All posts by AHS Vacation

Sephiroth is instantly who you usually think of when you picture the most iconic Final Fantasy villain there is. Besides his role as the main antagonist in Final Fantasy 7, he's appeared in other spinoffs and mediums in largely the same capacity. Sephiroth is an incredibly powerful, ruthless, and calculating villain who proves to be a true challenge to defeat. On top of that, he's done some really unforgivable things. Even without a body, his will is so strong that he can actually manipulate things from the beyond. Loyal to no one but himself, he will go to any length to accomplish his motives, simple as they are — world domination may be a common enough theme amongst villains, but Sephiroth's means are truly jaw-dropping at times.

Spider-Man finds Doctor Octopus in the abandoned warehouse on the waterfront, where he's restarted his fusion experiment. Upon seeing Spider-Man there, Octopus concludes that Osborn couldn't bring himself to kill him and engages him in a battle. During their fight, Mary Jane tries to smack Octopus, but he knocks her away. As they fight, the fusion reactor grows more and more and starts dragging every magnet of New York City towards itself, like cars.

After battling with Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man manages to stun him with an electric shock. Peter then reveals his true identity to Octavius and pleads with him to stop the machine as the mechanical tentacles try to strangle him, reminding him how he taught him that intelligence is a gift and that they must use it for the good on mankind, even convincing him to sacrifice the experiment despite it being his dreams by telling him that sometimes people sacrifice their dreams for the greater good (a callback to a conversation he had with Aunt May when she told him about how much Spider-Man's heroism meant for other people). Returned to his senses by the shock and determined to end his doomsday experiment before it causes more harm, forcing his arms to listen to him, Octavius tells Peter that the fusion reactor can't be shut down anymore and that the only solution is to sink it. Spider-Man tries to go to do so, but Ottto stops him, insisting him to let him do so. Octavius proceeds to use his mechanical tentacles to collapse the floor of the building, successfully drowning the fusion device at the cost of his own life, declaring that he would not die like a monster. In the end, as Spider-Man rescues Mary Jane and they escape from the warehouse, Otto drowns in the river along with the sinking fusion core, whilst the river water also shuts down the tentacles and the manipulative advanced AI that corrupted Octavius' mind playing on his vanity and ego all along, allowing him to not die like a monster and precluding his tentacles from doing any more harm ever again.

Without half of the power limiter to keep it under control, Tyrant underwent a hideous mutation into it's Super Tyrant form, exponentially increasing its power but at the cost of becoming a mindless beast (similar to T-002 or mutated Nemesis). Just as Leon was taking the elevator to escape the NEST. Tyrant appeared on the platform above and dropped down to it and continued its battle with Leon, who was now unable to kill the Tyrant. However, an Anti-tank rocket was dropped onto the lift by an unknown (Ada Wong) individual and with one blast, ripped apart T-00's upper body, finally killing the Tyrant.

Credited simply as ‘Killer’ in the credits, Andy Robinson’s off-the-wall performance as the deranged madman of Harry Callahan’s debut rises far above his bland screen credit. Inspired by the ‘Zodiac’ killings which plagued San Francisco in the early ’70s, the Scorpio Killer has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Raping, shooting, stabbing and cackling his way across the city, the Scorpio killer is so over-the-top in his evil that he completely justifies ‘Dirty’ Harry’s actions. With his babyface, blue eyes, and curly hair, the Scorpio Killer looks nothing like the monster one would expect, and Robinson’s go-for-broke performance gives the rather routine story a random, dangerous energy. A complete contrast to Eastwood’s minimalism, Robinson’s elevated presence makes him a worthy foe for the former cowboy. In their binary relationship, their dynamic is reminiscent of Batman and the Joker — especially in the Scorpio Killer’s love for random violence and lack of ideology. He is a force of nature that only Harry can stop. While the sequels would twist themselves into all kinds of knots trying to find enemies that could justify Harry’s violence, none of the Scorpio Killer’s successors achieved the same kind of impact

Still one of the best comic book antagonists of the last two decades, William Stryker is the rare villain with understandable, though repugnant, motivations. A homo sapien twin to mutant villain Magneto, Stryker is obsessed with saving his own species. Indeed, like Magneto, he is a victim in his own right — the subject of his telepathic son’s mind games, he was forced to watch his wife lobotomize herself with a drill to escape their offspring once and for all.Of course, it could be that Stryker is simply a bigot who has embroidered this backstory to make his actions understandable. In any case, his plan to use the mutants’ own powers against them is well thought out and he carries out every aspect of his plan with precision and unwavering dedication. And Stryker remains the one X-Villain who came the closest to wiping the X-Men out once and for all. Not bad for a human.

Fan theorists love to flip a script so it's no surprise some Mean Girls lovers have turned on homeschooled Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan) in the years since the movie debuted in 2004. Plus, Lohan is nowhere near as popular as she once was, but we're sure it has nothing to do with that... The Pop Project got into it and explained the case well, "Cady Herron, with the help of Janis and Damien, was systematically destroying Regina’s life. They broke up Aaron Samuels and Regina, made the Plastics turn again (sic) her, and they even made (her) gain weight so she would lose her "bitchin' bod." Then, once they did ruin her life, Cady pretty much just swooped in and stole Regina's life and gained control of the Plastics. She cast aside her relationship with Janis and Damien once she was done with their help."

Great film, new cast is great, my only thing is that there should have been way, way more action scenes. Think about the Matrix Reloaded, they built a freeway and there was a 30min car vs bike chase against the agents, Morpheus, the key maker and Trinity on a Ducatti no less, with Neo flying back to save them all at the last second before the two lorries collided in a huge explosion, in bullet time with each other. That scene still blows my mind to this day!

In this one Neo can't even fly, there is way too much backstory, most people know the story of the Matrix already, so it needed more action and special effects. John Wick 3 Parrabellum was great with Keanu Reeves for that very reason it was full of gun crazed action from start to finish.

If you're a fan of the original Matrix and in a nostalgic mood it's a must watch, but I can't help but think they will need to back up (no pun intended) the Matrix Resurrections with another film for newcomers to the franchise, who will be totally confused with the back and forth awkward slowness of this version of the Matrix and lack of action, fight scenes and passion the first Trilogy of Matrix films had to offer. Enjoy!