Spoiler Alert!: 2019

Previously with 2019-

Big 2019 year end movie recap.

Previously with these-

Spoiler Alert!: Compilation: 2012-2018


Whoops! Almost forgot to update these!
Well here we go!
Like the title says, spoilers, so bail out now if you haven't seen the flicks!!

1. Joker

Large chunks of the movie turn out to be Arthur's fantasy, including Zazie Beetz being his girlfriend, so you're no longer sure what's real, and what's a dream.
Arthur may not even be the Joker.
But, if reality is up for grabs, screw it, I choose to believe he's Joker.

Also, that Joker caused a riot that caused the Waynes to get shot, so we get Batman's origin along with Joker's.

In my head canon, it's this, then "Batman Begins".

Man, I hope they don't do a sequel, cuz this one was perfect, and said everything it had to.
But....it made a billion, so they will. *sad sigh*

2. Avengers: Endgame

Yep, I was right, Ant-Man's quantum realm stuff was the macguffin that fixed everything.
The dusted people all got snapped back.
And Thanos got snapped.

But, Iron Man and Black Widow still had to die.
And Hulk got crippled, and retired from hero-ing.
And Captain America married Peggy, and turned into an old man.

3. The Rise Of Skywalker

We finally got the name!

Rey is a Palpatine.
But she kills Emperor Palpatine, and takes the name Skywalker.
So, she's the Skywalker in the title.

And yes, they did redeem Kylo, and turn him back to Ben.
We didn't want it, but they did it.
But they did it in a way that even haters are satisfied with.

And the Leia scenes?
Wavey-hand overall, but brilliant for what little they had to work with.
And yeah, she dies, and yeah, I teared up a little.

4. Doctor Sleep

I said in the review...

I can't dig too far into stuff they added and leave out without spoilers, so when I do the 2019 spoiler reviews, I'll dig into it all the way there.
Stay tuned for that.

So, here's that.

The Overlook got burnt down in the Shining novel, so in the Doctor Sleep book, they do go back to the location, but it's just a burnt up husk, and just a couple of the ghosts pop up.
Here, the Overlook was still standing from the Kubrick movie, we get all of the famous ghosts, and Dan burns it down in this one just like the book ending to Shining.
This is what King meant in interviews about this one redeeming the Kubrick movie for him, because it retroactively restores the book ending.

There was a whole thread in the book where if you eat the "steam", of a sick person, you get their disease, so the True Knot had to be careful about that.
Dan beat Rose in the book by absorbing Abra's grandma's ghost, and getting her cancer, and then putting it into Rose.
Here, the Overlook ghosts kill her, and the whole disease thread is gone.
A ghost kills her either way, so it still works.

In the book, Dan and Abra are biologically related.
Jack had an affair, which lead to Abra's mom, which led to Abra, so Dan is literally "Uncle Dan".
Here, it's just a name of affection.

Because they're biologically related in the book, there's a scene where Dan tells Abra about how his grandfather was an abusive drunk monster who didn't know he had the shining, then his dad was abusive and drunk, and didn't know he had the shining, and then HE struggled with drinking, and violence, so she needs to watch out for that too.
It was a good scene, and I liked it a lot.
It's gone from the movie.
I get it, you don't need it, but still....

Dan lives in the book, and dies in the movie.
He's a ghost who can still advise Abra, so it still works.
And he sacrifices himself the way Jack does in the Shining book, so that all comes back.

As mentioned in my blog review, you get WAY more with the AA meetings in the book.
I didn't miss that bullshit.

You get way more with the True Knot in the book, and I missed that.
I mean, there's enough in the movie to get a good sense of them, but they could totally make a True Knot prequel movie without King even needing to write another book.
Just like there's enough Pennywise backstory stuff in the IT book for a Pennywise prequel.

Dick Halloran lived in the Shining book, and was physically there to advise Danny about the ghost-traps power/trick in the Doctor Sleep book.
The Kubrick movie, he dies, so he's a force ghost in the Doctor Sleep movie delivering the same information.
Same ghost loophole as dead-Danny.

The True Knot follow natural and man-made disasters to suck steam, and one of their big feeding grounds was 9/11.
Also, baby Abra experienced the 9/11 deaths.
That'd be good stuff to put into a True Knot prequel, I missed that stuff.

The thing with the "death flies", was a whole bigger thing in the book that's just mentioned in some dialog in the movie.

The thing with the coke addict chick with the baby that Dan leaves behind in his lowest rock-bottom moment was dwelled on more in the book.
It haunted him constantly.
We only get one nightmare scene of that.
I get it, it's a 2+ hour movie, you gotta cut it down.
It was great stuff on the page though.

The book went way more into how Dan's ghost-traps worked, and established that a ghost could indeed die in there.
They just hint at it in dialog in the movie.
In the book, tub-lady dies.
Her container rusts, and when he opens it to let her loose as a weapon against Rose, there's just dust and a bad smell inside.
The movie just says "screw it", and brings her back, because that's more crowd-pleasing.

Abra wasn't physically at the final fight in the book, she used force-project like she does at the showdown with the True Knot at the campsite in the movie.
They swapped that around.

Phew, there!
So overall, they shuffled some pieces around to get it to jibe with the Kubrick movie, but all the important bits of Dr. Sleep are there.
A damned good translation.

6. IT: Chapter Two

They kill Pennywise....with verbal bullying.
Well...I guess he deserves it.

They kinda stole that ending from the Monkey King arc in Swamp Thing, now that I think about it.

7. Shazam!

The third act, they do the Shazam family.
The Shazamily.

Shazamily fight the 7 Deadly Sins, and save Christmas.

I shit you not.
Sounds corny, but dammit, it works!

8. Captain Marvel

CM was empowered by an exploding faster-than-light drive, which was empowered by the Tesseract.
Therefore, by transitive property, she was empowered by the Tesseract.
So, she's got the same origin and power level as Scarlet Witch.

Seems a simple thing, but she spends the whole movie in amnesia figuring this shit out.

Also, her call-sign is "Avenger", and is the source of the name Avengers for the superhero team.

9. Dark Phoenix

Phoenix kills Mystique, goes on a rampage for most of the movie, finally gains control and kills all the bad guy aliens, abandons her body, and turns into the Phoenix.

Also, government stooges stick their dick in the way of this conflict.
Cuz government stooges.

Oh, and Jessica Chastain steals some Phoenix-force so that the final battle has a little bit more stakes.

It was "meh".
It hasn't left much of an impact.
I had to strain to remember it.
Good effects and set pieces through.
And the actors do a good job.

10. Terminator: Dark Fate

John gets unceremoniously murdered at the beginning.

The Terminator that killed him develops emotions, and becomes a person, and has guilt, and tries to make things right for Sarah by helping her kill Terminators via secret text messages.

Danny Ramos becomes the new John.
Grace becomes the new protector.

Sarah and Carl (the Arnold Terminator) get caught up in the whole thing.
Arnold dies yet again.

Kinda bleak, but they leave a little speck of hope that Sarah and Danny can change the future-past again.
But there's not gonna be a sequel, cuz of the crummy box-office, so scratch that.

11. Zombieland: Double Tap

No real big twist surprises.
It's just more Zombieland.
But that's not a bad thing at all.

12. Glass

They all die.

But in their sacrifice, people learn about superheroes, and in this universe, mere knowledge of superheroes creates superheroes.

So the Unbreakable/Split/Glass universe is left where it's just about to become the MCU/DCEU.

13. Brightburn

Um, pretty much the trailer in gorier detail.

The bad-Superman-kid wins.
They dangle a carrot of hope that he has a kryptonite, but his mom fails to use it, and he wins.

Total dark Elseworlds with a bleak horror movie ending.

Well done though.

14. Pet Sematary

I mean, the trailer already spoils that Ellie dies instead of Gage in this version.

Ellie kills the mom, and brings her back, then the mom kills the dad, and brings him back, and then the zombie family (including the cat) descends on Gage.

The end, cut to the Ramones song being sung by girls.

Meh.

15. Hellboy

Um....I don't even care.
Fuck it.


And that was 2019.
Up next, Birds Of Prey in February.