The Russo Brothers were actually able to redeem Avengers: Age of Ultron with their work on Captain America: Civil War, and they’re back to direct the next two Avengers films. Chris Evans, who everyone knows better as Captain America, opens up about the upcoming Avengers flick and how Marvel has been pumping out hit after hit.
Talking during the Ace Comic-Con (via ComicBook), Evans talks about working on his last two Avengers films:
“That was the best part of this movie, is that you really kind of, it really was for the first time for me feeling like… the first few movies it’s almost like it’s happening to somebody else. You kind of feel like you’re watching it happen, but you’re not actually a part of it. This was kind of the first movie where you actually felt like you had a seat at the table and you belonged and it was so nice to have all these other franchises that you’ve watched and admired come to a set where you’re like oh man, I belong here, and all these great people are part of a movie that we’re all doing together, and it was just wonderful because all of those franchises, well, let’s be honest. Marvel doesn’t miss. They haven’t missed yet. They’re batting a thousand.”
I don’t know how they do that. They don’t miss and so to see all these actors come together from all these other franchises that I’ve seen as fans be exchanging dialogue with me was overwhelming and really just so satisfying because really truly, there’s not one bad apple.”
With Captain America having to share some screentime with a lot of heroes, it would be understandable that some of his character development can be thrown out the window. With this film having twice the number of characters, I wonder how the Russo Brothers plan to do this complicated juggling act of keeping every character relevant. At least they have each other to bounce ideas off of as compared to Joss Whedon who had to shoulder everything himself.
Like everyone else, I’m excited for the release of this film. It’s the start of the end of Phase 3, and we could be saying goodbye to come characters that have been with us for about a decade. Let’s just hope it sets up everything nicely for Phase 4.
There have been a lot of great casting choices in comic book movies. We have Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Heath Ledger as the Joker, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man…but the list goes on and on. But there are some comic book movie casting choices that make you go, “what the heck were they thinking?” Whether it's a great actor being horribly miscast or a mediocre actor dealing with more than they can handle, these casting decisions are just baffling.
Let's take a look at some of the weirder casting choices Marvel and DC have made.
#1- David Thewlis as Ares
David Thewlis is a great actor and a distinguished gentleman. But there is absolutely no way to buy him as the terrifying Greek God of War. This was part of the Wonder Woman movie’s intention-the twist was that he was the last person you’d expect to be Ares due to his proper appearance.
But the “twist” doesn’t change the fact that once Thewlis starts fighting Wonder Woman, it’s impossible to take him seriously or mentally connect him to Ares. He looks nothing like the guy in the comics and he doesn’t have the massive, oppressive presence needed for a larger-than-life supernatural character. He seems to try to compensate for this by chewing scenery and just comes off as sort of comical as a result.
It’s possible the twist could have worked a lot better if it had been developed more as part of the narrative and Thewlis had played more of a strategic, behind-the-scenes take on the war god, manipulating people to fight Wonder Woman and sinsterly pulling puppet strings rather than fighting her head-on. But seeing Thewlis brawling head to head with Diana and screaming his head off? It just looks ludicrous.
#2- Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor
Jesse Eisenberg shines in other brainy roles, as seen in The Social Network, but he is not at all the right fit for Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. He lacks the smooth, sinister maturity people associate with the character. Granted, Zack Snyder’s take on Luthor seemed to be deliberately different from the one everyone was used to- but that wasn't neccessarily a good decision This young and awkward Lex Luthor just didn’t take for me and a lot of other people.
A combination of Eisenberg’s acting and Snyder’s writing made the character come off as hyperactive, cartoonish and bit like a maniacal chipmunk. It was especially jarring considering the movie was otherwise dark and melancholy. It was trying very hard to be a “serious, adult” superhero movie, but Eisenberg’s over-the-top antagonist felt like it belonged in a kiddie film.
#3- Jared Leto as the Joker
Oh boy. Where do we even start with Jared Leto as the Joker in Suicide Squad? Even before the movie aired, he was a controversial casting choice due to his questionable behavior on set. His actions, which including sending used condoms to crewmates, came off less like “method acting” and more like “an excuse to harass people”. Not to mention the “edgy” statements Leto made while pretending to be a Joker that came off as a Hot Topic obsessed 12 year old’s tryhard ramblings. Here's one example of Leto’s antics from the director:
“One time I yelled ‘cut' and Jared turned to me and said ‘what if someone just stood in the middle of Wall Street and yelled cut? Maybe the monkeys in suits would forget their trained routine of going to work' My jaw hit the floor and it never really came back up. That's when I thought, is he getting in character to play Joker, or is Joker something that's been in him all along?”
“Sometimes i would go to look into the cameras, and I noticed Jared had put something in the lens. It was stuff like ‘What if cameras were guns? Would you buy a mass murderer?' and ‘Lights. Camera. Insanity.' I had to ask him to stop because I was getting too scared to direct.”
Needless to say, these antics came off more a laughably faux-edgy than “terrifying”. And that bore out in the movie itself. For a lot of people, myself included, Leto’s performance as the Joker really did seem like a shallow, Hot Topic version of the character.
#4- Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One
At this point, I’m thinking leaving the Ancient One out together would have been preferable to Swinton’s casting in Doctor Strange. Even those who don’t agree with me that whitewashing is bad have to be tired of the endless arguing. Considering the lack of positive Asian characters in the MCU, Swinton’s casting was just salt in the wound for many fans. And in the end, was it worth it? Swinton’s Ancient One wasn’t the complex representation of women the director promised. Her role was flat and honestly didn’t manage to add much to the movie.
#5- Jennifer Garner as Elektra
Jennifer Garner has what it takes to play a badass karate-chopping lady, her starring role in Alias proves that. However, she isn’t the right pick for the ice-cold Elektra. Garner has a bit of a relatable girl-next-door vibe about her and that doesn’t fit the mysterious assassin in any way. As Sydney Bristow in Alias, Garner was able to balance toughness and vulnerability to make a relatable character. But Elektra’s vulnerability is deep, deep down under a crusty shell and Garner couldn’t really pull that off. Her acting in Elektra comes off as stiff and emotionless as a result.
It didn’t help that she had an absolutely abysmal script to work with alongside some very poorly choreographed action sequences. Poor Jen was just not in a great position overall.
#6- Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider
Oh, Nic Cage. You’re so stoic. And in this movie, so ridiculous. It is pretty hard to take you seriously as Ghost Rider. The Ghost Rider movies are incredibly campy and they can be fun if you like that sort of thing. However, as far as I can tell, they’re not campy on purpose. Nic Cage’s performance as Johnny Blaze is so-bad-it’s-good, but he was clearly just trying to be plain old good.
Johnny Blaze is supposed to be young, impulsive and wild. Cage comes off as a middle-aged man trying super hard to be cool and failing spectacularly. Cage seems to adore the character and the comics, but he was just not the right fit for the role at all.
#7- Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze
Arnold certainly played a version of Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin, but it wasn’t a version that was particularly compelling or anything like fans wanted to see. His campy, cartoonish, over-the-top ice-punning take on the character just repelled fans. The darker, more tragic take on the character in Batman: The Animated Series just very much overshadows the caricature that Schwarzenegger ‘s Freeze was. While there are a lot of things that fans hated about Batman and Robin, Freeze might be the most memorably cringe-y part.
And really, there was no way Arnold could have ever delivered a more nuanced take on the character. You don’t cast Arnold unless you want to ham it up, so he definitely hammed it up all he could as Freeze. While I think Clooney could have been an okay Batman if given the chance, I just can’t say in good conscience Arnold S. could ever work as the serious version of Freeze fans desire. Also, Freeze's costume almost killed the poor man.
#8- Topher Grace as Venom
Eddie Brock is supposed to be an intimidating scary hunk of a man. Topher Grace is…decidedly not that. In Spider-Man 3, he comes off as more cocky, smarmy and obnoxious than scary. Even in his Venom suit, he was more laughable than threatening. He just couldn’t capture the darkness and instability that defines the character and the rushed script didn’t help matters. Eddie Brock is also supposed to be a contrast to Peter Parker. He’s the muscular heavy hitting jock jock to Peter’s agile and slim nerd. Grace, meanwhile, was hard to differentiate from Toby Maguire physique wise. The contrast between the two characters just isn’t there.
#9- Halle Berry as Storm
Honestly, I don’t think anything was wrong with Halle Berry as Catwoman. Halle Berry nearly won an Oscar once, so the woman can definitely act. There was just absolutely no one in the universe who could have made that poorly written mess of a role work. Berry tried her best and was even gracious enough to accept a Razzie for the performance.
However, while I have nothing against Berry as an actress, for whatever reason she just doesn’t work as Storm.
I’m not sure why Berry was lacking in her performance as Storm, but she was. She just couldn’t seem to capture the regal nature of the character and her accent wasn’t terribly convincing either. She delivered a lot of her lines rather stiffly, including the infamous “do you want to know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning?” But again to be absolutely fair, no amount of acting skill could have made that line work.
She doesn’t even really look much like the character, whose skin is generally much darker in the comics. For whatever reason, the X-Men franchise seems to be sticking to the “but not too black” role with Storm, as all of the people cast for the role have been significantly lighter that the character is portrayed in the comics themselves.
Young or old, PC or Xbox—Minecraft is for everyone. The addictive game immerses players in a world where they can build structures and tools out of the terrain and items they collect. Despite the game’s absence of plot and its blocky graphics, Minecraft continues to be a hit, selling more than 121 million copies across all platforms since its 2011 release. Why is it so popular? One of the game’s greatest strengths is it allows players to be in charge of their journey. Some folks want to build modest dirt huts, ride horses and fight zombies—and others would rather construct exact replicas of Westros as seen in Game of Thrones.
But Minecraft doesn’t stop when you beat the Ender Dragon—an episodic choose-your-own-adventure style spinoff was released in 2015 in the form of Minecraft: Story Mode. The game follows Jesse—voiced by Patton Oswalt, if male, and by Catherine Taber, if female—a new Minecraft player who is on a journey to find four legendary adventurers who saved the Minecraft world.
What else do we love about Minecraft? Check out the the best parts below.
Markus “Notch” Persson could be working on a successor to Minecraft, with him recently revealing a series of images and videos from a new project with a similarly eye-catching design.
Notch is most famous for developing Minecraft before he handed over its Microsoft, with him selling both the sandbox game and his studio Mojang for an estimated $2 billion. Since then, Notch has mostly stayed away from game development, though he recently uploaded a slew of screenshots and videos for his new project “Voxels_WebGL2.”
Notch has noted that the project is “definitely not a sequel to anything,” but if this project does become something more substantial then it will be the first proper game he's released since Minecraft. The project is in the very early stages of development, with Notch adding that he's “just having way, waaay too much fun seeing how far I can push this tomfoolery.”
On top of various screenshots of the project's various structures and its sprawling, mountainous landscape, Notch also posted a video showing it in motion. Notch said that the core engine used by the game is called Core, while he's writing the project in Javascript and “abusing WebGL 2.”
When a follower asked Notch what he's making, the developer replied: “I have no idea. It's a currently a voxel engine that runs in a web browser at 99fps with 60+km view distance with real time terrain generation. Oh, and all voxels are modifiable in runtime, although that will eat up the ram pretty fast. Just added real time reflections.”
Notch doesn't appear to have bigger plans for the project right now, though he seems pretty pleased with the results thus far. Could this wind up being the Minecraft successor that his followers have been waiting for?
The seventh generation of Pokémon games introduced the world to powerful new Fire-type Pokémon.
In Ultra Sun and Moon, players have access to over 20 different Fire-type Pokémon exist in-game. Even with this limited amount the Fire-type Pokémon offered are some of the strongest players can find in Pokémon history.
Having a Fire-type Pokémon in your team became crucial in Sun and Moon because of certain strong Pokémon like Klefki, that could only be beaten by a strong Fire-type.
All Pokémon in this list are catchable in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon. Some stronger Fire-type Pokémon, however, can be transferred from another game in the Pokémon series to Pokémon Ultra and Moon through the Pokémon Bank if you want to use something different. Pokémon Bank is available on the Nintendo 3DS eshop for a small yearly rental charge. Incineroar
Type: Fire/Dark
Players can only get Incineroar by choosing Litten as a starter Pokémon. It evolves from Torracat, the evolution of Torracat, at level 34.
Incineroar's strengths come from it's typing. By being a Fire/Dark type Pokémon, Incineroar can use a lot of effective moves like Knock Off, which knocks off an opponent Pokémon's item. The move Fake Out, which causes the Pokémon to flinch, making it unable to use a move for that turn, is also important as it leaves the opposing Pokémon wide open for attack in Double Battles.
Incineroar's typing also means that it can learn an abundance of moves that can deal with some of the game's most popular Pokémon, such as Klefki and most of the Ultra Beast Pokémon.
Overall, Incineroar does a lot of damage. In Ultra Sun and Moon, Incineroar is able to learn the move Superpower, which is one of the strongest Fire-type moves in-game, making Incineroar vital for competitive players. Volcarona
Type: Fire/Bug
Players can find a Larvesta in the Lush Jungle. It can then be evolved into a Volcarona from level 59.
Volcarona is a huge damage threat to any opposing team as it is arguably the best Fire-type Pokémon in-game. Due to its unique typing of Bug/Fire, a lot of the weaknesses that both types would have individually are nullified.
One of Volcarona's biggest weaknesses have been Rock-type moves in the past. Competitive players started to put Pokémon in their teams specifically to deal with Volcarona by giving them moves like Rock Slide, which can do four times damage to Volcarona, killing it in an instant.
In order to get around this glaring weakness, players should give their Volcarona the item Choice Scarf during battles. The item increases Volcarona's speed, allowing it to hit an opponent first in order to try and avoid a critical attack from an opposing player's Pokémon. Talonflame
Type: Fire/Flying
Players can find a Fletchling at Route 8 or Wela Volcano Park. It can then be evolved into a Talonflame from level 35.
Talonflame received a nerf in the Sun and Moon series and is weaker than it was in generation six. Even with the noticeable nerf, it is still one of the strongest Fire-type Pokémon available to find due to its blinding speed and its Flying-type move set.
Talonflame is used best in Ultra Sun and Moon when players attach a Flying Z-Crystal item to it. It can then use the Z-Move Brave Bird which can do a ton of damage to an opponent. It also has a lot of priority flying moves at it's disposal that can hit an opponent fast and hard, giving players a huge advantage. Blacephalon
Type: Fire/Ghost
Blacephalon is a Pokémon exclusive to Ultra Sun and Moon and was one of a handful of Pokémon to be added to the game. It is only available in Ultra Sun at Poni Grove after completing the main story, meaning Ultra Moon players will need to trade to get it themselves.
Blacephalon is a glass cannon for any player's team. While the Pokémon can deal a lot of damage that could take out multiple Pokémon, it itself is so squishy that any type of powerful move could beat it in one blow.
The Pokémon should be used in your party as a last resort to take down a troublesome opponent that has been causing you grief. The Pokémon is set to rise in popularity in competitive when Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon becomes the staple competitive Pokémon game in 2018 and will be a solid addition to any party. Arcanine
Type: Fire
Players can find a Growlithe on Route 2 and then evolve it into an Arcanine by using the item Fire Stone. It's best to evolve a Growlithe at level 33-34 after it has learned a bunch of moves. An Arcanine cannot learn moves by leveling up like normal Pokémon.
Arcanine is best used when it knows the ability Intimidate, which lowers the attack stat of all opposing Pokémon greatly. It should be used against physical attackers to weaken them in battle.
It is one of few Fire-type Pokémon to have access to a large move pool, giving the player tons of options on how they want to build their Arcanine for battle. You can have it be a swift fighter that attacks first for tons of damage or assists your team through other means, allowing you to mix and match the Pokémon to fit any team composition.
Arcanine was best used in the Sun and Moon competitive scene due to a lack of good Fire-types in the game. While more Fire-type Pokémon have become readily available in Ultra Sun and Moon, it is still a good fighter to grace any party.
Warning: Major Doki Doki Literature Club spoilers feature below.
Ever since Team Salvato released its horror visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club, fans have been obsessing over the titular club's president, Monika. And a new mod allows players to hang out with just Monika for the rest of their lives.
In one of Doki Doki's most memorable scenes, Monika deletes every single character from the game in an attempt to enter into a relationship with whoever is playing Doki Doki. It's a creepy scene, but because of Monika's obsessiveness and sheer loneliness, she's quickly won the hearts of many fans. And that's where the mod “Monika After Story” comes in, turning dating Monika into a reality. Image via Monika After Story
In “Monika After Story,” the game's mod team has built a chatbot AI for Monika, which essentially allows her to understand the player's responses and engage in discussions on things like video games and the meaning of life. Players can also listen to music together, challenge Monika to chess, and fantasize about going on dates. New content is regularly added into the mod, and the update's 0.6.3 version even comes with special events for Christmas and New Year's.
If you want to appreciate Monika in all her glory, go ahead and download the latest version here. “Monika After Story” requires Doki Doki Literature Club to play, but the game can be downloaded for free via Steam, itch.io, or the visual novel's official website.
On top of various screenshots of the project's various structures and its sprawling, mountainous landscape, Notch also posted a video showing it in motion. Notch said that the core engine used by the game is called Core, while he's writing the project in Javascript and “abusing WebGL 2.”
Notch doesn't appear to have bigger plans for the project right now, though he seems pretty pleased with the results thus far. Could this wind up being the Minecraft successor that his followers have been waiting for?
