Origin EVO17-S Gaming Laptop Review

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Purchasing an Origin PC, be it a desktop or laptop, is a "boutique" experience. Throughout the entire process, you are in complete control over the components, colors, the finish, and you even have the option to have your computer shipped in a big wooden crate. A crate that requires a power tool to crack open (see below). I'm reviewing the company's EVO17-S (See it at OriginPC.com), which falls into the its "thin and light" product lineup. It's similar to the EVO15-S I tested earlier this year, but bigger and more powerful.

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Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events: Season 3 Review

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Netflix’s adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events needed to see its story through to the end. The third season based on the 13-book series is its best yet, with a fantastic sense of pacing, every opportunity taken to indulge in a bit of fun wordplay, and its continued, incredible ability to set up moments of joy only for the realities of the Baudelaires’ world to come crashing down around them.

Adapting books 10-13 — The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, and The End — Season 3 picks up from Season 2’s literal cliffhanger (Violet and Klaus hurtling off the side of a cliff in a runaway cart) and almost never lets up its pace. Even though emotional and narrative payoff obviously doesn’t come full circle until the last few episodes, the four episodes adapting Slope and Grotto do a surprising job of being both satisfying in their own right and in how they integrate the overarching story.

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The Best TV Stands for Gaming

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Updated: October 2018

Anyone trying to fit multiple gaming consoles or other electronics under their TV without making a huge mess knows how important it is to get a high-quality gaming TV stand. A simple two-tier TV stand is fine if you're just rocking a single cable box, but things can get crowded fast. Not only does it look bad when two or more electronic devices are stacked on top of each other, it can be dangerous since the devices tend to throw heat on each other – does the Red Ring of Death ring a bell? So don't scoff - whether you're in a dorm or other small space, or looking for something sturdy to rest your massive 65 inch TV, it's important to look around for the best TV stand. You and your electronics deserve better, so we've put together a list of some of the best TV stands and entertainment centers out there that can help alleviate clutter, streamline your living space, and help your gaming HQ look more a little more professional.

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Last Year: The Nightmare Review

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The title of Last Year: The Nightmare may be short on inspiration, but its take on asymmetric survival horror multiplayer has plenty. Those who have played Friday the 13th or Dead by Daylight will be familiar with the premise of one powerful player hunting down several weak ones as they try to escape, but Last Year: The Nightmare introduces a couple new twists that make it among the best of this burgeoning sub-genre thus far. Whether you play as the killer or one of the hapless teenagers, its action is tense and strategic to the end. That said, with only three maps, no progression system, and intermittent glitches, it does have an air of early access to it at the start of its 90-day exclusive period on the Discord Store.

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Stan and Ollie Review

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It’s hard to articulate just how successful and famous comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were in their heyday. Together, Laurel & Hardy starred in over 100 films, many of them box office smashes. Their cartoonish personae and impish schtick, with the rotund Hardy constantly at the receiving end of the sticklike Laurel’s oblivious gags, fit in practically any situation. They were master comedians working at the top of their game.

But all stars must fall. Jon S. Baird’s new biopic Stan & Ollie finds the two legends at the end of their careers, still as funny as ever but struggling to find an audience now that comedy has moved on, and acts like Abbott & Costello rule the entertainment world. It sounds melancholy, and sometimes it is, but Baird has nothing but warmth in his heart for these two comedy maestros. The film is as funny and charming a Hollywood biopic as you’re ever likely to find.

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Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Is Part Video Game, Part Movie

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This is a spoiler-free review of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. You can stream the episode right now on Netflix.

Device Support: Available across most newer devices, including TVs, game consoles, web browsers, and Android and iOS devices running the latest version of the Netflix app. It’s not yet supported on Chromecast, Apple TV, and some legacy devices.

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has a knack for telling stories where the darker side of technology is explored in unique and interesting ways: "Nosedive" examines the dangers of social media and its effect on society, while "The Entire History of You" explores the risks of having a memory implant that records everything you see and hear. Brooker's tales are often humorous, thrilling, and downright frightening, but they are always observed through a passive lens, requiring nothing more from the audience than their attention.

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Roccat Renga Boost Gaming Headset Review

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At $59.99, the Roccat Renga Boost (See it on Amazon) is the least expensive over-the-ear headset in Roccat’s line-up of gaming headsets. Despite its budget price the Renga Boost delivers big stereo sound courtesy of beefy 50mm drivers, which are the same size as the drivers in the more expensive Cross model. They also feature a rotating boom mic along with a Y-connector for cross-platform gaming on mobile and consoles. Can the Renga Boost give gamers a lift at such a low price? Let's find out.

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Insurgency: Sandstorm Review

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Insurgency: Sandstorm is an excellent multiplayer shooter that successfully avoids the common pitfalls of military simulation, but still manages to deliver an immersive, at times disturbing, sense of realism to its modern, Middle Eastern setting. Its arsenal consists of some of the best-realized firearms in any video game to date thanks to stellar sound design, punchy animations, and obsessive attention to detail. Elsewhere, though, things aren't quite as glamorous: I found most of its maps to fall into the “just okay” category due in part to poorly defined restricted areas that, on top of being annoying to encounter, are easily exploited. Still, Insurgency: Sandstorm punches well above its weight, offering phenomenal gunplay that shows up much of its big-budget competition.

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Holmes & Watson Review

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There is a scene in Ethan Cohen’s Holmes & Watson where Sherlock Holmes, played by Will Ferrell, puts on a bad fake mustache and somehow fools Dr. Watson, played by John C. Reilly, into thinking he’s a completely different person. It’s not a great joke, but it’s illuminating. The filmmakers also seem to think that by slapping on a ramshackle disguise they can trick audiences into thinking Holmes & Watson isn’t just a pale imitation of Talladega Nights and Step Brothers.

But when Step Brothers and Talladega Nights would whiff a joke, both movies quickly moved on to a better one. Holmes & Watson is a collection of limp comic set pieces and repeated riffs on the same three gags: Joke A. The 21st century is different from the Victorian era; Joke B. Holmes isn’t as smart as he thinks he is; and Joke C. Blunt force trauma to the face.

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Netflix's Diablero Season 1 Review

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This is a spoiler-free review for the first season of Diablero, which is currently available to stream on Netflix.

Movies about demons are a dime a dozen, but in researching where the progenitor of demonic televisions shows started the seed seems to be rooted in the CW’s long-running series Supernatural. Since that time, demons, Satan, and the interplay between Earth and the spirit plane has been grist for so many television shows it boggles the mind. The fad is working its way into foreign-language shows now, and Netflix’s latest series, the Spanish-speaking Diablero, draws heavily from its US imitators. That’s not to say it’s a copycat, despite a hokey story that hits every familiar beat in the Necronomicon these shows utilize, the characters tenacity makes the show’s eight episodes a breeze, despite the dark content.

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Aggretsuko: "We Wish You a Metal Christmas" Review

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In the world of Sanrio, everything is sunshine and rainbows, right? Well, it is until you get to Aggretsuko, the brand’s rage-filled red panda who’s a mild-mannered employee by day and hardcore metal karaoke screamer by night.

Aggretsuko’s first season hit all the right notes in representing the frustrations of the workforce, dealing with overbearing bosses, annoying coworkers, and the awkwardness of new relationships. It’s fun and unabashedly millennial, highlighting the woes (and joys) of being a young person in our modern times. But where it fell short was in its formula, and unfortunately, its holiday special, “We Wish You a Metal Christmas,” falls into the same mundane routine, though it does offer some good commentary on the attention we seek through social media.

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Watership Down Muddies a Powerful Tale With Shoddy Animation

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This is a spoiler-free review of the new Watership Down miniseries, which premiered on BBC One in the UK and Netflix internationally.

For a generation of adults, Watership Down is probably synonymous with childhood trauma, thanks to Richard Adams' beloved (but occasionally brutal) 1972 novel, and the downright barbaric 1978 film adaptation.

The 2018 remake, directed by Noam Murro (300: Rise of an Empire) and written by Tom Bidwell (My Mad Fat Diary), thankfully omits a lot of the bloodshed that made the movie so nightmare-inducing, without softening the inherent darkness of Adams' epic rabbit tale. The plot follows a plucky group of bucks who choose to leave their warren to escape an impending disaster after one of their comrades has a horrifying premonition about their demise - seeking out the titular locale as their new home.

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On the Basis of Sex Review

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an unquestionably inspiring figure. She's the second woman to ever sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, a lifelong crusader for women's rights, and the reason that we in America have laws protecting the right to live and work without discrimination based on your gender. In Mimi Leder's film she's presented as just that. However, despite the movie showcasing her brilliance and tenacity, at times it's sanitized and schmaltzy, which takes away from the overall impact of the story.

The time-hopping narrative follows Felicity Jones' Ginsburg from her first day at Harvard Law until the groundbreaking case Moritz vs. The Commissioner, which defined her career and changed America forever. Jones is a charming lead, though both her and her co-star Armie Hammer--as Ginsburg's husband Martin--look so clean cut and handsome it's almost disarming, as they look more like models in a catalog than a pair of law students.

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Marvel's Runaways Season 2 Review

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This is a spoiler-free review of Hulu and Marvel's Runaways Season 2.

Marvel's titular Runaways are finally out on the streets in Season 2, but despite the team's newfound freedom, the show still feels trapped by some of the formulas established in its freshman year.

This year, Hulu is embracing the binge model and releasing all of Season 2 at once, rather than rolling episodes out weekly - a double-edged sword, since it's now easier to push past meandering episodes and power through to the good stuff in the back half of the season, but it also highlights the season's repetitive plotting and oddball pacing.

It seems as though showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have embraced the storytelling style of a comic book series (while taking a remix approach with Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona's narrative), exploring shorter arcs that play out over the course of two or three episodes, while simultaneously dividing the season into two fairly distinct halves in terms of the obstacles the teens have to tackle. The first batch of episodes follows on pretty neatly from last season, with the Runaways and their parents in the Pride both recognizing that alien dictator Jonah (Julian McMahon) is the most pressing threat they all face, culminating in a midseason climax that feels like a finale. This leaves the back half of the season feeling strangely rudderless until things start to come back into focus in the final three episodes - with a twist that offers an intriguing way to expand the show's scope - but by then, you kind of wonder why it took so long to get there.

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Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) - Silver Lining DLC Review

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Insomniac saved the best for last: Spider-Man: Silver Lining is what I wanted the first two chapters of The City That Never Sleeps DLC to be. Great character work across the board is not only fun in the moment but raises intriguing, farther-reaching implications for the story. And with diverse missions and a clear sense of resolution, this is just a much more satisfying day in the very dangerous life of Spider-Man.

Silver Lining’s story will only run you about an hour and a half at most, but its missions are some of the most varied of the three DLCs thus far, and all were a joy to play. Silver Sable’s return is a treat. I found her to be a bit forgettable in the main campaign, but with her dual desires to retrieve her gear from Hammerhead and work toward helping her home country, Insomniac has done a nice job of adding depth to her. Voice actor Nichole Elise’s strong performance proves less is more, as Sable can often say as much with an outreached hand as Spider-Man can in several puns – which she, amusingly, has very little patience for. The interplay between the two is a highlight of not just Silver Lining but of the entire City That Never Sleeps DLC trilogy.

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Springsteen on Broadway is a Musical Treat for Fans of The Boss

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Springsteen on Broadway is a treat for fans of The Boss, an intimate self-portrait of the rock icon where he unplugs from the arena rock that’s defined his onstage showmanship without losing much of the power, poetry, or social insights that have made Bruce Springsteen one of America’s most important and beloved musical artists. And yet Springsteen on Broadway draws a line at how much of the man’s inner life it chooses to reveal, coming up short as a full exploration of who he is now as opposed to who his fans thought he was then.

Recorded during his celebrated 2018 run on the Great White Way, this Netflix program sees Springsteen recount his life and career through spoken word and song. He’s alone onstage, without his famous E Street Band, with only a guitar, harmonica, and piano for musical accompaniment. Springsteen has gone it alone before so that’s not especially novel, but seeing Bruce do a one-man stage show feels different here because he’s not only deconstructing his own mythology but also essentially portraying a character: The Boss as an old man looking back on his life. In some ways Springsteen on Broadway has more in common with one-man plays where an actor portrays a legend like Mark Twain or Clarence Darrow than it does your typical concert program or showbiz documentary. It’s part-confession, part-performance art.

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Titans Falls Apart in its Season 1 Finale

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

Well... this has to be one of the strangest season finales of any show in recent memory. Viewers could be forgiven for not even realizing that "Dick Grayson" is the season finale, given the complete lack of closure and the fact that this season was previously billed as being 12 episodes long. Whatever weird behind-the-scenes turmoil may have led us to this point, the end result is a disappointing and anti-climatic finish to what had been a promising first year for Titans.

The goal with this episode was clearly to pay homage to the New Teen Titans comic book storyline "The Terror of Trigon," which also featured a chapter where the Titans were tormented by dark visions courtesy of Trigon. In general, there's a pretty strong legacy of DC stories dealing with this notion of a hero being tempted by a vision of what their life might have been. There's everything from "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" and its various adaptations to the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream." The premise, in this case, is very similar. Dick Grayson is presented with a taste of the happy life he could have if he leaves the superhero game behind, only for the cracks of this dream world to begin showing themselves.

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Forza Horizon 4: Fortune Island Review

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Forza Horizon 4’s first expansion may lack the unbridled madness of the previous game’s Hot Wheels expansion, and it’s not as immediately divergent as Blizzard Mountain was (which brought winter conditions and snow for the first time), but Forza Horizon 4: Fortune Island is a great add-on that features some of the most brilliant and fun stretches of road in the series to date.

Set on a fictional, high-latitude island far off the coast of Britain, Fortune Island is more of a driving purist’s playground than Forza Horizon 3’s more experimental DLC. The star attraction is the Needle Climb, a several-mile stretch of sealed switchbacks that winds up Fortune Island’s highest peak. The Forza Horizon series has been begging for a ribbon of road like this since the beginning, and the Needle Climb doesn’t disappoint.

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The Timeless Series Finale is a Love Letter to Fans

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This review contains spoilers for the series finale of Timeless, titled "The Miracle of Christmas."

Turning any television show into a movie is an enormous undertaking, especially when that series is as complicated as Timeless. “The Miracle of Christmas Part I & II” manages to offer viewers a reminder of just how many lives the Time Team has lived together, and how unbreakable their bond is, in a way that should prove immensely satisfying for longtime fans.

This is particularly evident in the moment when Lucy (Abigail Spencer) flips through in her journal to revisit beloved memorabilia from their past missions: a theater ticket, a pamphlet from their time with the suffragettes in 1919, and a little something from the trip to Hollywoodland where the show’s central ship, Lyatt, set sail.

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Ring of Elysium Early Access Review

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Now that battle royale games have become legion, the new arms race is to find clever ways for a new game to set itself apart from the Fortnites and PUBGs of the world. In Tencent’s winter-themed Ring of Elysium, which recently launched as a surprisingly polished early access game with cosmetic-only microtransactions, there’s more than a little inspiration taken from those two behemoths, but its wintery theme, clever new ideas around movement, and exciting final moments make it feel distinct.

Here, a smaller-than-average group of 60 players (either alone, in pairs, or in groups of up to four) battle it out to escape a deadly blizzard that ravages remote mountain towns. But unlike the usual trudging around on foot or the occasional vehicle, Ring mixes up the way you get from point A to point B with a map that features not only ski lifts, but also gives you access to snowboards, hang gliders, and mountain-climbing gear. That change injects exciting creativity into the genre without going into off-the-wall fantasy.

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Cooler Master MH752 Gaming Headset Review

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Cooler Master may not be the biggest name in gaming headsets, but its new MH752 headset (See it on Amazon) aims to be a comfortable, good-sounding headset without some of the unnecessary features gaming headsets often include (RGB lights, *cough*). For $100, you get a well-built pair of headphones with a detachable boom mic for cross-platform gaming along with a USB amplifier with virtual 7.1 surround sound for PC (and Mac).

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Russo Brothers' New Superhero Syfy Series is Hogwarts for Killers

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Syfy has made the series premiere of Deadly Class available online ahead of its official broadcast debut, scheduled for Wednesday, January 16 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. This is an advanced review of the first episode.

There’s a wellspring of violent, nihilistic stories to match the current political climate. The Deadly Class comic — the Rick Remender-Wesley Craig monthly from Image — is one of them, and while its TV translation captures the feel of modern America, it has little to actually say about it.

Created by a who’s who of writers and producers (including Remender himself, along with Avengers: Infinity War’s Joe & Anthony Russo), the first chapter in Syfy’s series has arrived nearly a month ahead of schedule. Starring Benjamin Wadsworth as boys’ home runaway Marcus Lopez and Benedict Wong as a school-for-assassins ringleader — the suave, Rhadamanthine Master Lin — Deadly Class drops us right in the middle of Reagan’s America in 1987.

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Below Review

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I love the feeling I get when exploring a new level of Below's gloomy, foreboding dungeon for the first time. From the enemies to the environment art to the sound design, everything falls into place perfectly to create a spooky atmosphere of unveiling the unknown, never quite knowing what might lie down the next flight of stairs. Then I step on a cheap instakill spike trap, have to start over without my stuff, and likely need to spend the next 30 minutes farming lantern fuel and bat meat so I can take another crack at it. Talk about killing the mood.

Almost all of my biggest frustrations with Below come back to it not seeming able to decide if it wants to be a moody, deliberate dungeon crawler with satisfying combat or a punishing survival-action game that never lets you relax. It's at its best when it keeps that first goal in mind, wowing me with cool, subterranean vistas and enticing me with hard-to-find secret rooms full of useful rewards.

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Batman Ends 2018 in Poor Form

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Tom King's Batman kicked off 2018 with an issue that sought to add an entirely new member to the Dark Knight's rogues gallery. It's fitting that the year ends with a second look at "Master Bruce," the deranged boy who wants nothing more than to be the real Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately, even after two full issues devoted to this character, he comes across as less a fully realized villain than a half-baked plot device.

Not that it isn't refreshing to see King tackle a completely original villain for a change, as opposed to various iconic foes and minor footnotes like Kite-Man and Condiment King. Again, the problem rests more with the execution. Master Bruce is a villain who covets the life of the real Bruce Wayne to the point of madness. He reads less like a unique character than a slightly overhauled take on Hush. That was the initial impression given by Batman #38 back in January, and little about this follow-up story does anything to change that impression. This character simply needs more depth before can begin living up to his potential. At best, he serves as an interesting lens into the psyche of the real Bruce Wayne than a full-fledged character in his own right.

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Netflix's Bird Box Review

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The following is a mostly spoiler-free review of Bird Box, which premieres Friday, December 21 on Netflix.

In a slightly better effort and presentation than most Netflix Original movies, Bird Box stars Sandra Bullock as one of the few survivors of a global "event" that - *sigh* - involves invisible demons instantly causing all who see them to commit suicide. Look, it's all better than the description makes it sound. Though, this gimmick also feels goofy at times, and needlessly convolutes a story that, for all intents and purposes, could be about anything world-ending (zombies, clickers, what have you).

The end result of these supernatural creatures (if you're looking for the film's "hook") is that the characters can't go outside with their eyes open, creating a scenario where Bullock's Malorie has to escort two 5-year-old kids (one is hers and the other an orphan) through the woods blindfolded, surrounded by shrieking chaos. Their lack of visuals makes for a cool visual, and an unsettling survival scenario, but it the movie feels reverse engineered to create this very specific, heightened situation. As if the author - in this case Josh Malerman, who wrote the 2014 book the movie's based on - worked backwards from a cool idea and created "monsters" that could accommodate such an ordeal.

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Welcome to Marwen Review

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Late in Welcome to Marwen, there is a series of impossible to miss visual callbacks to Back to the Future. While they are among the most fun moments in director Robert Zemeckis’ latest aesthetically ambitious feature, they also serve as a reminder that this is in fact the guy who directed Back to the Future. Now, more than 30 years later, he’s releasing Welcome to Marwen, easily the biggest blunder in a career that has, frankly, been all over the place. There’s something cynically poetic about a director purposefully reminding audiences of his best film whilst in the third act of his worst, but then there’s also something cynical about the way the director tells this tale.

Following the true story of Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell)—an artist turned photographer after an assault left him with brain damage—Zemeckis splits the film into two visually distinct styles. There’s Mark’s everyday life, photographing his dolls made to resemble himself and the various women in his life (Merrit Wever, Janelle Monae, Eliza Gonzalez, Gwendoline Christie, and Leslie Zemeckis, all with varying degrees of significance and screentime, but none with much of a personality), and then the animated world inspired by Mark’s imagination, as acted by his dolls, chiefly his personal doppelganger, Captain Hogie. Mark’s trauma and road to recovery are turned into Zemeckis’ latest playground for visual effects, which only really succeeds in dampening his inner conflict into something silly.

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Razer Hammerhead USB-C ANC Earbuds Review

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Not a news flash: Headphone jacks are slowly becoming a thing of the past as wireless technologies become ubiquitous. Thus, when Razer stepped into the smartphone market with its Razer Phone, the device launched with Razer Hammerhead earbuds. These were wired earbuds, but they connected via USB-C rather than a standard 3.5 mm jack. With an in-headphone digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and flat cables to prevent tangling, the original Hammerhead USB-C was a pretty solid pair of headphones. Now, Razer has upped the ante with the Hammerhead USB-C ANC (See them on Razer's site), which offers active noise cancellation and a price tag that's $20 higher at $99. Do Razer’s premier gaming earbuds compare to a full-blown headset? Let's find out.

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TP-Link Archer C5400X Gaming Router Review

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TP-Link has a new flagship router, and unlike its previous offerings this one is specifically marketed as a gaming router. Dubbed the Archer C5400X (See it on Amazon), this is one of those "we spared no expense" type of routers for people with a ton of devices to connect, and a big budget for home networking because at $400 it's not for casuals. In exchange for your hard-earned dollars you get a tri-band, MU-MIMO router with link aggregation, lots of bandwidth, eight LAN ports, and built-in antivirus.

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Vice Review

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The writer/director of The Big Short is back, and once again he can barely contain his anger about America’s broken institutions. Adam McKay’s new film, Vice, tells the story of former Vice President Dick Cheney, a secretive and influential politician who transformed a political office with limited political responsibility into a position of incredible power, and used it to transform domestic and foreign policy, the economy, human rights and the entire world.

Christian Bale (under a tremendous amount of makeup) stars as Dick Cheney, a young drunk who, at the urging of his wife Lynne (Amy Adams), pursues a career in politics. He ventures to Washington D.C. where he becomes the intern for Congressman Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), whose chuckling demeanor hides a no-nonsense political viciousness. Dick Cheney rises through the ranks of the White House for decades, gaining experience and notoriety, until the tide shifts, his health fails, and he finally retires to a lucrative career in the private sector.

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Netflix's Voltron Gets a Powerful and Bittersweet Final Season

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Note: this is a spoiler-free review of the eighth season of Voltron: Legendary Defender, which is available to stream now on Netflix. I'll confine all spoiler discussion to a marked section at the end of the review.

From the very start, Voltron: Legendary Defender has been one of the biggest guns in Netflix's arsenal of original animated series. The show has that winning combination of being a modernized update of a beloved '80s property and telling a story that appeals to adults and kids in equal measure. The prospect of Voltron reaching its end is definitely a bittersweet one. This feels like a series that could have lasted several more seasons, at least. But if it has to end now, at least it's going out in top form.

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Borderlands 2 VR Review

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When we dream of replaying our favorite traditional games in virtual reality, what are we really envisioning? In the case of Borderlands 2, the beloved looter-shooter from Gearbox, you might imagine looting and shooting with newfound immediacy, flinging yourself headlong back into the vibrant world of Pandora to delight in its distinctive hand-drawn environments first-hand. What you are probably not picturing is an awkward, unwieldy, often defective-seeming port, which reimagines the nimble action classic as a sluggish and clumsy slog for the PSVR.

So much of what made Borderlands 2 great has been stripped out of its VR version that it feels as if it’s been ransacked by Vault Hunters. The most conspicuous absence — and one that changes the experience in a fundamental way — is cooperative play. Borderlands 2 does work in single-player but it was always intended to be enjoyed with up to three friends, yoked together in frantic bouts of madcap chaos. Racing to snag coveted loot before it’s whisked away from under you is an essential component of its popularity, and for many people accustomed to its whirlwind pace, Borderlands VR is bound to seem lonely. It’s the kind of feature whose omission is frankly unforgivable.

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Netflix's The Innocent Man Is Your Next True-Crime Binge

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Note: this is a spoiler-free review of The Innocent Man, which debuts on Netflix on Friday, December 14.

True crime fanatics who happen to have a Netflix subscription are never starved for options. Making a Murderer Season 1 really opened the floodgates and established Netflix as a force to be reckoned with in the true crime area. But for those hoping to scratch that very specific Making a Murderer itch, even Season 2 was found wanting in some respects. There just haven't been enough new developments with that particular case to warrant a whole new season. With that in mind, The Innocent Man may be the more satisfying follow-up to Making a Murderer. Just don't expect a series that breaks any new ground with the genre.

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Titans Doubles Down on Superhero Horror

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

We're rapidly approaching the end of the first season of Titans, and it does finally feel as though the pieces are all coming together. This week's episode provides some much-needed momentum on both the Raven and Starfire fronts, while further suggesting that Donna Troy could become a valuable and regular member of the team.

The most immediately striking thing about "Koriand'r" is how horror-infused this episode truly is. This emphasis on horror seems to be a major way DC is trying to set this particular live-action universe apart from something like the Arrowverse. It's apparent not just in Titans itself, but also the emphasis on darker, weirder properties like Doom Patrol and Swamp Thing as this shared universe begins to expand in 2019 (more on that here). It's seems like a great choice. Titans is already so dark. You really need those doses of humor and horror to give the darkness a little zest and not just foist a grim, brooding superhero drama upon viewers.

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Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Holiday Special Review

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This is a spoiler-free review of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina holiday special, now streaming on Netflix. Refresh your memory with our Season 1 review here.

Try as I might to find a way to sugarcoat it, like a cranberry strung up on a yule tree, I cannot: the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s holiday special, “A Midwinter’s Tale,” lands like a bit of coal in your Netflix stocking.

It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly good, either. The episode shoves a lot of stuff — and it truly is just stuff — of little consequence into the 55 or so minutes, and it all unfolds like a belabored sigh. Sabrina, post-break-up, is in a bit of a funk. She’s unsure what to do about Harvey, and wishes she could get some advice — but not from anyone in the Spellman house.

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review

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This is a spoiler-free review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

There’s no replacing a comic book legend like Peter Parker, but Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse makes a strong case for why more “Spider-People” is a good thing. Miles Morales’ journey from zero to hero is brought to life with jaw-dropping animation, whimsical callbacks to previous Spider-Man media, and memorable side characters from the multiverse that range from fan-favorite Spider-Gwen to the outright bizarre Spider-Ham.

The unique and often brilliant 3D animation style is a fantastic aspect of the movie, though it does take some time to get used to. It’s like watching a comic book being brought to life, complete with vibrant colors, a few KAPOWS, and some actual thought bubbles sprinkled in for dramatic effect. With so many American animated films resembling Pixar nowadays, Into the Spider-Verse is a visual experience unlike anything we’ve seen before. Those one-of-a-kind visuals add an otherworldly look, which is appropriate since the story is not set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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HyperX Cloud Gaming Earbuds Review

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The launch of the Nintendo Switch, the world’s first hybrid portable home console, has created a new niche market for peripheral creators to fill. Gamers would want the same class of headphone and microphone quality they enjoyed on their home consoles, just reduced into a highly portable form factor for play-anywhere Switch gaming.

HyperX has accepted the challenge with its $49.99 HyperX Cloud Earbuds (See them on Amazon), which are advertised as being optimized for the Nintendo Switch. But is this just a keyword play, planting “Switch gaming” in the marketing of a standard-issue set of earbuds? Or do HyperX Cloud Earbuds actually provide a heavenly Switch experience, especially when compared against a conventional headset? I decided to find out.

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If Beale Street Could Talk Review

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This review was originally published from the New York Film Festival.

Barry Jenkins is a director of rare precision and skill in bringing out the soul of his films. Following up one of the most deserving Best Picture Oscar winners since the turn of the century, the Moonlight helmer has devised a visually nurturing love letter to author James Baldwin. An adaptation of his 1974 novel of the same name, If Beale Street Could Talk is packed to the brim with details that instate a dreamlike quality on this Harlem period romance.

With all the racism in today’s world seemingly getting louder, Jenkins smartly chooses to keep the novel within the era it was written to send a message of love that feels more classic than contemporary, while also dealing with issues disturbingly still relevant today. The script not only discusses the injustices our legal system serves on black people, especially the men, it juxtaposes them against the ongoing sexual assault conversation to tell a rich, complex story that digs into the layers of societal issues currently making headlines.

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Gris Review

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Gris is a visual masterpiece. It’s a living watercolour illustration that explores the complex themes of loss and grief through a visually arresting world and affecting orchestral score. At first glance, Gris looks to be a fitting bookend to a year that started with Celeste - a game that married an exploration of mental illness with incredible platforming gameplay, but ultimately its basic level design and many minor frustrations make its exceptional qualities feel only skin deep.

Gris’s story can be obtuse at times as it opts to tell it through symbolism rather than dialogue. The main character, a heartbroken young woman, has lost her voice and wanders the empty, motley world with no real sense of purpose. As she explores and the landscape changes from windswept deserts littered with debris and collapsed buildings to forests and underwater labyrinths that hide curious creatures both friend and foe, she learns new skills to overcome obstacles and eventually find her way “out”. Like a painting in an art gallery or an art house film, Gris leaves itself open to interpretation.

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South Park's Season Finale Fails to Tie Up Loose Ends

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

Even in the most continuity-driven seasons of South Park, there’s never a sense of anything more than a vague road map guiding the series along from start to finish. That improvisational approach has its benefits and drawbacks (both of which were really on display back in Season 20), but for the most part the series seems better off when the writers don’t dwell too much on where everything is leading. That’s what makes “Bike Parade” a little perplexing. This episode attempts to tie together nearly every loose end from the past three months into a neat little bow, even when it’s not clear why that’s necessary.

This week’s finale had plenty of material to chew on. Even as “Bike Parade” continued tackling the Amazon worker strike and the the race to build the coolest bike, it also reached back to reference everything from Tegridy Farms to the PC Babies to the haunted e-scooters. Cartman’s breathless rant about wanting to shoot up “the skooo” managed to call back to several episodes at once. This episode was basically one ManBearPig reference short of checking off every Season 22 box there is.

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Hades Early Access Review

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What does it take to make a great run-based game? Tight combat, of course. A variety of mix-and-match abilities that interact in interesting ways, certainly. Procedurally generated levels are nice. Progression and other systems that help each new run stay fun for hours and hours are definitely essential. Hades, an isometric beat-em-up from developer Supergiant Games, offers all these things even in its early access launch state, and sets its sights even higher. By blending the layered, mechanically meaningful storytelling elements of its last game, Pyre, with the addictive, almost endlessly replayable structures of games like Rogue Legacy and Dead Cells, Supergiant appears to be on its way to making a “rogue-lite” the likes of which we’ve rarely seen.

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Artifact Review

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Five years after Valve’s last major game, the legendary developer proves it still knows how to make amazing things. As a Dota 2-themed digital card game, Artifact may not be what people were expecting, but it does exactly what Valve is known for: it’s something different and exciting within an established genre, housed in the most detailed and polished package possible.

Artifact sets itself apart from so many other card games that find their roots in Magic: The Gathering – a game that Artifact’s designer, Richard Garfield, created in 1993 – by splitting the playing field into three lanes and having you pick five persistent Heroes for your deck that get stronger and respawn throughout the match. While playing cards and dealing damage might be familiar to Hearthstone or Magic fans, the way Artifact makes you think about that is fundamentally different.

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Saru's Origin Revealed in Latest Short Trek

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Full SPOILERS follow for this episode.

The third of the Short Treks in CBS All Access’ roll-out of Star Trek shorts is “The Brightest Star,” an origin story as it were for Saru, Doug Jones’ Kelpien first officer from Star Trek: Discovery who, indeed, is consistently one of the brightest stars of that show. This segment, unfortunately, falls short of deserving similar accolades, though it is certainly a graceful and thought-provoking installment in the unique experiment that is the Short Treks.

Alas, as was the case with the first short, “Runaway,” this story is ultimately too concise and undercooked to land with the full dramatic impact that one might hope. Just as things are getting going, and Saru begins to question the nature of his existence on his homeworld, things comes to (a fairly predictable, if still cool) conclusion.

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Once Upon a Deadpool Review

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In what can only be explained as a grand cinematic editing experiment, 20th Century Fox and director David Leitch have decided to re-release Deadpool 2, now conveniently shaved down – or to be more frank sandblasted – into a shape that can fit into the bland auspices of a PG-13 rating. The two Deadpool movies have previously gained much of their clout and notoriety (not to mention enormous box office numbers) via their subversive naughtiness. In a world where all major superhero flicks are rated PG-13 – read: they are bereft of sex, feature no intriguing filth, don't allow themselves to cuss too much, and feature no bloody violence – the Deadpool movies were more than amusing, they were refreshing. From within the studio-sanctioned system, here was a comedic superhero that had no qualms about murdering, swearing, and having dirty sex; you're certainly not going to see a pegging scene in a Captain America film. Additionally, Deadpool offered a hilarious meta-narrative; Our anti-hero would often address the camera to comment on his own place in the current pop firmament.

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Mary Poppins Returns Review

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When a movie is practically perfect in every way, the prospect of any sequel — let alone one produced more than 50 years after the original — seems like a recipe for disaster. Luckily, with a dash of mischief, a dollop of whimsy, and, yes, a hearty spoonful of sugar, Mary Poppins Returns manages to feel less like a cynical cash-grab and more like a visit from an old friend — even if the reality of her reappearance doesn’t quite live up to your fuzzy memories of the good ol’ days.

Set 25 years after the events of Mary Poppins, the sequel finds the titular nanny (who has effortlessly transformed into Emily Blunt) dropping back in on the Banks children when they’re all grown up. Feisty Jane (Emily Mortimer) is following in her activist mother’s footsteps as a labor organizer with no time for romance, and nebbish Michael (Ben Whishaw) is reeling from the death of his wife, simultaneously trying to take care of their three children, Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson), while struggling to solve a stressful financial situation.

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The Arrowverse's "Elseworlds" Crossover Has a Thrilling Finish

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

“Elseworlds” has been, among other things, a great way to wrap up a fairly tumultuous and troubled year in the Arrowverse. This crossover captures so much of what makes these shows great in the first place - the energetic character banter, the hopeful tone and the willingness to dive as deep as possible into DC lore. I’ve said this at various points in the past, but it’s crazy to compare this crossover to the first couple seasons of Arrow and remember just how far this superhero TV universe has grown.

“Elseworlds, Part 3” capped off the storyline on a very fitting note. These crossovers have a bad habit of trying to do too much and juggle too many characters at once. That’s why I’ll take smaller-scale fare like “The Brave and the Bold” and “Duet” over “Invasion!” and “Crisis on Earth-X” any day. Honestly, one of the smartest moves the writers made with Elseworlds” was keeping the Legends out of the fun (other than that delightful Gary cameo tonight). What real purpose would they have served here?

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Katamari Damacy Reroll Review

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I’d like to share a truth with you. And that truth is that even Time – that Great Devourer of early polygonal graphics, that beast which hath smote and sullied many a PSone and PS2 icon, that ravager of (gaming) worlds – is powerless against the might of Katamari Damacy. This joyous game’s deliberately low-poly art style has proven to be not just a great artistic choice in its era, but the key to ensuring it ages with grace. About the only thing the PS2 version needed was a bump in resolution to really ensure its blocky aesthetic works on a modern screen, and with Reroll, that’s exactly what we have – and it’s glorious.

Of course, the real genius of Katamari Damacy is its central, simple, Blob-like idea: roll up things that are smaller than you (as represented by your katamari ball) in order to absorb it and grow, which then allows you to roll up larger things. It’s a through-line that takes you from rolling up thumbtacks and takoyaki all the way up to people and trees, and then onto an apocalyptic scale where you’re consuming ocean liners, cities, and the clouds themselves.

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Ashen Review

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Like a home away from home, Ashen feels both startlingly familiar and original. A44’s action-RPG wears its Dark Souls-inspired identity proudly, delivering nearly identical mechanics and progression systems along with a captivating open world and gorgeous art style. Those, combined with charmingly minimalistic two-player co-op, elevate Ashen to more than just a Dark Souls clone. Whether you’re tiptoeing through a shadowy dungeon, squaring off against a massive boss, or exploring off the main pathway, Ashen has enough of its own ideas to feel additive instead of derivative.

Ashen tells a standard but well-written story of a battle between light and darkness, elevated by solid voice acting. The eponymous god – a large, radiant bird – disappeared years ago, sending the world that it had kept whole into a bleak period of darkness. The heart of the story comes from the environments you explore, the people you meet, and their mixture of hope and despair as they await the return of the Ashen. As you begin to restore a normal semblance of life to this world, the beauty of what was once lost in darkness becomes even clearer. Though understated in its delivery, it’s a stirring and atmospheric tale.

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Walmart Overpowered 17+ Gaming Laptop Review

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Walmart recently announced its own line of gaming computers. They go by the brand name "Overpowered," and were designed in collaboration with Esports Arena, with both Overpowered laptops and desktops sold exclusively at Walmart stores (See them at Walmart).

The Overpowered laptop offerings consist of three different models: The $999 Overpowered 15, $1,399 Overpowered 15+, and the $1,699 Overpowered 17+, which I'm reviewing here. Since Walmart loves low prices those prices will drop from time to time though. For example, as of this writing, the Overpowered 15 is priced is $300 off at $699 and the Overpowered 17+ is $400 off and is a very reasonable $1,299.

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Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old Review

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They Shall Not Grow Old will be released in theaters as a Fathom Event on December 17th and December 27th.

Back in 2014, just when he was wrapping production on the third of his Hobbit movies, Peter Jackson was approached by the British Imperial War Museum and the BBC about making a documentary film to commemorate British soldiers upon the 2018 centennial of World War I's Armistice Day. Jackson was granted access to century-old footage from the museum's archive, as well as old BBC audio interviews with some of the soldiers who actually fought in the war. Jackson was explicitly instructed to use this footage to tell the soldiers' story.

Four years later, Jackson turned out They Shall Not Grow Old, a technical experiment that more or less succeeds. Jackson – as he is wont to do – used They Shall Not Grow Old as an opportunity to explore the limits of digital filmmaking. Jackson, perhaps like many modern audiences, felt that the aesthetic of century-old film was distant and alien, keeping audiences too far apart from the cinema's subjects. It was silent, the frame rate was lower (making for a “sped-up” movement), there was little camera movement (cameras were too large to carry around) and of course, there was no color. For his documentary, Jackson not only colorized the film but – using revolutionary digital trickery – changed the frame rate to match the 24-frames-per-seconds that the modern eye is used to. Jackson also converted the footage to 3-D and moved the “camera” in a more dynamic fashion, lending the image a reinvigorated sense of scope and depth. To round out the realism, Jackson also added sound effects and voices to the footage, so we hear the booming cannons during the battles and the gentle chatter of the soldiers during the war's less hectic moments.

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Aquaman Review

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Aquaman’s greatest superpower isn’t controlling the seas or communicating with fish – it’s the ability to embrace and absorb his own inherent cheesiness and use it to make himself more entertaining to watch. His first solo movie is often corny, but it owns all that with the audacity and fearlessness to just go for it. This James Wan-directed DC film declares to the world that this is a giant B-movie where krakens are voiced by screen legends and characters ride seahorses into battle, and it’s not going to pause to let you dwell on any of that. It’s precisely because it’s so damn zany, unafraid to embrace its comic bookiness, and is just plain out there that Aquaman is a blast.

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