Still quarantine edition? I guess it is! Have at it.

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We wandered around a bad part of the town. Well, all parts of the town were bad. It was a bad town.

Moments earlier me and my mom had been scouting for a place to park, near the sports center, which looked more like some kind of mill. A tall factory-like building rising on a hill. It wasn't old though, the grass was cut neatly, the paths and stairs leading up to it fresh and new, and the road curved around it in a very pleasant way.

But the cars were all over. So we drove past, and out to the forest roads beyond it, and found a good mossy forgotten patch of gravel just behind it that would've been perfect to park on, yet we kept going, searching for even better areas... and suddenly I was with a friend rather than with my mom, and somehow I was in the backseat, even though I'd just been the one driving, and had just been in the backseat but actually stopped the car so I could take over that driver's seat for a while...

And suddenly we were in a bad part of town. Or a bad town.

I'd been sitting in the backseat, thinking about how you couldn't see anything from back there, and was strangely disoriented. As if the car didn't have any side windows in the back, or the windows were too low or my head was too high, I'd just been taking in glimpses of the road as we went, and suddenly we were there.

We stopped by a diner to have some lunch, and I remember discussing if we should eat there or have a picnic - my buddy didn't seem as interested in eating out as in having his own food, but we went in anyway, and had a plate of what seemed like oats and cereal with some kind of flower in the midst of it... a strange dish. We asked the waitress about it and she came to us a bit conspiratorially, talking about how some things aren't how they seem, and how that's how it is in these parts, something like that...

Turns out it was brainwash cereal. We ventured out into the city and ran into some bad guys, and managed to shoot two of them, but they kept coming. We ran away. We were in a staircase going for the boss man himself, the leader of this strange cult, but couldn't really get to him. Then we were outside, heading towards our car on a large open area, when two familiar goons appeared, and we just somehow managed to get them too.

I'm not sure how we got those guns. I'm not sure if my friend made it. I'm not sure if I did either. It was bloody and gory and there might've been guts somewhere in there too, similar to the scenes of the Cabal movie I watched yesterday.

That backseat situation where you couldn't see the road was probably from a comic I read last nigh too, where Bettie (from the Archie comic) was blindfolded and taken to a strange neighborhood, a 'bad part of town', to see if she could find her way home again.

She arrived disoriented and lost, but managed to get a ride almost immediately, and the friends who had taken her there were stuck in a car without a key as the snow started falling.

It was a strangely cruel comic in so many ways. It stood out in the book.

So those were probably my main inspirations, and thus I landed in a dream that was not so much a dream as maybe a nightmare, yet I fought it out bravely, although I could feel my will fading.

I didn't know if I'd manage to make it out. I'd given up on winning, on finding the boss man and breaking the spell, and for all I knew my friend could be bleeding out in the gutter... and that's about when I woke up.

The alarm brought me out of that bad trip, yet part of me wishes I'd been able to stay in it just a while longer; maybe have been able to resolve those issues and turn that bad town into a brighter world...

I'm all for the betterment of society you know.

Anyway that's the dream.

Scraping protip: Make an exception for the base URL followed by a http.

Things like this won't happen then.

The factory chase and the helicopter fall. The unsuitable but ever present Transformer sound effects. The withheld love story for the sake of superficial age restriction and equally veiled eye candy in the scenes where such stuff exists to savor. Those are the things I could do without. A select few, but irritating things, that keep blockbuster movies like this from going down as classics, because everything else is just PURE AWESOME.

From the main duo to the villain, to the girl, to Samoa, and everything in between! It's filmed with both class and comedy. It's Fast and Furious with a twist, and a tone of sci-fi that almost borders on Kingsmen or G.I. Joe property.

Not that I mind, because those were awesome too.

I like how it's just non-stop adrenaline from start to finish, yet done the right way.

Maybe the bickering goes a bit far sometimes. Maybe it starts feeling forced as they delve into the second half. Maybe Hattie's expression when Margarita joins in shows a surprising and somewhat unfitting naivete in her otherwise so tough persona - and part of that toughness seems to fade away in the final phase on the film - even if she saves herself. But overall I love it!

It's fast-paced, ferocious fun. I love the truck designs. I love the apocalyptic sci-fi blend. I loved the Kevin Hart cameo maybe most of all. I love Ryan Reynold's always so appreciative in-movie persona too. I love the music. I love the sceneries. I love most of the special effects as well. There's not much here that I don't like, but I think I detailed all of that in the first paragraph.

I'm already looking forward to more of this spin-off blend. Even without Vin Diesel: it works. It's something new, yet it's not all unrecognizable either. They've still got that grit. That gasoline. That life and death race against time grime. And both Statham AND The Rock in the same movie? As the shared lead duo?

Can't wait for the next one. Just hope they don't go too far into special effects or mainstream censorship then.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

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The jello scene... I wonder how they did that. The reality gives a theory.

Anyhow, if you ever wanted to learn more about Inspector Clouseau then you might as well start here! Or end here. I'm not sure if this is the last one, or if this is all a new beginning, but it seems to hint at the latter.

It might take a while to get into, but this is slapstick humor at its most eventful. Think Jackie Chan of Europe - not so much stunt work but windows, glass, explosions... it's got it all!

And the dad. Awesome. XD

Doesn't really feel like a complete movie when it's all said and done, it's a strange kind of chase, and interview - a story with the main character missing - much unlike other installments in the series, but you can't say it's not great anyway.

Classic Pink Panther. Can't hate. It's great.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

I didn't think I'd think this but... I feel too old for Pokemon right now.

Not that there's just too much cuteness - they really took things further than I'd expected with the Mr. Mime and Ditto stuff - but it was so predictable. Even if Ryan Reynolds played a great detective, and an unexpectedly good dad right at the end, the rest of it felt lacking in substance. Tame and untainted.

The special effects were cool and all, and they had a great idea, but when it's all said and done it didn't really capture the magic. Not for my age group, at least. Even the older movies seemed to have more layers.

I'll hope for the next one.

 rated 3/5: not bad