Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi are dispatched to a backwater planet to figure out who’s trying to sabotage the setup for a royal coronation.
Additional Comments:
The story contains a fair number of flashbacks that don’t add all that much.
It’s an okay story, but I expected better. Maybe I just have delusions from memories of the old school EU stories. I have not tried all that many, but the few I have disappoint with surprising regularity.
Fanrie (sorry, I heard the audiobook) and Jedi Rael had a lot of potential as side characters, but they’re not developed enough.
Audiobook performance 4.5/5: I love the narrator. Jonathan Davis always puts in a solid performance. Just wish the man had more to work with this round.
The not-so-subtle side messages about the evils of big corporations is tedious.
Side note: who wrote that book description? It’s kind of awful. Most people are gonna buy it just because it’s Star Wars, but they could at least take the time to write a compelling blurb.
It’ll sell well because it says Star Wars. Many who remember the old EU are gonna denounce it as lite trash. Those only into the new stuff are going to enjoy the tie ins to other books.
Story seemed to spin its way to nowhere for a large chunk of the middle
There’s a big “twist” at the end that works but isn’t that satisfying.
Conclusion:
It only gets the rating it does because I really like the narrator. Story itself is sadly forgettable.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
New Release: Money Makes it Deadlier – a FBI agent gets caught up in a bank robbery.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
This is one of my favorite horror stories Pixellberry has made. I’m not even sure why. The
Additional Comments:
I named my character Marina, and I think I chose a lot of frizzy hair.
It’s sort of unique in that you get to see a lot of the younger brother character.
Not sure what about this story made it so much better than the first one. Maybe, it was the simple fact that the MC’s not a high school kid. She’s definitely college or beyond. She doesn’t seem to have much of a job, but she’s also reeling from the opening events.
Book’s also unique in that you get to know Grandpa a bit…and he’s delightfully grumpy.
I also love the twists and turns in the book. Good guys/bad guys flips and flops all over the place, except the monsters. They’re pretty straight forward trying to kill you types.
The creepy music is always fantastic.
Love interests are not the best or the worst of Pixelberry’s offerings. I personally chose the cop figure, but I believe Tom from the original story was also a choice.
The end is bittersweet.
Conclusion:
If you enjoy horror stories, you won’t want to miss this one.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
One of your friends went missing a few years ago. The MC is a high school kid. Some very weird stuff begins happening. Oddly, some of the things are “good” for you or one of your friends.
Additional Comments:
I really loved the character I created. I forget what I named her though.
The concept of nerve was interesting. Basically, you start scared to death and gradually build up your nerve through various conversations and actions.
This definitely fits the horror genre. There are some gross things that happen.
The flashback scenes are adorable.
Don’t remember much about the side characters, but they are okay. I do remember there being a tough girl, a basketball star, a popular girl, etc. I think they tried to represent most of the cliques. Jocelyn wasn’t a main side character, but I do like her character development.
I didn’t like the ending choices. Probably the reason it got 3 instead of 4 stars.
Conclusion:
The lore set up here wasn’t their best, but it wasn’t the worst either. I enjoyed bits and pieces of the story. And I really liked the sequel.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
I didn’t buy the spiffy hair, but it does look spectacular.
Genre: Scifi
*possible spoilers
Summary:
The main character is a starship captain straight outta flight school. Your best friend is off to be a Star Marshall. You have an older(??) brother and a younger sister. But then you end up getting a dream job. And your siblings decided to tag along too.
Additional Comments:
There’s some friction between your siblings. Brother’s a marshall, and sister is a mechanic.
There’s a civil war on in the universe. Brother supports the orderly folks, and sister supports the rebels.
The morality in the story shifts and nothing’s clear cut.
I absolutely loved the vast majority of the chapters. Scifi is an amazing genre. Besides Perfect Match, this is the only scifi I can think of from Pixelberry.
The music was downright awesome.
You get to play as the brother and sister occasionally.
Didn’t much care for the love interests. There actually aren’t that many for the MC because they also had one dedicated to the brother.
I named my starship captain, Katrina. Overall, I enjoyed the character.
I didn’t buy the pet this round. I think they offered it pretty far into the game.
Didn’t care for the end; hence the sorta low rating.
Some of the diamond choices they offer you are the ones that would make you a decent human being. I sprang for a few of them.
The upgrades and protections didn’t really affect the story.
Conclusion:
I hope they pick up and do another science fiction story. They could even use the same universe. There’s so much potential, and they put a heck of a lot of work into universe building. I would absolutely play another, even though the ending kinda annoyed me.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
Cathy Matthews wants to prevent some woods near her house from being turned into a shopping mall. The developer, Danny Marsden, is young, handsome, and rubs her the wrong way at every turn.
Additional Comments:
It’s a fairly typical illogical romance story. The heroine spends 90% of the book claiming to hate the hero before declaring herself in love. He spends 90% of the book doing his thing, trying to be a nice guy, getting into verbal fights with her, and then does something really nice in the end.
The blurb makes it sound like he’s got an attitude problem, but it’s not really coming through clearly.
Characters 3/5: Cathy’s attitudes and actions come across as reckless and stupid. I like how she’s passionate about saving the animal shelter she works (volunteers?) at, but the random friends she has and their grand plans are highly irresponsible.
Side characters 3/5: They kind of even out. Everybody connected to Cathy came across like a cardboard cutout. But Danny’s parents and Amanda both came through like real people with realistic struggles
Plot 3/5: Danny’s reaction to her scheme seems nonchalant. That would likely have cost him a lot of money. I get the whole turn your life around and get priorities straight, but it would have been more realistic to have him genuinely be angry. I think he showed anger like twice in the book. Cathy concluded he’s sweet but can fly off the handle easily. Just didn’t seem genuine or natural.
Performance 3.5/5: The narrator did fine, but I’m pretty sure this was a story set in England and there was no hint of a British accent in the story. While fine, it feels like a missed opportunity. I would listen to the narrator again. She’s got a nice voice.
Romance isn’t my go-to genre, so you may conclude that my take is biased by just not being into this kind of story. There’s a turnaround in one of the character’s actions, but there’s no great mystery or action throughout the story.
Conclusion:
If sweet romance is your thing, this is a decent story to check out. Not exactly heart-pounding action, but it’s got some family drama.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
New Release: The Shadow Council Series 1: Money Makes it Deadlier – An FBI agent gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong.
Shadow Council Book 2: Revenge Makes it Sweeter – A midnight summons calls FBI Special Agent Megan Luchek into a fight for a young girl’s life.
Shadow Council Book 3: Christmas Makes it Chaos – The FBI agent gets a strange ally in the quest to prevent chaos from rocking a lot of people’s holiday season.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
*The descriptions will contain spoilers for the book Kindred Spirits. If spoilers bother you, come back after checking the book out. If you’ve no intention of ever reading the book, enjoy the list. There’s some great music in here.
Introduction:
Every medium (movie, music, book) has the potential to capture emotions. Movies are often enhanced by their soundtracks. It follows that the same can happen for books. This list is for both book lovers and music lovers. The explanations are more of a companion guide.
I like a lot of the playlists I make, but for some reason, this has been my favorite for a while now.
What is Kindred Spirits?
It’s a sequel to Spirit’s Bane, a book about two guardian angels in training. This book picks up after the young angels have earned their commission. The stories are meant to be read in order, but there’s a brief summary in the front if you want to dive right in.
Link to the Kindred Spirits Playlist on Spotify. (I may try to link a few of the YouTube videos for certain songs.)
Songs on the Kindred Spirits Playlist w/ Explanations:
Till I See You Again by Unsecret; The Powder Room
Beginning. I think this song accurately captures some of the heartache Mina must be feeling while being forced to stay on Earth while her friend, Allister is confined to the Heavens.
Driven by Marika Takeuchi
Shows the passage of time. Good theme for Allister cooling his heels in Heaven.
Hold Her by for King & Country
Allister’s thoughts about being trapped in the Heavens while Mina’s kept on Earth. I imagine he’d pray something like this, asking the King to protect his friend. He’s finally admitting to himself anyway that he loves her.
Holy Ground by Austin French
A turning point for Mina when she stops trying to hide and do her job at the same time. She becomes frustrated with the lack of progress. I imagine she reaches a point where she gets fed up and decides to fight for her charges with all she’s worth.
Soul Searcher by Tom Player
Mina continues her work on Earth.
The Road to Evil by Angels
A good theme for Paige’s hunt for Mina.
Angel’s Flight by Sound Adventures
I think this would make another good theme for Allister’s search for his friend. It kind of captures the essence of longing and determination.
Desolation by Tommee Profitt
A theme for the chase. Mina’s train trip through Pennsylvania and her fight with the demons on the train.
Bravestone by Two Steps from Hell
A song for Allister and Roy’s pursuit of Mina. They’re in a race against the demons to find her first. (Could also fit when they fight back.)
Your Soul is Beautiful by Christoffer Johansson Hylander
I think this fits Mina’s thoughts for Paige as she finally submits to being a captive.
Though the Valley (from The Last of US Part II Trailer) by The Marcus Hedges Trend Orchestra
A quiet, contemplative theme for the dark point where both Allister and Mina are captured.
Rescue by Lauren Daigle
God’s promise to protect Mina and Paige.
Leap of Faith by Audiomachine
Paige’s turning point. She must decide whether to stand with her Masters or her parents and new friends.
Fractions – I the AI Remix by Juniper Vale, I The AI
A theme for the soul plane and Paige being renewed.
The Hunter and the Prey by Halocene
Paige is committed now. She turns on her cruel Masters. I initially thought this would be great for Paige’s pursuit of Mina, but the more I thought about the lyrics, it actually makes sense for Paige’s new passion for justice.
Back in Action by Alexander Hitchens, Mark Petrie
I can see this being for the moment when Allister and Mina finally reunite.
Dragonshield by Epic Score
The fight to save Master Josiah’s body and spirit.
We Are Energy by Giovanni Puocci
Not sure about placement but this theme would be for when the kindred spirits finally work together.
Sound of War by Tommee Profitt and Fleurie
The final clash with Satan, Hadeon, and the demons.
No Escape: Genesis (Instrumental) by Tommee Profitt
The heroes realize the only way out is through the demons. A good follow up for Sound of War. (Yikes, the video itself might make ya dizzy… but the music is still awesome.)
A New Dawn by Myuu
Mina and Allister appear before the Council of Light to explain the situation.
Angels by Sarah Reeves
After the fight, Paige coming to terms with her decision. Theme for the conversation with the Glorious King.
Freedom Hymn by Austin French
After talking with the King, Paige’s theme for being set free.
Two Souls by Peter Crowley
Something to capture the end of this tale and the promise of more adventures to come together for Allister and Mina.
Grizzly Caterpillar by Alan Gogoll
A lighthearted theme to start the beginning of the end. If it was a movie, this would be the song after the lyric one or two as the credits keep on rolling. Angels and Freedom Hymn would be good wrap-ups. It’s also just fine piano music.
Endless by Elijah Bossenbroek and William J. Winchester
Another lighthearted score to end the tale. I like how it has a sense of this is over but life’s full of more adventures.
Here to Win by Alexander Hitchens, Mark Petrie
A rather triumphant score and a good way to end. The forces of good are ready to face evil again.
Conclusion:
Whether you read the book or not, I hope you enjoyed this mini-tour through some fabulous music. It’s a nice list to study or work with. It’s arranged for the story though, so the instrumental stuff is kind of scattered. You may want to try musicscapes 1, which doesn’t have lyrics if you’re looking for work music.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
New Release: The Shadow Council Series 1: Money Makes it Deadlier – An FBI agent gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong.
Shadow Council Book 2: Revenge Makes it Sweeter – A midnight summons calls FBI Special Agent Megan Luchek into a fight for a young girl’s life.
Shadow Council Book 3: Christmas Makes it Chaos – The FBI agent gets a strange ally in the quest to prevent chaos from rocking a lot of people’s holiday season.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
A group of misfit friends who call themselves The Losers, leave their hometown and forget the weird happens in their small Maine hometown. 27 years later, people are dying again, and only this outcast group can stop the horror.
Additional Comments:
So, this might be the first horror movie I’ve ever seen, unless you count something bizarre like Zombieland. It was interesting and oddly thought provoking, but I am not in love with some of the messages it presented.
The movie is bookended with two bullying incidents. In the beginning, a young gay man gets beaten and thrown off a bridge. He’s the first victim. At the end, the heroes essentially bully the scary clown into submission. It makes sense from what I understand of the lore in this world. (Pennywise feeds off fear, so standing up and making him feel small and useless would defeat him, like a video game boss.) Weird message: bullying can sometimes be the right answer.
The Losers were once 7, but before they meet up again, one commits suicide. At the end, each member of the group receives a letter that claims not to be a suicide note. It’s an explanation that this guy was afraid and didn’t want to take his friends down with him. Therefore, he chose to die by his own hand to remove himself from the equation. Weird message: suicide is sometimes the best solution. That’s a very dangerous message for anybody to be putting out there. I get that the movie is not meant for children, but even some adults may have let that thought infest their heads.
When they were kids, one of the boys sent the lone girl of the group a love note. She mistakenly believed another boy sent it. The love note writer was a fat, not physically attractive boy. He grew up to be a chiseled, hot guy. Weird message: the unattractive kid’s got no chance, but the hot guy gets the girl. Okay, so that probably holds true, but I’m surprised that it’s a message Hollywood let fly. It’s a trope, but these days, it seems the politically correct monitors would have pitched a fit.
Was it an entertaining story? For the most part. I enjoyed the way the story unfolded. It’s long, but kind of necessary. Each person had to revisit their past and find an object that meant something to them. (Casting was amazing.)
How scary was it? Depends what level of scary we’re talking about. Sheer fright, not so much. Creepy messages getting out there. Very much so.
Content Warning: 100% random inclusion of a brief nudity scene. Language (though to be fair, homicidal clown does warrant something stronger than “oh, my goodness”). Flashing lights. I had to close my eyes through a few parts, not because it was scary, because I wanted not to get a piercing headache.
Conclusion:
I would have rated it higher if I could get behind the 3 major messages I could pick out upon reflection. I’m told that people probably shouldn’t read into horror stories, but any story told is going to put a message into the world. This is the first movie in a long time that I think has some really crappy messages.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
New Release: The Shadow Council Series 1: Money Makes it Deadlier – An FBI agent gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong.
Shadow Council Book 2: Revenge Makes it Sweeter – A midnight summons calls FBI Special Agent Megan Luchek into a fight for a young girl’s life.
Shadow Council Book 3: Christmas Makes it Chaos – The FBI agent gets a strange ally in the quest to prevent chaos from rocking a lot of people’s holiday season.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
Renna’s the quiet, good sort looking to branch out and have a more exciting senior year of high school. But she lives in a world where curfews are strictly enforced because a virus has turned a small set of the population into killing machines (figuratively). When an outbreak happens near her home, she’s forced to flee.
Additional Comments:
World-building 4/5: The idea of a half-pocalypse is unique to me (It might be very common, but the genre isn’t my usual fare). The story has an interesting take on zombies. (It tries ridiculously hard not to make the Wilders zombies, but it’s a car of protesting too hard.) Wilders are essentially the Reavers from Firefly in the way they behave. Things that deter Wilders are loosely plausible.
Main character 4/5: The reader can sympathize with Renna’s desire for normalcy.
Side characters 3/5: They’re all very well fleshed out but Alyssa annoyed the heck out of me by the end. She was offset a bit by Sidney.
Performance 4.5/5: Gonna admit to starting out biased on this one. I already knew that I loved the narrator’s voice. That usually goes a long way in making me like an audiobook. The narrator distinguished all major players and rendered the scenes believably.
Plot 3/5: Started in a strange spot with the kid sneaking off to a party, went into way too much detail there, then skipped to some action and solid world building, got bogged down in navel gazing and stupid decisions, then wrapped up.
Closure 4/5: You can tell it’s the setup to a series but there is a. Ice feeling of this phase of the story being concluded.
Content Warnings: 6 f-bombs, plus quite a bit of casual cursing
Conclusion:
Light (in gore but not language), this is a YA dystopian zombie tale that’s surprisingly workable. Yeah, yeah, they’re not zombies… just similar.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
New Release: The Shadow Council Series 1: Money Makes it Deadlier – An FBI agent gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong. (Narrated by Liz Brand)
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
found the pic on google…looks like a general promo-y thing.
Starring: Keanu Reeves
Co-Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano
Summary:
Neo gets pulled out of the Matrix and into a wider war. He’s essentially the Chosen One, but convincing him of that is quite the journey.
Additional Comments:
I’d forgotten most of this story. Oh, I remembered special lines like “Dodge this.” But the intricacies of the plot went right through me. In fact, I’m not sure I caught all the subtleties back in the day.
Plot 4.5/5 stars: I love how you can take this on the surface or go a lot deeper with metaphorical meanings. On the surface, it’s a typical us vs. them sci-fi action movie. If you want to look deeper, you could open a few discussions about the meaning of life.
Despite being dates, it’s still a cool movie. The special effects still hold, if you can get around the fact that there are maybe 4 pay phones per state these days.
As with most trilogies, this is the best of them.
I can’t see Hugo Weaving without thinking elf, so that kind of messes with my head.
Main character 4.5/5: Keanu Reeves doesn’t necessarily have to have a great range of emotions here. I think most of his lines are deadpanning “whoa” but it works for the character.
Side characters 4.5/5: Still love Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and the idealistic Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). The other side characters are just okay, but they pull their roles off nicely. Bad guy is still suitably punchable.
Knowing the twists this time, it’s easier to see the subtle things they did to lead up to the big moments.
Conclusion:
I’m glad I got to see the movie again. Don’t think I watched it more than 1-2 times in the intervening 20 years. It’s nice to see that it weathered the passages of time nicely.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for everything.
New Release: The Shadow Council Series 1: Money Makes it Deadlier – An FBI agent gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong. (Narrated by Liz Brand)
Shadow Council Series 2: Revenge Makes it Sweeter – A mysterious midnight summons sends FBI Agent Megan Luchek on a wild quest to save a young girl’s life.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
Co-starring: Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Piper Perabo
Summary:
Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is experiencing some health fallout from the other few hectic days (Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen). This round he’s got to prove he’s not he bad guy and save the President from evildoers.
Additional Comments:
Plot 3/5 stars: Seriously, you never go into this type of movie expecting a plot. Oh, they throw in plot twists, but they’re straight out of the how-to-write-a-thriller manual. I won’t give spoilers in case you’ve never seen an action movie ever. I think they managed to slip in one thing I didn’t think they’d do.
Action 4.5/5 stars: Things explode. There is one major car chase. It’s satisfying on the action front.
Main Characters 4.5/5 stars: By this story in the series, you should be comfortable with Banning and President Trumbull. Love Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler typically plays the same type dude. They tried to make him deeper by giving him headaches and stuff, but it wasn’t really necessary.
Side Characters 5/5 stars: Hands-down, my favorite side character was his father, Clay Banning (Nick Nolte). The section in the woods near his cabin was hilarious. I enjoyed seeing Piper Perabo as Banning’s wife. I hadn’t seen her since way back in the Covert Affairs days. Don’t think I ever saw the end of that TV show. I should do that. Anyway, side note: that baby was adorable. The rest of the supporting cast pulled off their roles believably. You end up hating whom you’re supposed to and loving/fearing for the good guys.
Content Warnings: As with the other two movies, half the lines of dialogue consist of the f-bomb. There’s also a sprinkling of less “shocking” curse words. Also, don’t get attached to characters. I feel like that should be a given in this type of movie, but it bears reiteration.
Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a high-action thriller, this fits the mold nicely. I know the critics don’t agree with me this time, but my bar for thrillers consists of entertain me. This met that bar nicely.
Associate links to follow…
Available Audiobooks: I have free codes for almost everything.
New Release: The Shadow Council Series 1: Money Makes it Deadlier – An FBI agent gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong. (Narrated by Liz Brand)
Shadow Council Series 2: Revenge Makes it Sweeter – A mysterious midnight summons sends FBI Agent Megan Luchek on a wild quest to save a young girl’s life.
The Collins Case – 2 FBI agents track down a kidnapped family. Kid friendly.
If fantasy’s more your thing, go Redeemer Chronicles. The first, Awakening, is available as an audiobook.
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – a kid deals with her parents’ divorce, bullies, and the wonder of discovery.
Try The Dark Side of Science – Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live.
Beyond Broken Pencils – Contemporary literary tale of a school shooting. Ian unleashes his inner demons on his classmates and teachers…
Scratched Off – FBI agent vs a serial killer. When Sam Kerman sets out to hunt a serial killer, he has no idea how personal the case will become.
Nonfiction:
5 Steps to Surviving Chemistry – A primer for chemistry students. Breaks down concepts into simple terms.
5 Steps to Better Blurbs – A book for writers looking to improve their book descriptions
