kid because my grandparents had it at their house and that was pretty much it. We never got a copy of our own, I never owned it on DVD or on Blu-ray, it was just not a big part of my life aside from that one time or two times that I watched it at my grandparents's place. And actually I got the VHS in my current VHS collection by accident. So I was in Kingston, hanging out with Brad and Jonathan, three and a half years ago, maybe four and a half years ago, and we were at a store called Chumleigh's, which is a second hand media store where they sell books, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, and VHS tapes. And with the VHS tapes you could get twenty of them for like $10 or something ridiculous like that. So I was going through the tapes, trying to find twenty that I wanted and I saw George of the Jungle, the live action Disney movie from 1997, so I grabbed it because I had that movie on VHS and I watched it all the time but hadn't seen it since we got rid of the VHS tape in the late 2000s or early 2010s. This was before Disney+ was a thing so I didn't have access to all the Disney movies that I have access to now, unless I found it randomly on DVD or VHS or something like that. 

Then last year when my dad set up the VCR for me at the beginning of the pandemic I went through all the tapes I'd gotten up to that point to see if they needed to be rewound and to see which ones worked. I got to George of the Jungle, slipped the tape out and...discovered that it wasn't George of the Jungle but was Jumanji. Lesson learned. When you're buying tapes from, well, from anywhere really, always check to make sure the tape is the one that goes with the case.

I don't really have any problems with this movie. I mean there really isn't much of a story here, but it's not going for a real deep story. It's supposed to be a fun fantasy adventure film. Which is why I enjoyed it so much. Plus it was directed by Joe Johnston, who directed The Rocketeer and would go on to direct Captain America: The First Avenger. The Rocketeer is one of my favourite movies of all time just since I watched it last year for the first time. And honestly, I think Jumanji feels like the old fantasy serials from the 1930s and 40s in the way that The Rocketeer feels like the old Science Fiction and comic book movie serials from that same era. Which is pretty cool.

Jumanji is based on a picture book of the same name by an author named Chris Van Allsburg, who has story credit on the film. I didn't know this book existed but from what I can tell from the Wikipedia article on it the book is focused completely on Judy and Peter (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce's characters) with absolutely no mention of Allan and Sarah. Which makes sense because it's really hard to adapt a 32 page picture book into a 104 minute movie. There are other changes made in the adaptation process, but this is the biggest one since it makes the movie a very different story from the book.

Overall this was a really good movie and I had alot of fun watching it. If you've never seen Jumanji before, I highly recommend you sit down and watch it. Especially if you're a fan of Robin Williams, because he is fantastic in this movie. It's on Netflix for those of you who want to watch it and don't own it. 

Alright that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for this week's comic book review. I'm not sure what I'm reviewing tomorrow, just that it's going to be a comic book. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The Last Olympian (2009) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Well I ended up finishing the final Percy Jackson book while I was sitting outside this morning, so here I am to talk about it. Like my previous Percy Jackson reviews, there will be spoilers, so be aware of that when you go to read this review if you've never read this book before. So let's get into it.

The Last Olympian is probably the most satisfying ending to a series that I have ever read. Apart from Harry Potter and Animorphs most of the book series that I read growing up didn't really have an ending. For example Bruno & Boots ended but it didn't really have an ending. Even The Hardy Boys didn't even really have an ending. It just went on to the next version of those characters without really wrapping things up.

Story wise I don't really have a whole lot to say for this book because the majority of it was various battles between the Olympians and the Titans with Percy, Annabeth, and Grover being at the forefront of pretty much every battle. The remaining plotlines that weren't resolved in The Battle of the Labyrinth were resolved here. We finally find out who the prophecy was talking about and it wasn't Percy OR Nico as the books made it seem like it could be. It ended up being about Luke, which I didn't expect at all. Normally prophecies like this are about the protagonist not the antagonist. Apart from Darth Vader in the Star Wars films of course. Actually for a little while I thought the prophecy might be about Rachel because she was able to do stuff that Mortals usually aren't able to do. It wasn't about her, but still for a second I thought it might be.

The battles in this book are insane. They actually remind me more of the Battle of New York from The Avengers with the same type of open warfare and a small force facing down a seemingly unbeatable army. Of course the battles take place in New York City, so that contributes to that too. I also like that they were smaller battles rather than one large one like in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It just made the story flow a bit better in my opinion.

My favourite part of this book was at the very end, once Kronos had been defeated and the gods are once again at Mt. Olympus. Percy just goes for it and basically tells the gods what to do for once. Which is kind of great. I mean it's happened in other books like this including the Harry Potter books with the Wizard's Council, but it felt more satisfying here since the gods had been jerking Percy around for five books now and he saved them from destruction at the hand of their greatest enemy.

Normally I don't like extended endings, but it works here because Rachel's destiny is revealed at the end and is actually foreshadowed earlier in the book with Luke's mom. Plus seeing where all these characters are going after the war is over is pretty cool. Especially since three books of tension finally ends between Percy and Annabeth when they get together at the end. Which actually leads me into the thing I don't like about this book.

I'm so tired of books, movies and TV shows where a guy and a girl get mad at each other for liking someone else. Like, okay, I get that Annabeth has abandonment issues because of her past, but what's Percy's excuse? Like he was jealous of Annabeth because of her continued support of Luke, despite the fact that Luke has done absolutely everything to prove that he's evil and not being mind controlled by Kronos. Plus, Annabeth had a bit of a crush on Luke when they were younger, it's not like they actually dated or anything. I mean in real life if someone has romantic feelings for another person, they do one of three things. They either tell them directly and whether they get together or not depends on whether or not the other person reciprocates, or they leave little hints and the other person either figures it out or they don't, OR they don't do or say anything and don't get mad at them when the other person starts dating someone else. Like, okay, I was sixteen once too, and it was pretty scary exposing your feelings for another person. It still is. But our entertainment has a habit of including unnecessary drama by having characters get jealous of each other when they start dating someone else because they weren't brave enough to tell them how they feel about that person. I just think it's a trope that needs to stop at this point.

The minor characters are great in this book. You have such a large cast this time around since it's the finale. And all of them do an extremely good job. My favourites are probably Charles Beckendorf and Silena Beauregard. I think that's because they've been in the books since The Sea of Monsters and have actually had more screentime than Clarisse since then. Beckendorf's death at the beginning of the book hit me hard. Though not as hard as the revelation that Silena was Kronos's spy at Camp Half-Blood since The Lightning Thief, which threw me for a loop. I mean, unlike with Erisi Dlarit in the Star Wars: X-Wing novels, there was no indication at all that Silena was the spy. Not even a hint. I don't know if that's because Rick Riordan wrote it that way on purpose, or if it's because the books are from Percy's point of view only and as we saw in the rest of the series, Percy has a REALLY hard time seeing what's right in front of his face when it comes to girls hitting on him and when it comes to spies. 

I was so over Clarisse by the time she pulled the Ares cabin out of the war simply because of a petty argument with the Apollo cabin because of a chariot that the Apollo cabin took during a raid led by Clarisse and the Ares cabin. Over the last few books I was starting to like Clarisse more and more, because she seemed to be growing as a character, but here she just slipped right back into who she was back in The Lightning Thief. Even her return during the final battle didn't do anything to change my mind about her. 

Overall I thought The Last Olympian was a fantastic finale to a fantastic series. The Titan's Curse is still my favourite Percy Jackson book, but that's the thing about this series. There aren't any outright bad books in the series. Yes, The Sea of Monsters is the weakest of the series in my opinion, but none of the books are bad. They're all extremely enjoyable and I had such a fun time reading the series. I'm looking forward to eventually tracking down the books in The Heroes of Olympus and reading them. Honestly I don't know how Riordan managed to write consistently good novels in a series with one book coming out a year. It's incredible.

Alrighty, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Tuesday with a special movie review. Since I'm going to be reviewing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle on Friday, I thought I'd go back and review the 1995 original film, Jumanji, on Tuesday since I haven't seen it in about 25 years or so. So that'll be interesting. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

The Battle of the Labyrinth (2008) Book Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Saturday! How're you all doing today? I'm quite well. I spent the entire morning sitting outside and reading and I got to chapter eleven in the fifth Percy Jackson book, The Last Olympian. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. I'm here to talk about the fourth Percy Jackson book, The Battle of the Labyrinth which came out in 2008. So let's get right into it.

The closer I get to reaching the end of the series, the more I'm amazed at how much fun these books continue to be. Continuing with the comparison to Harry Potter, while the Percy Jackson books continue to be fun and still manage to be interesting, the Harry Potter series lost it's sense of fun around the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, because J.K. Rowling somehow wasn't able to write books that were both fun AND compelling at the same time. I mean, yeah Percy has had some really bad stuff happen to him in these last couple of books, but the tone has been pretty well balanced between dark and horrible, and light and funny. I think that might just be because of Rick Riordan's tastes. Whatever the case is, I think it works wonderfully. 

While The Titan's Curse is still my favourite book in the series, The Battle of the Labyrinth is a close second. Probably because everybody from the main cast is on the quest in this book as kind of a last ditch effort to save the world before Kronos's resurrection. Percy is there (obviously), Grover is there, Annabeth is there and Tyson is there and it's wonderful since they all haven't been on a quest together before as a quartet. Which is bonkers to think about. 

FINALLY!!! Annabeth was given the chance to lead a quest. This is something she'd been looking forward to since The Lightning Thief and it's glorious. Okay, yeah the quest went to crap pretty quickly, but she didn't do any worse than Percy, Clarisse, and Thalia in the previous three books because their quests went to crap pretty quickly too. And that's just the nature of storytelling. You can't have a quest or mission that goes off without a hitch, especially when that quest or mission is the main plot of a book or movie otherwise you're going to have a REALLY short book or movie. For example, the Avengers couldn't beat Loki when they first fought him at the beginning of The Avengers or the movie would've been over and could've been a TV special or something like that. My point is that the problems Percy and his friends faced during this quest were not a reflection on Annabeth's ability to lead them. 

I realize I've been gushing about how awesome this book is, but there is one more thing that I thought stood out about this book. Grover finally found Pan. He'd been looking for Pan since The Lightning Thief and so to have that plotline get resolved is pretty cool to see. Especially since it pretty much consumed Grover's life up to this point, even over his other duties as a Satyr. 

There aren't really any new characters in this book that I like, aside from Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Mind you, aside from her, not alot of characters introduced in this book carry over to the next one. At least not so far anyway. And I'm about halfway through the final book. Rachel is pretty cool though. Like Percy's mom, Rachel seems to have the ability to see through the Mist, which is the barrier the gods put up to shield mortals from the monsters and other beings from their realms. And also to hide Mount Olympus from sight too. Which makes her a valuable ally to Percy and his friends in this book. Although she somewhat reminds me of characters like Iris West and Mary Jane Watson, who know the identities of superheroes and are involved in their work due to their relationships with one superhero in particular, but isn't one of them. I say somewhat because she has some power that allows her to see through the Mist. I wonder how that will play out in the fifth book.

One thing that I'm tired of with these books is the amount of backstabbing and betrayal there are in them. Whatever happened to good old bad guys who don't try to worm their way into the life of a hero in order to kill them for their leader? Every superhero TV show and movie, not to mention every fantasy and science fiction series does this. I realize it's meant to be a source of drama, and it works really well in this series, but it's a bit predictable at this point. Can't writers find some other source to get the drama from? 

The dynamic between Percy and Annabeth has become much more romantic in nature in this book. Neither of them will admit they like each other in that way, but the tension between them is the highest I've ever seen it be so far. And honestly it's not as bad as some of the other will they/won't they romantic subplots out there. The worst being Clark and Lana on Smallville, but I'll talk about that another day.

The most chilling scene in this book for me, and this is where the spoilers come in, is when Kronos is resurrected and takes over Luke's body, effectively giving us a clue as to why Luke survived his fall after Thalia kicked him off a cliff at the end of the previous book. Though we don't find out completely why he survived the fall and why his body survived the takeover by Kronos until the fifth book. It's a little cliche, but I'll touch more on that in the next review. 

Once again, this was a great read. I'm having alot of fun reading the Percy Jackson series and I'm a bit sad that the next review will be the final one. At least for now, because my sister doesn't have the later series like The Heroes of Olympus, The Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase, or The Trials of Apollo. I'm going to do my best to track those books down as well as my own copies of Percy Jackson & The Olympians because I have a feeling I'm going to be returning to these books more than once.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back on Monday for my review of the final Percy Jackson book, The Last Olympian. And then on Wednesday I'll have another comic book review for you, and then on Friday I'll be reviewing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. In the meantime though have a wonderful rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Toy Story (1995) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well on this Friday afternoon. Today I'm going to be talking about the 1995 film that launched Pixar as a full fledged movie studio and launched 3-D Animation as a form of film making, Toy Story. So let's get into it.

Toy Story is one of the few movies that I was lucky enough to see in theatres when I was a kid. It's also the first of only two Pixar movies that I've ever seen in theatres. Going to see a movie in theatres was a really special occasion for me because we rarely were able to go. My paternal grandparents were often the source of this treat and Toy Story happened to be one of those times.

Every time I sit down to watch it I am amazed at how well Toy Story holds up after almost 26 years. Everything from the animation to the story holds up. Which is pretty good for Pixar's first full length movie. I mean there are a few scenes where you can tell that it's 90s 3-D animation but it isn't bad like half the movies that had CG effects in them that came out in and around this time. Both Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Batman Forever came out earlier in 1995 and both of those movies have REALLY bad CG effects in them.

We used to have one of those Yakbak recorders and ours was a Yakbakwards. Anyway, we got it for Christmas the same year we got Toy Story on VHS and during the scene that introduces us to Sid we recorded Woody saying, "Oh no! It's a Combat Carl!" with it and kept it on there for a few days. So that's why that short scene sticks out to me. 

I watched it on VHS for this review, and during this viewing I actually had a hard time liking Woody. I get that jealousy can make you do really stupid things, but he was extremely mean to Buzz. And that was despite the production team dialing the character back from how unlikeable he was in the early concept for the film. Luckily that was nixed by Jeffrey Katzenberg before pre-production had ended. Of course there are times where Mr. Potato Head and the other toys are hard to like too, but I think that was intentional. Pretty much the only toy who is likeable throughout the movie is Buzz. I think that's because Woody doesn't change that much during the course of the movie, he simply learns how to be Buzz's friend. Buzz on the other hand, learns how to be a toy because he thinks he's the actual Buzz Lightyear at the beginning of the movie. As we end up learning in Toy Story 2 this is a flaw that every Buzz Lightyear has upon coming out of his box and coming to life for the first time. It's never explained why this is, but it doesn't really matter because it's really only a thing in this movie and in Toy Story 2.

The cast in this movie is phenomenal. Tom Hanks is amazing as Woody and Tim Allen is great as Buzz. The rest of the cast is amazing too. I mean you have Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, John Ratzenberger as Hamm the Piggy Bank, Wallace Shawn as Rex, Jim Varney as Slinky Dog, Annie Potts as Bo Peep, and Laurie Metcalf as Andy's mom to name a few. That's pretty impressive getting that much of an all-star cast for your first feature film.

Toy Story wasn't released on home video until October 29th, 1996, almost a year after it opened in theatres. I think it was the longest running film in theatres that year, since most movies have a much shorter theatrical life due to the presence of home video. My brother, sister and I got the movie on VHS for Christmas in 1996. We watched it all the time. I actually don't know how many times we watched it over the years. Before the pandemic hit I bought the original 1996 VHS at a thrift store and put it back in my collection. I also have the 2005 2-Disc 10th Anniversary Edition DVD in my collection as well. There are some great bonus features on that DVD set, though there aren't any on the original VHS.

Overall, Toy Story is still a great movie. It has always been one of my favourite movies of all time and remains in my Top 10 All Time Favourite Movies list. It's not overly complicated but it also isn't simplistic either. It's the perfect balance between a kids movie and a movie for adults and reminds me of many of Walt Disney early films like Snow White, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. I don't need to recommend this movie to you, because chances are, you've all seen it at some point in your lives. However I do recommend you rewatch it if you haven't seen it in a while.

Alrighty, that is going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of the fourth Percy Jackson novel, The Battle of the Labyrinth and next week's movie review is going to be Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle which I've never seen before. I bought it on iTunes yesterday so I'm excited to see what it's like. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.