Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA, Replayed on TempGBA on PSP)

Emergency Order: Exterminate all Metroid organisms on planet Zebes and defeat the mechanical life-form, Mother Brain.

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Overall: I have a special place in my heart for Metroid 2 because I had a Game Boy long before I had a NES. The nostalgia of Samus Returns was real. This…less so. It’s a decent game of its own right, but aspects of it rely on you being a pre-existing Metroid fan.

I’ve Had Fewer Movie Nights Than One Might Expect

The Spy Who Dumped Me - As much as I like both of the actresses headlining this, it was only okay. It didn’t really do anything Melissa McCarthy’s Spy didn’t already do at least as well. (I would be happy to see another twenty minutes of Kate MacKinnon creatively professing her love for Gillian Anderson, though.)

Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey - Delightfully fun. Reminded me more of Deadpool than anything else, but that’s not a bad thing. I was particularly fond of the loving descriptions of a breakfast sandwich, the periodic reminders that Harley is actually really smart, and the fact that Huntress (raised by assassins in a remote village) logically has no social skills.

Dragon Quest: Your Story - Generally a retelling of the story of Dragon Quest V, this was very much made for people around my age, who grew up loving Dragon Quest games. The prologue sequence is actually a bunch of excerpts of the Japanese SNES version of the game…which go by way too fast to make sense of if you aren’t already familiar with them. (ARR was entertained, but that was a combination of knowing the characters from Dragon Quest Heroes and the fact that it was mostly goofy fantasy action sequences.) The ending is intensely meta and emphasizes who their target audience is if you didn’t realize already. If you don’t already love the DQ games, skip this.

Cats - Oh my god, this was such a garbage fire. The director apparently has no idea how big a cat is, or really, anything else. Objects are constantly out of scale with both the cats and each other. The CGI over people’s hands constantly cuts in and out, swapping them between normal human hands and fur. The added dialogue is painfully bad and the attempts to add more plot are…mediocre. On the other hand, Ian McKellen pretending to be a cat is glorious fun. Watch this with friends and a drink in your hand.

Solo - Well, that happened. A reference-filled interquel that didn’t need to happen, full of cute moments (okay, yes, I loved Lando) and lacking any of that actual storytelling that made Rogue One work. Also, this very much cements the “Han is Chewie’s dog” theory of their relationship, given that Chewie is (as always) competent and Han is a moron. But the most annoying thing, as someone who doesn’t watch the cartoons, is WHY THE HELL IS MAUL ALIVE? HE WAS CUT IN HALF DECADES EARLIER.