The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

If The Martian was a problem of too much positive buzz, perhaps Mockingjay Part 2 benefited from a bit of the opposite. This is one of the few series that I've been able to review each installment of during its theatrical run, and if you go back to see my reviews of those previous three movies you'll notice that I've enjoyed every film in this franchise. Sure, some have aged better than others, and the stretched quality of Mockingjay Part 1 was a bit of a hindrance to my enjoyment of it, but I was still pretty pumped to see Part 2 in theaters despite the somewhat negative feedback I'd heard. Full disclosure, though, I have read all three of Suzanne Collins' books, so I went into this viewing knowing pretty much every plot point ahead of time. Given the lukewarm reaction to the third part of that book series, I wasn't too surprised with the response to this climactic installment in movie form. But what did I think of how this story ended? Read on to find out! (BTW: There may be a few SPOILERS, but I'll warn you ahead of time.)

The Martian

After seeing Matt Damon in last year's incredibly underrated sci-fi epic, Interstellar, I kind of thought The Martian was going to be a weak retread. Of course, being based on a very popular novel released it from any similarity to Christopher Nolan's film, and after seeing this movie I can say that (despite a few casting similarities) they have very little to do with one another. I was able to pretty much put that preconception aside when going in to The Martian, though what I couldn't put aside was the explosion of hype that suddenly surrounded this film upon its release, with many calling it the best film of the year and even renowned news sources calling it a front-runner for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. When these claims start to come out, it immediately gives the viewer an expectation that may be hard to live up to.

Creed

Ever since I saw this movie last week, I've been bursting to talk about it! While I haven't come to the end of my Rocky retrospective quite yet (I'll get to Rocky V and Rocky Balboa soon), I just had to talk about the movie I've been wanting ever since the first trailer was released. Despite my enthusiasm going into this, I had to remind myself that Creed wasn't on my top 10 most anticipated films of the year when I wrote that list eleven months ago. In fact, it didn't even get a mention, which I still have a hard time fathoming... Anyway, I went in with fairly moderate expectations, pretty much just hoping for a decent follow-up to the Rocky series. What I got was so much more.

Rocky IV

FlashBack Friday is back again! There isn't much time to finish this Rocky series, (especially with a certain space movie coming out in about a month) so some of these reviews might not be released on Friday... just FYI. Still, I couldn't let myself not review this movie as it has all of the things that typify what people think about the Rocky series. For me, this was always my favorite one as a kid. Not only did it have the most intense fight scenes, but the villain was easily the most memorable of any opponent Rocky has faced. Though I may have seen Rocky III more times, Rocky IV was by far the best of the series to me as a kid. But how does that love hold up after all these years? SPOILER ALERT from here on out!

Spectre

Bond is back! If you haven't read my reviews of the previous Daniel Craig 007 movies, go check out the archives and see what I thought of them in detail. If you don't have time for that, I'll give you a brief history of my Bond fandom here. First off, Daniel Craig is my Bond. Ever since Casino Royale, I've been completely on board with this new iteration of the famous spy. Though I wasn't a huge fan of what happened in Quantum of Solace, I couldn't have been more in love with the last entry to the series, Skyfall. It took Bond to a whole other level with the action, the character development, the cinematography, and the evolution of the franchise embracing both old and new generations of Bond. As you can see in my top 10 most anticipated films of 2015, this was one of the films I was really looking forward to this year. With the name drop of Spectre, which I knew was the infamous terrorist organization that became Bond's biggest nemesis from the Sean Connery era, I had a feeling we were in for something really special.