It would be dishonest to refuse to acknowledge that the argument that "Pixar ain't what they used to be" doesn't have some compelling evidence, their increased focus on sequels and prequels over the last few years helping to somewhat reduce the excitement and anticipation that the release of a new Pixar film once cultivated. As if as a response to that particular criticism, Pixar releases Inside Out, reuniting the team behind Up (incidentally, my favourite Pixar film) for their most creatively intriguing film to date.
Inside Out mostly takes place inside the mind of Riley, an 11 year old girl from Minnesota who is moving house to San Francisco with her parents. Like all people in this world, her feelings are controlled by five emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust) who each control Riley at different times. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving in San Francisco, Joy and Sadness are accidentally ejected from Headquarters (the control centre for Riley's feelings) and have to explore the rest of Riley's mind in order to get back, leaving Anger, Fear and Disgust in charge of Riley's feelings in the mean time.
It'd be wrong to start talking about Ant-Man without first taking a look at the difficult production history it has faced. Originally pitched to Marvel Studios by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish in 2003, Ant-Man spent the next 11 years going through various drafts before it was due to enter production, with Wright set to direct, in 2014. But just days before filming was set to begin, Wright dropped out of the project citing creative differences, leaving Marvel Studios scrambling to find a new director who was willing to take on Ant-Man. The director they found was Peyton Reed, who along with Adam McKay and Paul Rudd proceeded to rewrite parts of the script before filming began.
Taking place shortly after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man has us following Scott Lang, an ex-convict down on his luck who is unable to pay the child support required to see his 6 year old daughter. After breaking into the house of ex-SHIELD agent and scientific genius Hank Pym, Scott is tasked with becoming the new Ant-Man in order to pull of a heist that will stop nefarious businessman Darren Cross from selling the secret to the Pym Particles, the science behind the suits ability to shrink, to the highest bidder.
The film that put James Cameron on the map, The Terminator is quite rightly seen as a science fiction classic, a film that has had enormous impact on modern pop culture thanks to both the lasting impression that The Terminator made and the huge career boost that James Cameron received afterwards. Without The Terminator, I very much doubt that we would have seen the rest of James Cameron's filmography come to fruition, never mind the number of actors that he has since helped turn into film stars.
The story follows Kyle Reese as he travels back in time from a post-apocalyptic future in which an artificial intelligence known as Skynet has taken over the world. His mission is to protect Sarah Connor from a killing machine known as a Terminator that was also sent back in time to kill her thanks to the fact that she is destined to give birth to the leader of the human resistance.
I don't think anyone will be surprised to find out that Terminator Genisys is a bad film - no one can have expected good things from the fifth film in a franchise that should never have been a franchise in the first place. But it is the way in which Terminator Genisys is bad that really stings, its determination to reset the Terminator universe getting in the way of the (very few) good ideas that it contains, wiping the slate clean of two quite rightly classic science fiction movies and replacing it with... well, this shit.
Set in an alternate timeline to the one seen in The Terminator, Terminator Genisys has us following Kyle Reese, Sarah Connor and a T850 model Terminator known as "Pops" as they attempt to stop Skynet (known here as Genisys) from being activated and causing Judgement Day in 2017.
