- DB
No Hard Feelings | The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
A crude rom-com and a... side-quel? Inter-quel?
MOVIES
- How quick to make this? Watching No Hard Feelings left me with the same impression I had after watching The Marvels: good, but nothing special.
- It's a fun enough movie and it being the female lead as the crude, horny one definitely makes it stand out more than most rom-coms, but that feels like the only really interesting piece of the puzzle.
- I really like Jennifer Lawrence as an actress and she's still great here too, although the story is a little too 'by the book' for her to really show off her talents.
- Genuinely, the plot is that Maddie (Lawrence) has to seduce Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) for non-romantic reasons; they both develop real feelings for each other; Percy finds out her initial attraction was faked and it falls apart; and they ultimately reconcile.
- Is that more spoilery than normal for me? Yes, but every single one of those steps is so clearly signposted that none of it will come as any surprise even if you'd gone in blind.
- I don't want to be too harsh on the movie though as that rote predictability is its single biggest flaw and the rest of it just fine, albeit nothing memorable in terms of the story or character choices.
- Also like The Marvels, the running time here is under two hours too, so it doesn't outstay its welcome either and potentially allow more flaws to make themselves apparent.
- No Hard Feelings is very much another 'fast food movie', being perfectly enjoyable while experiencing it and something you'd be happy to experience again, but there's still much more satisfying fare out there to try in the meantime. [7/10]
GAMES
- As the line above the picture might've given away, I don't really know how to classify The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, as I'm not sure any game has been like it before.
- I was about to start playing Life is Strange 2 for the first time when I remembered that this existed and takes place during one of the episodes, with the leading duo from that game appearing at the end of this one.
- Very much like the main series, Captain Spirit sees you controlling a character, this time a little boy called Chris, as you interact with the environment and others to get to the endpoint.
- This is quite hard to play from a narrative standpoint, as the only other major character is Chris' drunken, verbally abusive father and it's sad to see this little kid having to fantasise about being a superhero just to get through his day.
- Chris clearly loves his dad, but is clearly not getting that same level of emotion in return and some scenes may be hard to watch if you don't have the greatest relationship with your own parents.
- Still, as a short side story running alongside Life is Strange 2, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is fun enough and free to play too, so no reason not to at least try it out. [6/10]
TV
- I'm closing in on the end of what's available of For All Mankind currently on Apple TV (season three review next week) and these last two seasons have been much more my speed.
- The character development and plot progression feel much more intertwined than the first two seasons and everything feels much more like it's moving forward with a real sense of momentum rather than having some parts feel like they're in a holding pattern waiting for other parts of the show to catch up.
- Once For All Mankind is done, I'll be finished with Apple TV for a while, so I think it might be time for a Game of Thrones re-watch before the second season of House of the Dragon arrives...
