Mutant Reviewers From Hell » Superhero

Even More Indie Comics That Should Be Movies

Drew — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:47:37 +0000

Greetings, cinemaphiles! Because you demanded it, I’m back with yet another list of independent comics that would make for good movies. Even though this is my third go-around, the problem once again wasn’t finding enough indie comics that could make the transition, it was narrowing down the list. Some were easy to discount, like Whiteout, a thriller about a U.S. marshal stationed in Antarctica investigating a series of grisly murders among scientists at research bases. Why didn’t it make the list? One reason and one reason only: it’s already a movie, opening this September. (I have high hopes, even though they prettied up the homely protagonist by casting Kate Beckinsale and replaced her female British spy cohort with a male love interest.) Or Wildguard, a comic about an American Idol-esque reality show where rookie superheroes compete to join a new superteam. Great premise, but I honestly think it’d work better as a TV show than a movie. Other choices weren’t so easy to weed out, but weed them out I did so that I could bring you the following: five more indie comics that could be turned into terrific films.

STRANGERS IN PARADISE

To sum up Strangers in Paradise is no easy task, but in essence it’s a love story that also happens to be a crime thriller. Except instead of a hardboiled private eye, our hero(ine) is Katchoo, a blonde artist who looks like a model but takes no crap from ANYONE, including you, mister. She also happens to be hopelessly in love with best friend Francine and makes no secret of it; however, Francine loves Katchoo as a friend but is avowedly straight, not at all interested in the love that dare not speak its name. Things get complex when art student David enters their lives and falls head over heels for Katchoo, who for her part couldn’t be less interested. But David isn’t about to let a little thing like sexual orientation stand in the way of true love, and meanwhile Francine doesn’t think David is such a bad catch himself. Everything heats up when Katchoo’s past catches up to her, as we learn she once worked as a high-priced escort/bodyguard for Darcy Parker, one of the biggest crimelords in America, and may have stolen quite a bit of money on her way out. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, and before the series is over all of the characters will go through their share of humor, heartbreak, and intrigue.

Much like the comic Blue Monday that I described previously, SiP has nary a cape or supernatural element in sight, taking place in a world that could just as well be our own. (Okay, there’s one superhero parody and one Xena parody, but they’re both dream sequences.) What gives it life, and why it could easily be a great movie, is the characters with all their individual flaws and foibles. Some of those are physical- while Katchoo is a twig, Francine struggles with her weight throughout the series, and while not obese, is never what one would call skinny either. But creator Terry Moore makes it clear through numerous would-be paramours (Katchoo foremost among them) that Francine’s inner beauty shines through and makes her remarkably attractive, in large part due to her compassion and loving personality. (Granted, the boobs don’t hurt either.) Far more interesting, though, are the characters’ personality flaws. While generally good people, all of them have skeletons in their closets and something they’re unwilling to let go of, whether it’s the dream of a relationship with Francine, or Katchoo, or Mr. Right, or something else entirely. The series also does an excellent job of portraying both straight and gay relationships in a highly realistic manner, earning it numerous awards from GLAAD in addition to its Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story.

For all that I love SiP, I do have a few tiny complaints, primarily stemming from the intense “making it up as he goes along” vibe that pervades the series. On multiple occasions we’re given glimpses of the future only to have later events preclude things from actually happening that way, and the series introduces more characters and subplots that are dropped without explanation than any other I’ve ever read. (Wasn’t Katchoo a recovering alcoholic at one point?) I realize this is a backhanded complaint, but Moore brings so much vitality and depth to his characters that when they suddenly disappear without explanation, it’s jarring. Maybe it’s some meta-commentary on how people drift in and out of your life without warning, but by the end you’ll find yourself wondering why minor characters who appear for two issues are developed better than Brad, a major plot-driving character for over half the series. On a related note, the cycle of endless fights and reconciliations gets so repetitive that the characters themselves are forced to address it eventually. And while Katchoo is Moore’s pet character, I’ll admit that for most of the series she was my least favorite. Yes, she’s creative, witty, capable of extreme kindness… she’s also ungodly temperamental, borderline abusive, and (intentionally or not) shows David juuuust enough affection to keep him around while always leaving him wanting more. I know she’s had a tough life and she does improve near the end of the series, but more than once I found myself wishing David would shake off his Katchoo obsession and notice the attractive, stable brunette sitting next to him.

But in the end, those are minor quibbles about a truly remarkable series. If you’re someone who, even with the silly masks and codenames removed, just can’t bring yourself to read any comic involving fantastic powers or situations, do yourself a huge favor and check out Strangers in Paradise. If you don’t believe me, you can take bestselling author and snappy dresser Neil Gaiman’s word for it: “What most people don’t know about love, sex, and relations with other human beings would fill a book. Strangers in Paradise is that book.” ‘Nuff said.

“One man by himself is nothing. Two people who belong together make a world.”

PLANETARY

If your idea of a good time is raiding tombs or lost arks and learning the history of something that never was, have I got the series for you. Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, and the Drummer (first name “The,” last name “Drummer”) collectively comprise the field team of Planetary, who bill themselves as “Archaeologists of the Impossible.” Their self-imposed mission is to investigate and document the secret history of the world, all those things that have either through circumstance or careful manipulation remained hidden from the rest of us. In practice, this is an excuse for writer Warren Ellis to play around with the tropes and genre expectations of fiction and plumb just how deep the rabbit hole goes. No corner of literature, cinema, or comics is safe from Planetary’s investigations, and all of them come across looking more interesting than you might originally have thought.

Need an example of what to expect? Elijah Snow’s first mission with the group involves a secret alliance of pulp heroes (thinly-veiled versions of the Shadow, Tarzan, Fu Manchu, Doc Savage, and more) who invented a computer that uses alternate realities to predict the future, only to give their lives fighting off an invasion of Justice League analogues from one of the realities. Later cases include a mysterious island near Japan where giant monsters suddenly appeared in 1950 only to die out by the mid-70s, and a Hong Kong cop who was killed by his partner, but whose ghost appears every night to avenge murders with phantom (but very real) guns until someone else is betrayed and murdered to take his place. As the series progresses the intrigue only deepens, because it turns out Planetary doesn’t just investigate mysteries, they ARE one. Who’s the mysterious “Fourth Man” who funds their operations? Why did they choose to recruit Elijah, and what happened to the previous Third Man? (Killed while investigating the government’s ill-fated attempt at sending a crew into an entirely fictional universe.) And how can they possibly stand against the Four, amoral versions of the Fantastic Four who serve as the dark counterpoint to Planetary’s efforts, explorers who keep their discoveries only for themselves and actively work to cover up or annihilate supernatural beings and occurrences.

If you’ve ever lamented that the two X-Files movies weren’t that great, take note: Planetary is everything the X-Files wanted to be and more. Instead of a gullible wiener who’s a little too fixated on his sister and a bitchy skeptic, you get a century-old newbie, a sardonic British woman who can drop kick a rhino across the Grand Canyon, and a slightly insane young man who would really, really like to be alone with that sexy television of yours. (Okay, Jakita’s also kind of bitchy, but she looks better in leather than Scully.) Rather than bring locked into investigating an alien/mutation/urban legend every week, the comic’s broad remit allows Ellis to explore any genre he wants, and he has quite a vivid imagination. Ergo, a film version could feature Elijah’s recruitment and the pulp hero case to get him up to speed, but then transition into Planetary’s attempts to shut down the Four while Elijah slowly starts to recover his memories… including being trained by Sherlock Holmes and his unrevealed prior connection to Planetary. This movie needs to happen, if only to show that a film version of a comic devoted to exploring the realms of fiction can actually be done right, rather than… well.

”These people need putting down. And you’re getting this briefing now for three reasons. You’re a cranky son of a bitch and no-one really likes you — but we trust you now. You’re always complaining that we never do anything proactive. And we just found out where the Four are. You want to go get them?”

HITMAN

Yet again I’m cheating a bit, in the sense that Hitman was published by DC, one of the big two comic companies. Since it skated along for five years on the outskirts of the DC universe with only rare appearances by superheroes, I’m giving it a pass… besides, it has way more in common with Garth Ennis’ other infamous series, Preacher. Both feature healthy doses of ultra-violence, heroes who don’t take crap from anyone, and philosophical musings hidden between hilariously bizarre scenarios, but Hitman is both slightly more restrained (no cursing or nudity to be found) and played more for laughs. It’s also considered by some to be the better of the two series; that’s debatable, but what’s not is that it’s a hella funny comic with gratuitous violence, outre situations, characters with actual depth, and a surprising amount of heart. Like a Quentin Tarantino flick without the unearned sense of artistic smugness.

Hitman tells the story of Tommy Monaghan, a professional contract killer who accidentally acquires x-ray vision and low-level telepathy and decides to use them to specialize in killing superhuman and paranormal targets… for a modest fee, of course. The thing is, Tommy’s powers are entirely incidental to most stories and, like his codename, are almost forgotten about as the series progresses. Instead, the draw of Hitman is Tommy himself, a smart, funny, and — there’s no way around it — likable professional assassin. Like John Cusack’s character in Grosse Pointe Blank, Tommy has a way of making us empathize with him even as he ends people’s lives, and Ennis writes a poor Irish Catholic son-of-an-immigrant as only an Irishman can. It’s one of life’s great ironies that foreign writers are often the most gifted at articulating exactly what makes this the land of opportunity, and Ennis is one of the best at capturing the greatness of America’s melting pot without glossing over the country’s flaws. As well, there’s the fact that Tommy’s personal ethics lead him to only accept contracts on people who are killers themselves or otherwise (in his mind at least) deserve to die. It doesn’t make it right to cheer him on, of course, but damned if you won’t anyway. It’s an incredibly funny series, but Ennis also knows exactly when to pause the laughs and remind you that, hey- at the end of the day, this man kills people for money. And one of Hitman’s best moments occurs when best friend Natt the Hatt confronts Tommy with the hypocrisy of his self-imposed moral code.

There’s no shortage of great Hitman stories to translate to the silver screen, as Tommy and his assassin pals got themselves into one impossible scrape after another. A personal favorite is a night job at Gotham Aquarium where a chemical spill has mutated the sealife into zombie penguins and dolphins and harp seals; it’s like Evil Dead 2 meets, I don’t know, pixie farts. Something. Anyway, just cast a charming rogue who can pull off an Irish accent but who isn’t a d-bag (not so fast, Colin Farrell) and give Ennis the writing reins. I will caution, however, that one inclusion in the movie is non-negotiable. You see, the success of Hitman can be traced to exactly one thing, which is that it introduced the world to the single greatest superhero to ever grace the printed page: Dogwelder. The result of a bar bet between Garth Ennis and a friend that no one could come up with a stupider superhero name than “Green Lantern,” Dogwelder’s schtick is that he… well, he welds dead dogs to criminals’ faces. This is wonderful and magic. If you do not see the beauty in Dogwelder, stop reading my article immediately.

“You know you my best friend in the entire world, Tommy. Hell, you my brother. I got your back from now ’til the day we both be checkin’ out. But sometimes you so full of it you make me wanna throw up, man. This whole thing you got, this line you draw — like you ain’t gonna shoot anyone good? Who the hell are you to judge that? Like you don’t mind wastin’ wiseguys an’ gangstas by the dozen, but you ain’t gonna kill no cop? What if he’s on the take? Or he likes beatin’ on any brother looks at him funny? You don’t know! An’ I mean what you talkin’ about now, like you gotta atone or somethin’? You a hitman, Tommy! You kill for money! Live wit’ it! You know it an’ I know it, an’ pullin’ crap like showin’ mercy to Big Ears over there — that ain’t gonna change it for a instant.“

MADMAN

If you ever watched the Saturday morning cartoon “Freakazoid!” back in the day, you’re at least slightly familiar with Madman, whose protagonist served as its inspiration. Following in a proud fictional tradition, Frank Einstein (get it?) is a man searching for his past. Unlike most of his forebears, the reason Frank has to search is that he’s a patchwork corpse stitched back up and reanimated by two benevolently mad scientists. Naming him after their two heroes (Frank Sinatra and Albert Einstein), the scientists don’t have time to educate Frank properly because they borrowed heavily from a mafia boss to finance their experiments, and it turns out mobsters aren’t the patient type. Finding his resurrection left him with no memories but imbued him with enhanced reflexes and agility, as well as psychic sensitivity, Frank creates a costume to hide his hideous appearance modeled after the one thing he remembers liking in his past life, a comic book superhero. Thus properly attired, he sets out on a mission to save his creators and ultimately figure out for what higher purpose he’s been given a new lease on life.

Reading over the above description, it sounds pretty melodramatic and serious, but nothing could be further from the truth. In actuality, Madman is all about brightness and pop fun, a lighthearted romp through the surreal side of life. Naturally there’s danger to overcome and villains to be defeated, but Frank’s adventures have an airy quality to them, and the character himself is genuinely a nice, down-to-earth guy… whether he’s having a leisurely picnic with girlfriend Joe or clashing with a gang of mutant street beatniks, Frank always looks on the bright side of life. He doesn’t even have a secret identity- the mask is simply to cover his scars, and while newspapers call him “the Madman of Snap City,” to friends he’s just Frank (and anyone who wants to be is his friend). Creator Mike Allred is indisputably one of the most talented artists in comics — while on the surface Madman’s art may seem plain, it’s refreshing to see clean lines without the need for excessive detail at times, and it perfectly suits the tone of the comic. (That said, one of Allred’s greatest strengths is the ability to replicate nearly any drawing style. One Madman story saw the characters drawn differently in nearly every single panel, each one mimicking the artistic style of a popular comic or children’s book. You haven’t lived till you’ve seen Frank with Popeye arms or in the style of Peanuts characters.) That tone is escapism, by the by, mixed with a healthy dose of existentialism. My one criticism of the book is that it delves a little too deeply into philosophical musings at times, but you can’t come down on it too hard for being both fun to read and overly smart… would that more comics were like that.

I’m not going to lie, you probably couldn’t capture everything that makes Madman so ginchy keen in a film, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. It would have to be animated, as I don’t see Frank’s hyper-colored escapades translating well to real life. That was tried once before with a low-budget live action adaptation of one of Allred’s other creations, the G-Men From Hell, with decidedly mixed results. No, animation is the way to truly do justice to the world’s snappiest comic magazine. Traditional cel animation would do the trick nicely, but The Incredibles proved that CGI is up to the task of handling the hyper-kinetic pop sensibilities of the superhero, so perhaps Frank’s destiny lies in that direction. Either way, Mike Allred (and ideally wife/colorist Laura Allred) has to be onboard as at least Art Director, or we’re not interested, Hollywood. Make a note of that.

“Meanies never win. And you can quote me on that.”

Our fifth entry was going to be Jonah Hex, the legendary scarred gunfighter who was a hero to some, a villain to others, and wherever he rode people spoke his name in whispers. As every man, woman or child knows, he had no friends, this Jonah Hex, but he did have two companions — one was death itself… the other, the acrid smell of gunsmoke. It was going to be Hex, but while doing research for this article I learned that the previously in-limbo Hex movie is now officially set for release in 2010. So, no go. (Although you should still check Jonah Hex out, he’s great.) In its place, we’re going to take a look at the first manga to grace this list:

MAIL ORDER NINJA

I usually steer well clear of manga, but I’m making an exception for Mail Order Ninja because it is quite literally made of awesome. It’s also all-ages, so a movie adaptation would be a great family film in the Pixar mold, aimed toward kids but with jokes that appeal to adults. M.O.N. puts us in the shoes of Timmy McCallister, your average fifth-grader at L. Frank Baum Elementary School. Timmy’s a nice young kid who digs ninjas and ~~comics~~ graphic novels, but he’s sick of getting pushed around by everyone, from rich girl Felicity Huffington to school bully Brock, who’s formed an unholy alliance with Timmy’s bratty sister Lindsay. Fed up, Timmy enters a contest to gain the exclusive services of world famous ninja Yoshida Jiro for a year, and (since it wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise) wins! Soon things are a bit different around school, where Brock’s American Bullying Association license is permanently revoked. With the halls safe for normal kids to walk without fear for their lunch money, Timmy beats out Felicity for class president in a landslide, and plans to celebrate his victory with an immense party after the school dance. But Felicity isn’t ready to cede control without a fight, importing Jiro’s nemesis Nobunaga and the entire White Dragon Clan to help her regain power. Something tells me this school dance is about to get totally ninja…

It’s hard to describe what makes M.O.N. so great, aside from the cliche that author Joshua Elder really does have a great grasp on the voice and motivations of a 10-year-old. The book is crammed with funny asides, many in the form of text boxes that crop up next to characters at random times, pop-up video style. Elder is clearly a Generation Y-er who grew up on the same stuff we did and loves paying homage to it; a perfect example is Timmy’s graphic novel about Jiro’s adventures, where both the dialogue and action mirror Optimus Prime’s assault on Megatron in the 1986 Transformers movie. Occasionally the references feel a bit ham-fisted (”There’ll be no more dark sarcasm in this classroom!” “Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone.”), but they’re nearly always funny, which excuses a lot. The story itself is kid friendly, by which I mean there won’t be any plot points you don’t see coming, but A) it’s written for young adults, and B) it packs enough laughs that odds are you won’t care. The violence is cartoony, and the stories themselves are quick reads. (Two volumes are out so far; a third was due earlier this year but has been pushed back to November.) I don’t really have much else to add- farm M.O.N. out to Dreamworks or Pixar and let them do what they do best. This one’s got my personal guarantee, you can’t go wrong.

“Son, owning a ninja is a big responsibility. Remember what happened with the iguana?”

As a special bonus, here’s one indie comic that definitely should NOT be made into a movie:

FLAMING CARROT

The Flaming Carrot’s origins are shrouded in mystery. Some say he was once an ordinary man who went insane after reading 5000 comics in one sitting to win a bet. One thing is certain: for reasons all his own, he took to wearing a giant fiery carrot mask and flippers (in case he has to swim) and dispensing two-fisted justice to anyone who threatens Palookaville, a suburb of Iron City. Occasionally taking direction from a mysterious speaker he found implanted in his chest after awaking from a three-day bender, the Carrot is a hard-hitting, hard-living, hard-loving hero who likes his drinks stiff and his women loose. With his trademark battle cry of “Ut!”, he wages lethal yet comedic war on any evildoer who’s man enough to take him on.

I actually really dig the Carrot, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to see him on celluloid anytime soon. The problem is that essentially all of the humor in FC’s adventures is based on surreality. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the surreality isn’t a vehicle for the humor, it IS the humor. For instance, while wandering through a dreamlike dimension, the Carrot might pass by a woman breastfeeding a dictionary. That’s slightly funny from an oddity standpoint, but it’s not the setup for a gag… that IS the gag. With the Carrot’s habit of talking almost exclusively in non-sequiturs, some of them zen but most of them just nonsense, you really have to have a high tolerance for absurdist humor to get much out of his adventures. They’re usually best in small doses, and I definitely can’t see many members of your average audience getting into the Carrot’s vibe. Ultimately, this one’s better left on the comic page.

Interestingly, FC almost, sort of was the inspiration for a movie. See, the Carrot was a founding member of the Mysterymen, a group of working-class heroes with the highest mortality rate of any superteam in history. Alongside members like the Shoveler, Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, and Mr. Furious, who gets so mad at crime he becomes bulletproof, FC battled such menaces as an army of Hitler’s cloned feet. The Mysterymen (with a space added into their name) ultimately did get a movie, but the Carrot was rudely not included, perhaps because ’90s special effects weren’t capable of doing justice to a 5′ carrot mask with flames perpetually shooting out the top. Maybe it’s for the best — the film didn’t have much in common with its avant garde source material, and the world may not be ready for FC’s bizarre brand of vigilantism. But know that whenever evil threatens hot women, the Carrot will be leading the charge on his nuclear-powered pogo stick, ready to win the day through his peculiar blend of raw grit, blinding stupidity, and dumb luck.

Ut!

Drew does Green Lantern: First Flight

Drew — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:20:56 +0000

“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!”

The Scoop: 2009 PG-13, directed by Lauren Montgomery and starring Christopher Meloni, Victor Garber and Michael Madsen

Tagline: Beware His Power

Summary Capsule: Fearless test pilot Hal Jordan inherits a power ring that lets him do damn near anything, but first must undergo training with shifty hardass Sinestro. Nothing bad could possibly happen.

Drew’s Rating: “And I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the dark things cannot stand the light, the light of the Green Lantern!”

Drew’s Review: Historically, Green Lantern has been one of DC Comics’ foremost b-listers. You have the Big 3 (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman), who are untouchable and will never die or go away for long. Beyond them lie the second tier characters like Aquaman and Green Arrow, the ones whose names are recognizable but who aren’t as sacred cows, meaning they can actually die, lose limbs, or be replaced for extended periods of time. Sitting at the very top of that list have traditionally been two names: Green Lantern and the Flash. The Brave and the Bold. In recent years DC has made a major push to have Green Lantern take his place with the big boys in hopes of creating another franchise character, and as part of that we have Green Lantern: First Flight, GL’s first animated movie. (Incidentally, the Flash has just started what looks to be a similar revitalization, so don’t be surprised if 2011 brings us “The Flash: Starting Line” or something.)

Obligatory background: Green Lantern was one of DC’s first superheroes, but the end of the ’40s saw all of them except Supes, Bats, and Wondy cease publication. A decade later, someone at DC decided to borrow the names of the old “mystery men” and update them into streamlined, space age heroes for a new generation, giving us sleek police scientist the Flash, shrinking physicist the Atom, aliens Hawkman and Hawkgirl… and Green Lantern, a test pilot who was chosen to join a galactic police force run by the Guardians, immortal aliens dedicated to keeping peace throughout the universe. By charging his power ring once every 24 hours, Hal Jordan could fly and create anything his mind could imagine, but the ring carried an impurity that made it vulnerable to the color yellow. Periodically other Green Lanterns would temporarily replace Hal: John Stewart, the token angry black guy who overcame his 2-dimensional roots to become a well-rounded character. Guy Gardner, who damaged the part of his brain that controls how much of a douchebag you are and at one point had the bright idea to take the most powerful weapon in the universe off his finger and challenge Batman to a fist fight. (Hint: this became known as the “one punch” incident.) Kyle Rayner, the lucky punk who inherited a magic ring by accident when Hal went insane, but (some would say) eventually rose to the challenge. All did respectable tours of duty, but the best known and most popular Lantern remains Hal, and he’s the focus of our movie.

Like any superhero with five decades of history, Hal’s early days have been retold many times and altered by degrees along the way, like a literary version of Telephone. What Green Lantern: First Flight tries to do is simplify things, jettisoning the parts that don’t work and dispensing with his origin within the first 5 minutes, allowing the rest of the film to focus on his training and early struggles in the Green Lantern Corps. Thus the movie plays out like a hodge podge of several early GL stories, with rookie Hal assigned to veteran Sinestro, the greatest Green Lantern of all, to learn the ropes of ring slinging and investigate his predecessor’s murder. Yes, that’s right – the Guardians, displaying the infinite wisdom accrued over countless millennia, have elected to put a guy named “Sinestro” in charge of the most powerful army in the universe, presumably because there’s no way that could backfire. Surprisingly it does, as Hal discovers that Sinestro maintains order with an iron fist and secretly despises the Guardians, thinking them too weak to truly effect change. After obtaining a yellow ring (and a power battery shaped like the Death Star), Sinestro openly defies the Guardians and lays waste to the Corps. All seems lost, but if only there were some brash young hotshot who’s a bit of a rebel himself, but with enough morality to still fight for what’s right. Wait, you don’t think…?

In a rare moment of frankness, I’ll just come out with it: I thought the film was pretty good, but definitely started stronger than it finished. This is largely due to its strange habit of oversimplifying some elements of the Green Lantern mythos while simultaneously overcomplicating others. Why would Sinestro bring his power battery into battle with him rather than hiding it somewhere safe, since he can create any weapon he wants with his ring? (For that matter, why does it bear a black GL symbol? Sinestro’s not a Lantern anymore, and his uniform gets a new emblem.) We don’t ever see the Green Lanterns recharging their rings before the climax, so the concept of them running out of juice may come out of left field for some viewers. And good grief, could the Guardians be bigger pusses? These are the immortal demigods who power 3600 interstellar policemen, and the best they can do is shoot some vaguely wavy energy and save their own useless troops from falling to their deaths? Why does Hal want to join these losers again? Go back to the Air Force, Jordan, they have REAL badasses there.

I realize this “review” has been about 60% history lesson, 40% actual review, and I don’t know, maybe I’m just burned out on animated superhero movies. (It’s not just me, there have there been a lot of them lately, right?) Regardless, First Flight was enjoyable but just didn’t bring it home at the end. It hurts to say that because I have a lot of time for Hal as a character, but this is not his best story. Like I said, it isn’t a bad film – the animation is impressive, they got some really talented voice actors, and the first 2/3rds really works for me. But it doesn’t capture the mood and intensity of the Batman animated features, nor the grandeur of the Justice League cartoon. It also invites unfavorable comparisons to both the “In Brightest Day” episode of the Superman cartoon, which told a Green Lantern origin story that’s nearly as thrilling in a third of the time, and Justice League: The New Frontier, which depicts the origin of a more fleshed-out Hal, but set against the backdrop of the greater DC universe. Stacked up against those examples, First Flight unfortunately falls a bit short. I’d still recommend you see it, but maybe as more of a rental or a discount buy. So says the Green Lantern!

Didja Notice?

It is maybe the coolest thing ever that Ch’p, the squirrel Green Lantern, made it into the movie. The only thing better would’ve been G’Nort, the incompetent dog… thing.
Arisia appears in a minor role, seemingly an adult. In the comics, Arisia (a humanoid alien) became a Green Lantern at age 13, but due to having a crush on Hal Jordan, subconsciously used her power ring to age herself to full adulthood, and she and Hal eventually dated. It was exactly as creepy as it sounds.
I know it’s just a cartoon, but the scene where Sinestro basically forces drugs on an alien prostitute to make her talk is still pretty uncomfortable.
Anyone notice how similar Sinestro’s philosophy is to Sean Connery’s from The Untouchables? “They pull a blaster, you pull a power ring. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That’s the Korugar way.”
Hey, Red from That ’70s Show is Kanjar Ro! “Sinestro, I swear, if you betray me I’ll put my foot so far up your ass…”
Wow… they actually showed a guy getting sucked out into the vacuum of space through a tiny hole. No blood, but still.
Okay, so there is some blood. This movie is definitely for teenagers, not kids. In the comics Green Lantern rings were until recently programmed not to allow the use of lethal force, but clearly that’s not the case here.
The part where Sinestro reanimates a dead corpse and plies it for information is also quite creepy. Way to earn that PG-13!
Scratch that again, there’s a LOT of blood. We’re a long way from the days when a trickle of AB positive from Batman’s mouth was all the blood the Animated Series team was allowed to use for an entire season.
Apparently to staff their ultimate police force, the Guardians have been recruiting heavily from preschools, ladies’ auxilary clubs, and chess teams. Seriously, one dude makes 20 Green Lanterns look like total chumps? Sinestro’s supposed to be the best Green Lantern, sure, but better than all of the others combined?
The whole levitating rocks thing isn’t helping people not compare you to Yoda, Ganthet.
What does it say about me that I’m more surprised by the use of the word “bastard” than all the violence and blood?
I could live without the heavy anime influence. Getting pwned with just your “regular” superpowers and having to absorb a mysterious energy source to turbocharge you is a little too Voltron, and there’s no reason Hal freakin’ Jordan should be doing a power ring Hadoken in space. Giant green boxing gloves will do just fine, thank you.

Now you've seen what countless naive young secretaries have seen: Hal Jordan's O face

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

Nope.

Intermission!

That’s

It isn’t really made clear in the film, but in the DC Universe green is the color of willpower, which is what Green Lanterns draw on to make their rings work. The rings are vulnerable to yellow because it represents fear, which is what every Green Lantern must be able to overcome. In recent years Sinestro has created his own Corps to oppose the Lanterns, armed with yellow rings like his own. While Green Lanterns are chosen based on their ability to overcome great fear, Sinestro Corps rings are given to beings capable of instilling great fear in others. One yellow ring sought out Batman, who rejected it; another was offered to the Scarecrow, but Batman and Green Lantern prevented it just in time. The Sinestro Corps displayed their originality in coming up with the following oath:

In blackest day, in brightest night,
Beware your fears made into light
Let those who try to stop what’s right
Burn like his power… Sinestro’s might!

Groovy Quotes

Ranakar: I’m afraid the human race of Earth does not have the most stellar reputation. The fact is humans are crude, base, fearful and untrustworthy.
Random Guardian: And then there’s the smell…

Hal: So what now?
Sinestro: Now, I own your ass.

Sinestro: Unlike the others, I like humans. I admire their spirit, and their natural contempt for authority. It’s well founded here.

Sinestro: You defied me!
Hal: You could’ve killed her.
Sinestro: Let me tell you, “friend.” The only way to operate out here is by fear. They hit, I hit harder. They attack, I annihilate. I am the one constant, unassailable force against their chaos, and you made them forget that!

Ganthet: The Green Lantern Corps is an ideal, Sinestro. You don’t save it by ignoring what it stands for.

Sinestro: I could use someone like you who has the stones to get things done. While the gnomes banish you, I offer you power, more power than you can imagine. All I ask for is your loyalty.
Hal: Now, you see, you had me… right up until that last part.

Weaponeer of Qward: The weapon is a mighty force. The most powerful and absolute in your universe. With one exception. One… slight… imperfection.
Sinestro: What?
Weaponeer: The imperfection every weapon has. Its user.

Sinestro: Frankly, Kilowog, you weren’t going to survive this anyway.

Hal: In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Justin does Punisher: War Zone

Justin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:30:29 +0000

“That Castle’s a slippery one”

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Lexi Alexander, and starring Ray Stevenson, Dominic West and Julie Benz.

Tagline: Vengeance has a name.

Summary Capsule: Ex-Special Forces instructor–not FBI agent–living in New York–not Miami–turns blood-soaked vigilante after his family is murdered by the mob. Chunks ensue.

Justin’s Rating: He’s got a license to brutalize

Justin’s Review: You have to feel a little sorry for the Punisher (aka Frank Castle), no matter whether you approve of his heavy-handed homicidal method of justice or not. The guy’s never been at the top tier of Marvel, sometimes existing to provide more uppity superheroes reason to sniff their noses in disdain for his brutal tactics. He’s also had a horrendous streak in the movie theaters as well: 1989’s Dolph Lundgren did no favors to the franchise (and even nixed the P’s famous shirt), 2004’s Thomas Jane installed no awe as he fought (polite cough) John Travolta, and 2008’s Ray Stevenson got saddled with a gory underdog of a film that grossed barely $10 million. There may be a place in the Marvel universe for The Punisher, but he’s yet to rest his weary head on the pillow of success for movie-goers.

It’s sad that the apex of his career might’ve been a team up with – of all people – Archie. Yes, that Archie.

Other than being less-than-lackluster in theaters, all three Punisher flicks have something else in common: none of them are related in any way to the others. Three films, three “reboots” of a sort. Punisher: War Zone is probably the most faithful to the source out of them all – using the comic’s origin story (told in flashbacks), along with the classic villain Jigsaw – but its bottom-of-the-barrel acting and splatterpunk nature make it hard to care. Yeah, that guy just punched through that other guy’s head, but where’s the characterization?

About as far from superheroes as one can get, the Punisher stalks the streets of NYC and takes down organized crime faster than Spider-Man can brush his teeth in the morning. Cops consistently turn a blind eye to his activities because, hey, vigilantes rock! Am I right, or what? I mean, who needs all that pesky paperwork and Miranda Rights when you can just unleash a mentally unstable Special Forces vet on the scum of the town?

During a particularly gruesome bust, Punisher accidentally kills a FBI mole (cue angry coffeemug throw of regret in his lair three scenes later) and creates an arch-nemesis by throwing a baddie into a glass grinder. That does NOT do any favors for one’s face, I might add. The remainder of the movie is born of these actions: Punisher tries to make up to the widow for his little boo-boo, and Jigsaw (glass grinder guy) enlists all of the gangs of the city in an attempt to squash Frank Castle and good. Lots of shootouts, bang bang, the end.

Probably the most bizarre aspect of PWZ (which I pronounce “pweeze?”) is that the daughter of the slain FBI agent all but adopts her father’s killer as a replacement. Every scene she’s in required the screenwriters to ignore all they knew about human emotions and relationships, for the kid never really cries, nor reacts to her mom pulling a gun on Castle, doesn’t scream, and starts making puppy eyes on the big guy with the guns like she’s putting herself up for adoption. It’s about six miles past Creepy and almost to the town of Whattheheck? The wife/mom isn’t much better – she gets one scene of acting all indignant, but then fails to kill Frank when she has the chance, and becomes a mindless potential kidnappee from then on out.

If you are in the mood for action and don’t mind a lot of Karyo syrup slucing everywhere, then Punisher: War Zone will fit the bill as long as you don’t ask anything more of it. It’s all technically well-done and the plot is easy enough to follow, but… sheesh. The lot of them need acting classes. Punisher comes just as stilted as Steven Seagal, just perhaps a bit more chunky. Jigsaw and the rest either maniacally overact or plod through the script as if it’s a particularly repugnant chore. I’d have rather seen Punisher square off against of some of Marvel’s so-called “good guys” than this Scarface reject.

Want a second opinion? Check out Kaleb’s review here.

Didja Notice?

Hooray for glass crushers with no safety guards, bars or covers
All asylums should look straight out of a Halloween set, even if they’re in the middle of suburbia
Her mom’s about to shoot a guy and the daughter just sits there coloring? Wow, that’s a little oblivious.
The little kid’s a klepto, too
Kids are easily impressed by snowglobes
Has that kid even shed one tear for her dad’s death before she latches on to her dad’s killer as a replacement?

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

Nah.

Groovy Quotes

Looney Bin Jim: You look fantastic, brother.

LBJ: Reeowr.

LBJ: Hey, I “axe”d you a question! You don’t answer, guess I’ll have to “axe” it again!

Soap: Now I’ve got brains splattered all over me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

The Punisher
Rambo (2007)
Death Wish(es) one through seventeen.

Justin does Watchmen

Justin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:45:12 +0000

“None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!”

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Zach Snyder and starring Billy Crudup, Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino.

Tagline: They watch over us… but who watches them?

Summary Capsule: Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ magnum opus gets filmed.

Justin’s Rating: Up, down and all around the place! …that’s not a very good superhero slogan.

Justin’s Review: There really are two completely separate audiences for this film, represented by my wife and I:

AUDIENCE #1 (played by me): Has read the Watchmen comic… er, GRAPHIC NOVEL several times, appreciates its intricacy, was somewhat worried about the adaptation of an “unfilmable novel”.

AUDIENCE #2 (played by my wife): Was asked to see this “superhero movie” and went in expecting the same sort of intensity and fun of other PG-13 superhero flicks. Ended up cowering behind her fingers at the graphic brutality, the depressing tone, and the 180-degree shift from traditional superherodom. Also ends up saying, “What the HELL was that all about…?”

Now, there’s probably an even smaller subset of Audience #1 that I also belong to, the “I’ve read Watchmen enough times to understand it, but I’m not really sure if I LIKE it” group. We tend to be a quiet sort, because Watchmen fans are some of the most rabidly illogical followers you’ll tend to find in geekdom. Their shrines to Alan Moore pulse in anger at any slight change from the comic to the movie, and they are always, always on the prowl for ignorant savages to preach to – possibly with fists – about the perfection that is this book. I’m just not those guys. It’s like English classes, where they made us read a ton of “classic” novels from way back when. Some you like, some you don’t, and many you’re apathetic about. You understand why you have to read them and understand their place in literature, but there can be a league of difference between understanding and head-over-heels love.

I say all this because when I start pecking away at what’s being accurately called “The Big Blue Penis Movie”, I want you to appreciate where I’m coming from. Audience #1A, represent!

As a film, Watchmen is many things. It’s remarkably faithful – with certain notable exceptions – to the graphic novel, probably far more so than any fan had any right to demand. Director Zack Snyder set himself up for a lose-lose situation (or did he?) by trying to balance the expectations of the fans with the blank slate presented by the larger portion of the audience. Cuts had to be made. Changes had to be made. Some of the visuals could remain, some were updated for 2009 sensibilities. But by and large, the story remained intact, a murder mystery/conspiracy that serves as a vehicle for examining why people might dress up to be “costumed avengers” – and whether or not these “heroes” might also be quite psychologically disturbed.

Before the awesome opening credits slam down on us, a superhero is brutally murdered in his apartment by a stranger – a small drop of incident in an alternate 1985 USA where Nixon is still president and nuclear war is about to become a reality. A bit like how Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer was the catalyst for unraveling the dark, quirky secrets of that small Washington town, this murder is all it takes for the seedy underbelly of masked adventurers to be exposed.

Watchmen wasn’t so much about superheroes who have great power – in fact, only one character in the film, Dr. Manhatten, has any power beyond technology and fists. While an accident turned him into a being with god-like powers who’s almost completely disconnected with humanity, the rest of an old hero squad (superheroes having been outlawed in the 70’s in this world) are just guys and girls who are pretty messed up in their own way, but ultimately trying to do the right thing.

There’s the uncompromising Rorschach, who is easily the highlight of the film with his constantly-shifting inkblot mask and absolute anger toward immorality; Silk Spectre II, a pretty thing in vinyl who’s trying to live up to the family legacy; Ozymandias, who’s traded in his superhero legacy for a commercial empire; The Comedian, a brute who is both completely despicable and also sympathetic; and Nite Owl II, a chubby has-been who misses the good ol’ days of crime fighting. Some have retired from this second life, some have not, but all get drawn into events that quickly spiral out of control.

Snyder deserves praise for creating a visually stunning film and for not compromising, at least for certain parts (although, inexplicably, they caved when it came to a female smoking – guh???). If nothing else, this is not a film that was run through the Hollywood template, cleaned up for family-friendly PG-13 funtimes. It might’ve gotten into a couple scrapes with the template, but I think its soul survived just fine. As I said before, they really were damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t with much of the movie, and the fact that it kept me thinking about it a few days afterward – even though, as with the novel, I’m not sure whether or not I liked the film – means that they did something right.

There is plenty to complain about, from both audiences’ perspective. For Audience 1, the changing of the ending, while perhaps easier to plug into movie format, created a sterile, blah finale to what was in the book a stunning denouement. For Audience 2, the most egregious failing is that it’s simply far more gratuitous than it – or the novel, but they wouldn’t know it – had to be. The violence is ratcheted up to a point where action scenes are absolutely wince-inducing, and oh my the bad sex scenes. Zack Snyder did the same sort of drawn-out, gratuitous nudity sex scene in 300 that he does here, where he’s about three heartbeats and a bad music score away from pure porn.

For both audiences, the final sin might well be that this is too long of a movie that fails to really make an emotional connection with those watching it. You don’t really sense the fear of nuclear holocaust, many of the characters fail to become real, and the direction keeps veering wildly between gory action, somber pontification, and depressing atmosphere so that you simply don’t end up with anything. It’s a monolith of a film that falls through the cracks in your fingers as you try to handle it – something impressive, no doubt, but failing to be any one thing as it tries to be everything.

So, passing grade on Watchmen, and at least we can put it all behind us. Oh, and give Rorschach his own spin-off, please!

So... you're the Joker now?

Didja Notice?

Ozymandias’ German accent when he’s not in public?
How much Nite Owl and Silk Spectre look like Clark Kent and Lois Lane?
Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing in Veidt’s lobby?
Doc Manhatten’s package? Yeah, if I was packin’ that much heat, I’d walk around naked all the time too.

Intermission!

The first official image from director Zack Snyder – a test shot of Rorshach holding The Comedian’s button – was actually hidden in a trailer for Snyder’s previous film, 300. It features the film’s associate producer, Wesley Coller, wearing a makeshift mask in front of a composite New York backdrop, and was created as an experiment by Snyder to establish the mood and look of his proposed Watchmen project. Snyder’s wife, Deborah Snyder, bet him $100 that no one would discover it, while he was convinced that someone would find it almost immediately. He won.

Groovy Quotes

Silk Spectre: Breaking into a national security prison is not the same thing as fighting a tenement fire.
Nite Owl: You’re right. It’s more fun.

Lee Iacocca: And we all know ‘free’ is just another word for communist.

Rorschach: Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true.

Rorschach: You keep calling me Walter. I don’t Like you.
Dr. Malcolm Long: Oh… why not?
Rorschach: You’re Fat.

Rorschach: None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

300
Sin City
Wanted

Drew does The Incredibles

Drew — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:21:48 +0000

“No school like the old school.”

The Scoop: 2004 PG, directed by Brad Bird and starring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Jason Lee

Tagline: Save The Day

Summary Capsule: More than a decade after superheroes went into hiding to avoid litigation and public condemnation, one super-powered family is forced to save the world, and in doing so teach us all what it means to be a superhero.

Drew’s Rating: In fairness, Kid Miracleman did the “sidekick gone bad” schtick years ago. Of course, he destroyed London; Syndrome will just give you a chocolate-covered pretzel and a lecture about karma.

Drew’s Review: In a recent article, Lissa made the quite accurate observation that as a group, the Mutant Reviewers have… well, gotten older. Oh, I like to think we still skew toward a younger audience, and thank God for that, because who else is going to influence the Plan 9 From Outer Space-watching cult fans of the future? Harry Knowles? Don’t make me laugh. And we keep a few youngsters on staff at all times for Kyle to leer at. But it’s an inescapable fact that the site begun by two college students now has a median staff age in the late 20s if not early 30s. New father Justin barely has time to crank out three reviews a week anymore. Lissa ceased watching horror films, her favorite genre, and now reviews solely Pixar movies and anything that can be DVRed. And no one’s seen PoolMan since his retirement, though the MRFH kitchen is always well stocked with soylent green.

So it got me thinking about the changes in my own life since coming on board. When I became a staff member I’d been dating a girl from work for less than a year, with college just barely in the rearview mirror. These days I still say “dude” a lot and wear my hat backwards, but my girlfriend is now my wife of three years, we have a 9-month-old daughter, and even though I’m still young (28, thank you very much) and most of my friends remain single and jobless, there’s no denying that my circumstances have changed.

Which brings us in a roundabout way to The Incredibles. In 2004, I saw the movie because I like the Fantastic Four and because Pixar can always be counted on for an entertaining movie. And I was entertained, but I walked out of the theater without feeling a particular connection to any of the characters. They were perfectly likable, they just didn’t especially embody anything I was going through. But a funny thing happened when I watched the film again recently: I found myself identifying with Mr. Incredible. Sure, our situations aren’t identical: I only have one child and she’s Jack-Jack’s age, rather than Bob’s brood of three. Despite averaging 10 pounds heavier than in my college swimming prime, I don’t think anyone would call me fat. And there’s the minor “no superpowers” angle, if you insist on bringing it up. But if I’m not exactly in Mr. Incredible’s shoes yet, I can at least view them in the not-too-distant horizon.

And what are Mr. Incredible’s circumstances? Simply put, a world that seems to have passed him by. The man who once jokingly griped that he wishes the planet could just stay saved for a while is now faced with forced retirement… and even worse, a world that hasn’t ended without him. As much as he might complain about how hard he works in practices and games, no player wants to be put out to pasture before he’s darn well ready, and Bob isn’t. He loves his family, but wife Helen seems far too accepting of their new status quo, daughter Violet echoes the classic teenage girl refrain of just wanting to fit in, and son Dash bristles over not being allowed to use his powers in everyday life. What’s a former all-star to do with his whole life ahead of him and no outlet for his talents? For most of us the answer is, “Hang out with old teammates, relive the glory days over a few beers, and play some increasingly pathetic pickup games.” So it is with Bob as well, but when an opportunity arises to get back in the game, he grabs it… an opportunity that before it’s finished will drag his wife and kids into the fray as well. But you know what they say: the family that combats the forces of evil together, stays together.

There’s not a lot I can say that hasn’t been covered by the other Mutants, so I’ll just reiterate that the animation is superb, everything you’d expect from Pixar. Likewise, the voice casting is pitch perfect- I never once heard Coach Hayden Fox coming out of Mr. Incredible’s mouth, Craig T. Nelson really makes the role his own. Holly Hunter does that spirited but pragmatic wife routine even better than in Raising Arizona, and I hope whoever thought of casting Jason Lee as the smarmy, thinks-he’s-cleverer-than-everyone villain got a large bonus. Samuel L. Jackson sounds a little weird not swearing every fifth word, but I’ll give him a pass. The film moves along at a pretty good pace, and the final action piece excites even if the antagonist itself is a bit underwhelming, just a robot sphere with tentacles. By the way, you can tell I’m a superhero geek because during the final fight, my mind wouldn’t stop coming up with ways for the good guys to destroy it given the powers at their disposal. (Violet creates a force field inside the robot then expands it outward, crushing the internal mechanisms. Dash tries every combination of buttons on the remote in half a second. Frozone freezes the robot’s metal outer layer, making it brittle enough for Mr. Incredible to shatter with one punch. Dash grabs his mom and winds her around the robot’s tentacles, making it topple like an AT-AT.)

As I mentioned, I liked but didn’t love The Incredibles when it first came out because it entertained but seemed lacking in as resonant a theme as some of Pixar’s past offerings. What a difference a few years makes, because I now think that theme is one I just wasn’t in a place to appreciate back then. It’s still not my absolute favorite of the company’s movies, but it’s one I eagerly look forward to watching with my daughter and any other children I may someday be blessed with, as I start them on the long road to datelessness and comic collecting. (You laugh, but if your daughter were as cute as mine, you’d be looking for ways to keep her dateless too.) And for any college students reading this and scoffing at old man Drew, here’s a sobering calculation for you: elapsed turnaround time from graduation to meeting soulmate, getting hitched, and ultimately becoming a parent? 6 years, 5 months, 15 days. Tick, tick, tick…

Drew, this is your life

Didja Notice?

Mirage tells Mr. Incredible that he’ll be briefed on his second mission in conference room A-113. The number A-113 is a frequent Pixar in-joke based on one of the room numbers for the animation program at Cal Arts.
Syndrome’s facial features are based on those of the film’s director, Brad Bird.
In the beginning of the film, when a robber is going through a woman’s purse on the roof of a building, a Mr. Incredible Pez dispenser can be seen among the items scattered on the ground.
Inside Bob’s cubicle is a “danger” sign. The image is the lightning bolt of Captain Marvel (SHAZAM!), using the red of his uniform instead of the gold. It is in the distinctive shape of the Marvel family (Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., and Black Adam), not that of the various Flash costumes. When Mr. Incredible gets his fancy new car, the emblem on the hood is in the triangular shape of the Golden Age Superman’s symbol. The black ray-like vehicle that delivers Mr. Incredible to the island is a reference to the Black Manta, an enemy of Aquaman and member of the Legion of Doom. And Gazer-Beam is a direct reference to Cyclops of the X-Men.
The story takes place in a city called “Metroville”. It’s a combination of “Metropolis” and “Smallville,” respectively the cities where Superman lives and was raised.
The ending scene – with the Underminer emerging from the earth – is an homage to the Fantastic Four’s first enemy, the Mole Man.
Among the superheroes shown listed in the Kronos database are Universal Man, Psycwave, Everseer, Macroburst, Phylange, Blazestone, Downburst, Hyper Shock, Apogee, Blitzerman, Tradewind, Vectress, Gazerbeam, Gamma Jack, ElastiGirl, Frozone, and Mr. Incredible.
Syndrome’s unusual way of walking was supposedly inspired by a Pixar employee who someone had noticed had a very strange walk and commented on it. His or her attempts to curb the strange walk were the basis of Syndrome and his “purposeful” walking style.
When Mr. Incredible first meets Buddy he struggles to remember his name, calling him Brodie at first. Jason Lee, who voices Syndrome, made his big screen debut playing comic book-obsessed character Brodie Bruce in Mallrats.
The whole anti-capes joke may be a nod to a flashback in Watchmen, where Dollar Bill got his cape caught in a revolving door at a bank robbery and was gunned down.
Wallace Shawn (Mr. Huph) and John Ratzenburger (The Underminer) both make it into the movie in small roles. They’ve both been in every Pixar movie to date (with the exception that Shawn was not in Finding Nemo).
So… where did all the supervillains go when the heroes were forced underground?
Definitely Pixar’s most violent movie to date. Several henchmen and at least one major character die over the course of the film.
The move Bob and Helen use to save Jack-Jack is called the Fastball Special. It was pioneered by Wolverine and Colossus of the X-Men, wherein the latter would pick the former up and hurl him at an enemy.

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

They certainly look cool, with lots of stylish superhero-esque figures appearing and stirring music playing. Sure, what, are you in a hurry or something?

Intermission!

John Barry was originally hired to score the film but left the project after recording only a few demo themes.

In order to give Dash a realistic out-of-breath voice, Brad Bird made Spencer Fox run laps around the studio.

The little boy on the tricycle is named Rusty, this is never revealed in the film except for the credits and a comic in Disney Adventures Magazine.

This is the first time Pixar has used only human characters in a film.

The theme from the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, composed by John Barry, is used in the previews for this film. The version used in the first trailer is from the CD “Bond: Back in Action” (Escape From Piz Gloria and Ski Chase). The second trailer uses the remix by David Arnold featuring The Propellerheads as it appears on the 1997 albums “Shaken and Stirred – The David Arnold James Bond Project” and “Decksanddrumsandrockandroll”; this second trailer also uses the song “The Planet Plan” from the album “3rd Perspective” by United Future Organization.

Edna, the costume lady, is based on Edith Head, who worked as a studio costume designer on hundreds of movies over more than fifty years.

Brad Bird originally conceived this as a conventional cel-animated film when he pitched it. The cel-animated sequences seen in the End Credits are a representation of his original concept.

I know they're meant to be heroic, but God help me, those black masks make them look like 1) raccoons, and 2) criminals. Maybe something in red?

Groovy Quotes

Mr. Incredible: Bomb Voyage.
Bomb Voyage: Monsieur Incroyable!

Helen: I love you, but if we’re going to make this work, you have to be more than Mr. Incredible.

Violet: Normal? What do you know about normal? What does anyone in this family know about normal?
Helen: Now wait a minute, young lady-
Violet: We act normal, Mom, I want to be normal! The only normal one is Jack-Jack, and he’s not even toilet trained!

Lucius: So now I’m in deep trouble. I mean, one more jolt of this death ray and I’m an epitaph. Somehow I manage to find cover and what does Baron von Ruthless do?
Bob [laughing]: He starts monologuing.
Lucius: He starts monologuing! He starts this, like, prepared speech about how feeble I am compared to him, how inevitable my defeat is, how the world will soon be his, yadda yadda yadda.

Bob: What are YOU waiting for?
Little Boy on Tricycle: I don’t know. Something amazing, I guess.
Bob: Me too, kid.

Bob: It’s not a graduation. He’s moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.
Helen: It’s a ceremony.
Bob: It’s psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity.

Bob: Are you saying that we shouldn’t help our customers?
Mr. Huph: The law requires that I answer “no.”

Edna [to Mr. Incredible]: My God, you’ve gotten fat.

Mr. Incredible: You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could pretend to be one?
Syndrome: Oh, I’m real all right. Real enough to defeat you! And I did it without your precious gifts. Your oh-so-special powers. I’ll give them heroics. I’ll give them the most spectacular heroics the world has ever seen! And when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be Super! And when everyone’s Super… no one will be.

Edna: Supermodels. Hah! Nothing “super” about them – spoiled, stupid little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves. Feh! I used to design for GODS!

Syndrome: Oh no! Elastigirl? You married ELASTIGIRL?!? [sees kids] And got biz-ZAY!

Lucius: Honey? Where’s my super suit?
Honey: What?
Lucius: Where – is – my – super – suit?
Honey: I, uh, put it away.
Lucius: Where?
Honey: Why… do you need to know?
Lucius: I need it!
Honey: Don’t you think about running off doing no derrin’-do. We’ve been planning this dinner for two months!
Lucius: The public is in danger!
Honey: My evening’s in danger!
Lucius: You tell me where my suit is, woman! We are talking about the greater good!
Honey: Greater good? I am your wife! I’m the greatest good you are ever gonna get!

Evil Henchman Watching TV News: Every time they run, we do a shot!

Old Man #1: Did you see that? That’s the way to do it. That’s old school!
Old Man #2: Yeah. No school like the old school.

Underminer: Behold, the Underminer! I’m always beneath you, but nothing is beneath me! I hereby declare war on peace and happiness! Soon, all will tremble before me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Through a Mirror Darkly: The Top Ten Arch Enemies

Mike — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:51:57 +0000

In the never-ending struggle of good versus evil, an eternal balance must be constantly maintained… at least as far as fiction is concerned. Conflict is the essence of drama, so for every power-hungry evil genius, there must be a muscle-bound monosyllabic gun-toting hero with a mysterious past to foil his elaborate plans. But in this miasma of heroes and villains, it’s the mirror image counterparts that stand out; the evil versions of our favorite heroes, possessed of all the abilities and strengths, but without the things like a sense of responsibility or compassion to balance them out. In a heroes world there’s nothing more disconcerting than to watch a darker version of yourself; the villain you might have become had you made different choices, wreaking havoc on the populace…but darned if it doesn’t make for some awesome stories… such as:

#1- The Doctor and The Master

Martha: “What kind of person calls themselves ‘The Master?’”

The Doctor: “That’s all you need to know.”

The Master attempts to "hug it out".

The Doctor is a compassionate Timelord from the planet Gallifrey who thwarts monsters, aliens, gods, and demons through the use of his intelligence, an intrinsic knowledge of the workings of space/time, and a nifty sonic screwdriver. Throughout time and space, The Doctor has been plagued by his former best friend: a rival Timelord who became determined to utterly conquer all creation after staring into the “untempered schism” and going batpoop crazy. Evenly matched in intelligence, determination and gadgets, these two enemies have battled across tesseracts, supernovas, nebulae and down the street from the Circle K. Along with the desire to control the universe, The Master’s primary driving force seems to be torturing his former friend. When he became desperate to prolong his life after squandering his 13 lifespans, it was The Doctor’s regenerations that he attempted to steal, despite having an entire planet of Timelords (and all their regenerations) at his disposal. After the Time War and the destruction of his home planet, The Doctor spent many years thinking he alone was the only remaining Timelord. Imagine his surprise when the good-natured Professor Yana, a kindly old scientist at the end of the universe turned out to be none other than The Master, long hidden after retreating from the Time War and posing as a human. More of a match for The Doctor than ever after regenerating into John Simm, The Master became the Prime Minister of Great Britain, got married, and utilized his Laser Screwdriver to turn the The Doctor into a little wrinkled monkey-like homunculus.

Little wrinkled monkey-like homunculus

He was ultimately defeated by The Doctor’s companion Martha Jones and shot down by his own wife, and then out of sheer spite didn’t regenerate to save his own life, leaving the Doctor as the “Last of the Timelords” once more.

When you’re willing to die just to be a jerk, that’s true evil.

#2- Spiderman and Venom

Venom: “We live for moments like these spider-man. Me…Eddie Brock beating you down like the week-kneed little boy you are and then leaving you here, broken and bloodied, knowing that anytime we want we can come back and do it again.”

Yeah, he's scary, but that symbiote is gonna be useless after Labor Day.

Peter Parker has more than his fair share of problems. In point of fact, he’s probably the only guy in history whose life actually got worse when he got super powers. When you take the existence of Venom into account, you really have to wonder if all comic book writers don’t just loath not only Spiderman, but also everyone who happens to be standing close to him. Eddie Brock had the all the powers, twice the strength and the added bonus of not setting off Peter’s spider-sense, due to being bonded with Spiderman’s costume from an alien world; a symbiote grafted to his nervous system and feeding off his adrenaline. Venom was the penultimate dark version of Spiderman in terms of powers, looks, and even in terms of personality. Venom had a twisted conscience providing a parallel to Spiderman’s “power and responsibility” schpiel, espousing a fanatical zeal to protect innocents…unless said innocents get in the way of his revenge. Eddie Brock and the Symbiote were permanently separated in recent years and the symbiote was inherited by Mac Gargan, AKA the Scorpion. Sometime later Eddie became a warped version his old self due to the remaining venom cells in his body and a touch from Mister Negative. He became Anti-venom, ironically becoming the new Venom’s arch enemy, after this little exchange:

That's cold, Eddie.

#3- Captain Marvel and Black Adam

Black Adam: “In every shape, color and size, for as long as time is marked, it will always be a world of dictators.”

The driving force behind the aggression of most mirror image arch enemies is the choices that each antagonist chooses to make. The evil counterpart made the wrong choices and now wields their weapons/powers/abilities against humankind, leaving the hero to think “there but for the grace of God go I”. The hero makes all the right choices, defending humankind and making themselves a constant reminder to the villain that they were ultimately too weak to rise above their situations. This dichotomy has never been more clearly pronounced than in the acrimony between the two champions of the wizard Shazam. The first champion of the powerful wizard was imbued with his powers eight thousand years ago in ancient Egypt. His name was Teth Adam, and he was a servant to the pharaoh. It wasn’t long before he figured that since he had the super powers, HE should wear the daddy pants. He overthrew the pharaoh and assumed the throne. Many years later When Captain Marvel was chosen as Shazam’s latest avatar and shared his powers with Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. to form the Marvel Family (now on tour with Hannah Montana), Teth, now known as Black Adam devoted himself to becoming a thorn in their side. Gifted with all the strength, speed and intelligence of the big red cheese, Black Adam proves a viable threat to Captain Marvel. It’s too bad most of the time he decided to just go straight and be a good guy. He’s gone from a super villain to fighting alongside the JSA and most recently has assumed the throne of his ancestral home; the African (re: fictional) nation of Khandaq. Captain Marvel has successfully avoided any character development whatsoever…remaining a cheesy anachronism.

See?

Black Adam also gets extra points for not having that gay little half cape thing.

#4- The Flash and Zoom

Zoom: “Do you not see what I’ve I’ve done? I’ve shifted you into REVERSE!”

Seriously, how does that thing stay on his head when he's running?

For every super speedster that has worn the mantle of the The Flash, there has been a Reverse Flash. The first was Dr. Edward Clariss, a scientist who recreated the formula that gave Jay Garrick (you know, the original Flash with the plate on his head?) his powers. Fortunately for peace loving people everywhere, not so fortunately for Clariss, his formula turned out to be only temporary, allowing The Flash to soundly pwn him muchly. The second Reverse Flash was Eobard Thawn, born in the 25st century with a name so horribly bad, his only allotted course was a life of crime. He used a machine to energize one of the Flashs costumes, still awash with speed force energy so that whenever he wore it he had the Flash’s powers. He called himself Professor Zoom and became a perpetual thorn in the side of the latest Flash, Barry Allen (sans plate). After Barry made us all love him just a little bit more by breaking Thawne’s freaking neck and after his apparent death during the Crisis on Infinite Retcons, Wally West became The Flash. A new Reverse Flash was sure to follow. Hunter Zolomon was a police profiler who became good friends with The Flash, right up until he was paralyzed from the waste down by a giant talking gorilla, which is the kind of thing that’s bound to happen when you hang around super heroes. When Flash refused to go back in time to keep the accident from happening, Zolomon continued on the road towards super villainy and broke into the Flash museum to use the cosmic treadmill himself. It blew up and Zolomon went nuts, but gained the ability to manipulate his own personal timeline effectively faking super speed. He called himself Zoom and targeted not The Flash, but his wife Linda. His reasoning was that a personal tragedy would make The Flash a better hero, proving that not only was he willing to target innocents but also that he wasn’t above using the flimsiest excuse ever to rationalize it.

Douche.

#5- Buffy and Faith

Faith: “Well, look at you. All dressed up in big sister’s clothes.”
Buffy: “You told me I was just like you. That I was holding it in.”
Faith: “Ready to cut loose?”
Buffy: “Try me.”

Even before they became the bitterest of enemies Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane were high school age girls, which gave them ninja-like levels of passive aggressive animosity unknown even to the most diabolical super villain. When Faith first appeared and effortlessly insinuated herself into Buffy’s circle of friends (hereafter known as “the scooby gang” for those of you who have never watched Buffy and found this site accidentally), Buffy was suspicious of Faith’s reckless attitude and unchecked aggression. Ultimately though, it was Faith’s jealousy of Buffy’s stability and relationships (topped off with an accidental murder), that led to her betrayal. She went to work for the Mayor of Sunnydale (re: evil sunshiny demon) and determined to kill the Slayer. Buffy then got her back by tricking Faith into revealing her true allegiance (with some help from Angel). So Faith shot angel in the chest with an arrow. Then Buffy stabbed her in the gut. After waking up from a coma, Faith then switched bodies with Buffy and assumed her identity while Buffy was captured. She even slept with her then boyfriend Riley (re: *yawn*) while she was disguised as Buffy. When confronted with her own self (in the form of an escaped Buffy) she revealed her own self loathing by beating Buffy all the time screaming at her like she was Faith. Buffy then used the same talisman that caused the switch to put things right. Faith then walked the path of redemption, accepting the blame for her past crimes and yadda yadda yadda… blah blah blah. Don’t me wrong, I’m all about redemption, but let’s be honest, tell the truth and shame the devil. We like Buffy and Faith best when they’re wailing on each other.

BFF's

#6- Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow

Snake Eyes: “…..”

Waiting to flip out and kill the whole town as soon as some dude drops a fork.

When GI Joe first made it’s debut as the single greatest cartoon of the eighties (outside of Transformers), not much was done with Snake Eyes, the silent masked soldier. Possibly because creators assumed that a ninja commando was just not interesting enough. But luckily, in the ensuing years someone in charge listened to the fans and so was developed one of the all time great grudge matches. Snake Eyes was a wondering former soldier seeking meaning in life after the death of his parents and sister in a car accident. He found his way to the Arishkage Clan ninjutsu school, where he met Storm Shadow and his uncle, the Hard Master. The two trained together, even becoming sword brothers, but Storm Shadow’s jealousy over his own uncle viewing Snake Eyes as the worthier student ate away at his soul. So in a fit of drastic overreacting he hired Cobra to assassinate the Hard Master. The Arishkage was disbanded, Snake Eyes joined GI Joe, and Storm Shadow joined Cobra. The hostility between them is deep, though I maintain that they’re both so ticked off because even though they’re ninjas and masters of invisibility, Zartan is more stealthy with that whole chamelion thing his skin does.

Making ninjas feel stupid since 1982

The two are both masters of several martial arts and various weapon forms, making them equally matched and making bouts between them equally awesome. But don’t take *MY* word for it… (Warning: The following video is violent yet strangely bloodless.)

#7- Captain Jack Harkness and Captain John Hart

Captain John Hart: “Ok, here’s what’s going to happen – everything you love, everything you treasure will die. I’m going to tear your world apart, Captain Jack Harkness. Piece by piece. Starting now. Maybe *now* you’ll want to spend some time with me.”

In the annals of all arch rivals it’s not unheard of for two enemies to call a truce against a common foe, or for the villain to join the side of the angels, or even for the former adversaries to become friends. Research all you like, to your heart’s content for ages and even so, you’re unlikely to find any canonical instances of a super villain making out with his/her arch enemy. On that note…

...Meet Captain John Hart.

This man wants to either kill you or sleep with you. Actually, it's probably both.

Hart was a rogue time agent and former partner of Jack’s (in *every* sense of the word), who had been through repeated rehabs for alcohol, drugs, sex, and murder addiction. It’s safe to say that none of the aforementioned rehabs stuck. When Captain John Hart made his first appearance, a bar-brawl ensued, followed by some intense second-basing, followed by drinks. After gaining Jack’s trust he managed to take out the entire Torchwood team (as in he incapacitated them, not took them out for cocktails) and tossed Jack off of a roof, assuming he’d killed him. As any fans of the character know, Jack survived (mainly due to the whole immortality thing), and saved John’s life when his scheme to steal a diamond from a former lover backfired. He would go on to trap Jack and the entire team under the rubble of an abandoned building, bomb the living crap out of Cardiff, and bury Jack alive for 2000 years. Jack has yet to do anything in retaliation, possibly because he’s hoping for another make-out session. In addition to the pair’s fondness for period war clothes and similar time watches, John and Jack also share their pansexual preferences, making any meeting between them more than a little creepy. When it was revealed that Hart was under the control of Jack’s long lost brother, Gray, Jack let him go and he opted to wonder the world and see what was so great about the time period. It’s anybody’s guess who’s side he’ll be on when he appears again, but the odds are he’ll probably go to bed with them.

#8- Green Lantern and Sinestro

Sinestro: “What do I want? I want to create a symbol of terror that will wash over the universe. I want that universe controlled with order. And I want all to realize that control comes not out of compassion, love, and hope–but out of fear! Fear leads all!”

They call me Mellow Yellooow...

Imagine a dying alien names you his successor as the keeper of peace in your sector of space and hands you the most powerful weapon on Earth, save one little proviso: it doesn’t work on anything yellow. Now imagine your arch rival, the man sworn to ruin your life, and destroy all you hold dear wields a similar weapon… that makes things that are, you guessed it, yellow. One really is forced to wonder why Hal Jordan never took a look and the situation and called shenanigans, but instead he decided to just deal with it and brutally pwn Sinestro whenever he reared his gigantic purple head. Once Sinestro was the single most highly decorated Green Lantern in the corp, due to the record of peace on his home planet of Korugar. It came to light, however that the reason Korugar was so peaceful was that Sinestro had basically conquered it. He was drummed out of the Green Lantern Corps, due to their “no purple headed despots” rule. Blaming the GL Corps in general and Hal Jordan in particular, Sinestro procured a yellow power ring and declared war. After a pretty distinguished career as a thorn in the side of Green Lantern, Sinestro was finally defeated by Jordan and imprisoned inside the Green Lantern’s power battery on Oa. Strangely, at the time no one was heard to refer to the whole “put-the-super-villain-in-the-source-of-power-for-every-green-lantern-in-the-universe” plan as retarded, or more to the point, suicide. Sinestro awoke the fear entity Parallax, also imprisoned in the battery (seriously, guardians, you never heard of a jail cell?) and the enitity possessed Hal Jordan and caused him to get mideival on reality, breaking Sinestro’s neck in the process. Jordan was finally offed by every superhero ever, who were all of the opinion that they liked reality the way it was, but since there are no pearly gates in superhero heaven, only revolving glass doors, soon both Jordan and Sinestro were resurrected and inflicting power-ring flavored vengeance upon each other. Sinestro has one-upped the corp of late by starting his own “Sinestro Corps” consisting of cosmic bad guys wielding yellow power rings (that run on fear) to counter the green power rings (that run on willpower). Actually, recent writers have gone nuts with the power rings of late; introducing red power rings (that run on rage), blue rings (hope) and rainbow power rings that run on being *FABULOUS*!

No longer the only game in town.

#9- The Hulk and The Abomination

The Abomination: “Any last words?”
The Hulk: “HULK SMASH!”

Kickin' it old school.

They’re big, they’re green and when they get into it, it’s a good bet a few buildings are gonna come down. The real interesting thing about this particular set of brawling behemoths though, lies not in their similarities but in their differences. Bruce Banner was a skinny nerdgeek with anger management issues. Emil blonsky was a KGB spy from Yugoslavia. Who would have thought that a little thing like a gamma bomb would ever bring them together? Some time after Bruce decided to relax in a nice warm gamma radiation bath and found that his temper tantrums now came with a property damage bill, Blonsky was dosed with the same radiation in an attempt to make him into a super being that could go toe to toe with The Hulk. It was a success. Blonsky became The Abomination, a creature with all the strength and regenerative capability of The Hulk, with the added bonus of maintaining his intelligence and self control. The only downside was the tiny, miniscule detail of not being able to revert back to human form (hey nothing’s perfect), and since eleven foot tall reptilian monsters with prehensile tails are kind of hard to snuggle with, Blonsky lost his wife as well. He blamed The Hulk and Bruce Banner for his misfortunes and tried again and again to best him in combat. This proved unsuccessful as punching a creature that’s powered by rage can at best be described as counter-productive. He then went the sneaky route, slowly poisoning Bruce’s wife Betty with his own blood, the idea being that when Bruce saw the gamma radiation in her system, he would blame himself. The ruse was brought to light, however, and Bruce laid the ultimate low blow on Blonsky by forgiving him. If there’s one thing dark reflection super villains can’t stand, it’s being forgiven (see #’s 1 and 5 on this list).

Off Broadway revival of Peter Pan.

#10- Darkwing Duck and Negaduck

Negaduck: “Ooh, Darkwing Duck! I’m so scared!”
Darkwing: “You should be!”
Negaduck: “I’m more afraid of early hair loss!”

The hero is the terror that flaps in the night, the villain is a chainsaw weilding psychopath, and the only hope you have of telling them apart is by the color of their clothes, or perhaps looking out for the one that’ll kick a puppy. The first Negaduck was a being made of particles of negative energy, separated from Darkwing after his good and bad sides were split.

Like so.

Honestly, if you were The Liquidator, would YOU be afraid of a chainsaw? I mean the guy is made of water!

The second was a little more substantial and given a little bit of a backstory. For everything that Darkwing Duck is, Negaduck is the opposite. This has a a lot to do with the fact that he hails from an alternate universe where everything is the opposite of it’s counterpart in the world of St. Canard as we know it. The orange clad feathered foe found his way into Darkwing’s world and proceeded immediately to start trashing the place. He even formed the Fearsome Five, a team of super villains dedicated to crime and destroying Darkwing Duck. One would think that super villains would have trouble getting along but fear of Negaduck kept them all in line. Darkwing in turn gathered the heroes of St. Canard and formed The Justice Ducks to combat this new threat. Ultimately a three-way showdown was going to appear in a later episode where the first Negadauck mutated off Darkwing’s body and attempted to kill both Darkwing AND Negaduck 2! Unfortunately the show was canceled after the third season and the episode was never realized. Still we’ll always have this little nugget of evil from one of the greatest evil doppelgangers of all time:

Honorable Mention:

Afro Samurai and Afrodroid

Ninja Ninja: ” It’s like I’m watchin’ Afro fighting Afro fighting Afro, or somethin!”

Austin Powers and Dr. Evil

Dr. Evil: “I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.”

Justin does Ghost Rider

Justin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:59:18 +0000

“The story goes he’ll be normal during the day, but at night, in the presence of evil, the Rider takes over.”

The Scoop: 2007 PG-13, directed by Mark Steven Johnson and starring Nicolas Cage, Peter Fonda and Eva Mendes’ chest

Tagline: Long ago he made a deal to save someone he loved

Summary Capsule: Stunt cyclist makes a deal with the Devil to save his father. In an unprecedented move, the Devil cheats and turns him into the original “Hell’s Angel.” Bad stuff happens.

Justin’s Rating: I’d love to see a scooter-riding Ghost Rider, patrolling supermarket aisles everywhere with Hell’s vengeance

Justin’s Review: It’s safe to say that Nicolas Cage, alias Nicholas Coppola, is no stranger to bizarrely bad film roles. Whether it’s watching him wig out about bees in The Wicker Man, channel John Travolta in Face/Off or rewrite 200 years of American history in National Treasure, it’s just a treat to have him visit our homes and bug his eyes out while ranting about this or that. He’s kind of like that crazy uncle who may or may not actually be related to family, but you keep inviting him over to Thanksgiving because his behavior will give you something to gossip about the next day.

Ghost Rider isn’t the worst of Nic Cage’s films, but it could be used as corporal punishment for your children. “You didn’t eat your broccoli? Ghost Rider for you, young man!” “NOOOO!!!”

It may be unfair to lay it all at the feet of Mr. Cage, yet since he shows none of the boyish charm that makes him tolerable in other movies, I’m not inclined to commute his sentence. It also doesn’t help that this is a B- or C-list Marvel superhero, something for the Harley Davidson/heavy metal crowd, but nothing that got fans in a tizzy over. And it certainly doesn’t help that it’s bound to Eva Mendes (alias “Boobs McGee”), who vomits up such a lackluster performance that at one point – and I’m not kidding here – she’s upstaged by a Magic 8-Ball. I don’t know why she got this role – well, I do, because the camera all but shoves our face in her cleavage – but she’s right down there with Denise Richards and Tara Reid as actresses who should never have accepted film roles in which they have to pretend to be a talented professional.

Taking its sweet time getting around to a muddled superhero origin story, Ghost Rider wastes a good 45 minutes or so with an elaborate (and hokey) backstory concerning bounty hunters empowered by the devil to do his bidding, usually by setting themselves on fire and causing large amounts of property damage. Johnny Blaze (Cage) is a motorcycle jumper who assumes the role as the most recent Ghost Rider, mostly because he’s an idiot and thought that making a deal with Satan wouldn’t involve a good amount of “liar liar pants on fire”. Well, he got the lies, and his pants are set a-Blaze. Is that enough bad puns for this paragraph? Good. Moving on…

As he woodenly tries to reconnect with a childhood sweetie (Mendes), Blaze is tasked with taking down four fallen angel things, each with the power of a different element so that it sort of feels like a Captain Planet cartoon. Earth! Air! Water! Sideburns! Along the way he’s mentored by Sam Elliott, who looks just like he never left the set of Tombstone (and is harboring such a surprise that if you can’t guess what it is, you’ve fallen into a coma like 95% of this film’s audience). Cue lots of flame, motorcycles, leather, chains and chaps.

As a superhero, Ghost Rider harbors traits of both Spawn (with the whole Hell theme) and, oddly enough, the Hulk. Well, he kind of talks like the Hulk, in catchy one or two word phrases which probably look wayyy better on the comic pages than they do coming out of a CGI skull’s mouth. Speaking of which, while his effects are passable (including the physics-defying ride up a skyscraper), the director was obviously a horror aficionado and went all-out for some of the most creepy and disturbing visuals for the bad guys that you’ll probably ever see in a Marvel movie. It’s weird to say this, but they should’ve really just scrapped the whole Ghost Rider concept entirely, and thrown the plot into deep horror country, where it could’ve thrived properly instead of being second fiddle to a Megadeth cover.

By the end of this flick, both my wife and I were riffing on every other little thing that would happen, including a mind-boggling moment when Ghost Rider rides by and torches a desert lizard for no good reason. Lizard! We hardly knew ye! So that can’t be a good sign of high quality, right?

Want a second opinion? Check out Drew’s review here!

I guess the bike comes with a parachute too? Otherwise this is going to be awkward.

Groovy Quotes

Mephistopheles: I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your show. Perhaps you’ll ride for me one day.
Johnny: You run a show?
Mephistopheles: Greatest show on earth.

Mack: You should be taking a dirt nap after that ragdoll today.
Johnny: I got lucky.
Mack: I got a huntin’ dog named Lucky – he’s got one eye and no nuts. “Lucky” don’t cover it, J.B. It’s like you got an angel lookin’ after you.
Johnny: Maybe it’s something else.

Mack: I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – this place could use a woman’s touch, J.B.
Johnny: Yeah, so could you.
Mack: Ain’t that the truth.

Caretaker: The story goes he’ll be normal during the day, but at night, in the presence of evil, the Rider takes over.

Johnny: Thanks for the info. I feel much better now that I know I’m the Devil’s bounty hunter.

Roxanne: Jesus!
Blackheart: Not even close.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Daredevil
The Devil’s Advocate
The Prophecy

Kaleb does Punisher: War Zone

Kaleb — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:15:58 +0000

“That Castle’s a slippery one”

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Lexi Alexander, and starring Ray Stevenson, Dominic West and Julie Benz.

Tagline: Vengeance has a name.

Summary Capsule: Ex-Special Forces instructor–not FBI agent–living in New York–not Miami–turns blood-soaked vigilante after his family is murdered by the mob. Chunks ensue.

Kaleb’s Rating: True fact: The human body cannot be exploded into more than eleven pieces.

Kaleb’s Review: As one of the five people on the planet who thought that 2004’s Punisher was actually kind of okay, I felt sort of duty-bound to check out the frankly*-worse-looking Punisher: War Zone, and see if it could ascend to, or even surpass the lofty marginally-worth-watching-once heights of its predecessor.

The Ninja Turtles... um... left.

So did it make the cut? Eh… kind of. (Yeah, like there was any chance I was going to give a straight answer this early on. Or… ever.)

Before we continue, I must pause and mention that there will be no vacky side-story about the misadventures surrounding my acquisition of the DVD, or some silly occurence that happened in the real world during the movie’s viewing that was strangely relevant to it. Sorry, I didn’t plan it that way, but the rental and perusal of this film stands as one of the most uncharacteristically-smooth experiences of my life thus far. I promise I’ll make up for it with my next two reviews, okay?

Also different this time ’round is the lack of a plot synopsis; and it goes without saying that I am as giddy as a little schoolgirl as a result. Trust me, this is no dereliction on my part. The plot is mecha-irrelevant, ergo, no synopsis needed. And I don’t want to hear any crying about it, lest I should feel compelled to make numerous empty threats.

Okay then! Getting down to the nitty and/or gritty: The best way I can describe Warzone concisely is to say that it’s basically Punisher ‘04 with its boo-boos made all better. This sounds like a good thing right now, and it is, but it’s a highly-specialized good thing, which I will get back to later.

A chilling illustration of the perils of cat ownership.

One of the most oft-recurring complaints I heard regarding Punisher ‘04–in fact, second only to “It sucks because it sucks!” followed by a punch to the throat–was that it spent way too much time on backstory and character establishment, and way too little time on mobsters undergoing bullet-saturation therapy.

Solved. The opening scene is a mafia party-crash, contingent of more mayhem than the previous film’s finale, and itself a pee-wee when standing next to this film’s final blast-fest, which features Frank vs. pretty much every banger and biker thug and Yakuza** in New York. (The normal mafia is largely non-participatory, on account of most of them being dead already, and the Russian mob runs interference for the good guys, oddly enough.)

Verily, there be many a splootching head and kneecap in between as well, all the talking and feelings and sissy crap like that is kept to a minimum, and the pivotal Central Park massacre that killed Frank Castle and gave the Punisher birth is condensed to a thirty-second (if that) flashback. It’s as though the movie’s saying, “Okay, do you get why he is the way he is? We good? Excellent; we now return you to your regularly scheduled violence.”

If I may contribute a personal beef with Punisher ‘04; I always thought Thomas Jane was just a touch too pretty and small for the role. “Hey, where’s the raw-boned rugged scariness and the scowling and the perpetual five o’clock shadow?” asked I. The answer? Ray Stevenson had been hoarding them all in his cupboard for a rainy day.

I don’t want to say anything that will make any of you–or, well, me–uncomfortable, but this dude can be my Punisher anytime. He just seems to fit the role really well. I don’t think he’s quite as cut as Jane, but he does seem to be a bit taller and wider-framed, which helps a ton, and also directly addresses my other qualm. See, my first significant exposure to the Punisher franchise came in the form of the PS2 game, and as such, I spent the entirety of the ‘04 movie thinking to myself, “Y’know, I’m not entirely convinced that he’s beefy enough to heft a grown man up off the ground and impale him on the tusk of a mounted elephant head.” It’s a fairly minor quibble, but it’s nice to have it addressed.

Yeah, this scene really does happen.

I’ve been pretty positive up to this point, so, time for a break.

Aside from the fact that it just isn’t really that great of a movie overall (once again, further qualification is required, and shall be given later), my only major stewpot lies with the at-times atrocious special effects. With all of the mighty powers that I don’t actually possess, I hereby place a stricture on using CG blood effects, henceforth into perpetuity. Give me squiberty, or give me death!

I’m reminded in particular of a scene where Jigsaw stabs a Russian mobster in the throat, and this ridiculous cartoon blood comes shooting out, and I think to myself, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing that guy died, since he obviously didn’t belong in this dimension anyway. Although it’s erroneous to say that he ‘died’ in the traditional sense, and he should in fact be coming to, safe and sound in the Magical Fairy Gumdrop Kingdom, even as we speak.”

Also, although I previously mentioned that the action has been beefed up substantially, it seems like more still could’ve been done. As it sits, its as though the movie is streaking across the football field, but wearing a hat so as not to be thought immodest. C’mon, War Zone! You’re already outlandishly violent! Why not go for nightmarishly?

I figured it up, and I think if you lay all of the action segments end-to-end, you wind up with about forty-five minutes of exit-woundy good times; which sounds like a lot, until you consider that it leaves another forty-five minutes wherein no one is getting knifed in the skull. Pretty cheap, Conehead.

Hate to sound like I’m hunched over with a scrap of flesh hanging out of my mouth, growling “more…”, but I guess that is kind of what’s happening. Tra la la!! I’m a bloodthirsty creep!

And as long as I’m waving my cane… come over here, War Zone. Have a sit-down. It’s time you and I had the naughty word talk. Now now, don’t get ahead of me. It’s not that I’m one of those people for whom profanity rather strangely and comically and altogether inexplicably causes literal physical pain (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!), or that I’m even at all averse to a strategically-placed F-whistler hither and thither to liven things up, but what you’re doing is more like carpet bombing.

Look, you can’t marinate your dialogue in extraneous filth in the hopes of endearing yourself to the mouth-breathers, because… well, because that’s exactly what will happen, but just don’t, okay?

Oh, and yeah, I totally realize that my glee over violence and subsequent getting-all-uptight over profanity serves as a sobering example of our society’s hideously-skewed SHUT UP, HIPPIE! You have deftly brought to light my deplorable hypocrisy, okay? Good job. Have yourself a well-deserved cookie.

In conclusion, your mileage will vary vastly depending on your expectations. If you’re looking for a well-crafted Action/Crime Drama flick that can stand on its own merits as a member of those genres, and go toe-to-toe quality-wise with any of its contemporaries… yeah, you’d best just keep on a-ridin’. Moreso if you aren’t keen on the idea of a movie that has one foot in Horror as well. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a comic book in motion; something to munch popcorn to until your appetite gives out from all the gore… eh, sadly, you could probably still do better.

If, however, you are a Punisher fan, by all means give it a go. And if you disliked the previous film for any of the reasons I mentioned, than this one is more or less custom-tailored for you.***

Alternatively, if you just want to be inundated with lots and lots and lots of hamburgery, sprayful carnage, that works too.

*Pun?

**Or possibly Triads; I’m sorry, I honestly can’t tell the difference.

***In particular, the fact that the original origin story is adhered to should silence your engraged fanboy keening.****

****No it won’t.

Shyah, bulletproof turtlenecks are, like, so five minutes ago.

Didja Notice?

How Looney Bin Jim is strangely likeable?
How disappointingly unceremonious Looney Bin Jim’s death is?
Budiansky’s reaction to Castle’s impromptu arrest-alternative is rather hilarious (see video).
Flashback notwithstanding, and also discounting the white Death’s Head on his vest (which you should, because it’s very, very dim), Castle is never seen wearing anything not-black.
Is adorning an insane asylum with gargoyles supposed to help calm the patients?

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

Nah.

Groovy Quotes

Looney Bin Jim: “You look fantastic, brother.”

LBJ: “Reeowr.”

LBJ: “Hey, I “axe”d you a question! You don’t answer, guess I’ll have to “axe” it again!”

Soap: “Now I’ve got brains splattered all over me!”

Bonus Features! (Warning: All but the GA trailer carry the Icky label.)

General Audiences trailer.

Red Band trailer.

Best? Debatable. A fine showcase for the crappy CGi I mentioned earlier? Absolutely.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

The Punisher
Rambo (2007)
Death Wish(es) one through seventeen.

Courtney Does X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Courtney — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:54:02 +0000

“Ooh, shiny.”

The Scoop: 2009 PG-13, directed by Gavin Hood and starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber and Danny Huston

Summary Capsule: The origin of the mutant known as Wolverine is revealed. Turns out he was a lot moodier back in the day.

Courtney’s Rating: There definitely is a God, and She calls Her finest creation Hugh Jackman.

Courtney’s Review: Hugh Jackman is the world’s most perfect man. He has the appearance of Adonis and an amount of talent and charisma previously unheard of. He is not just an actor – he is an icon of cinema in the 21st century, he can out-sing the brightest stars of musical theater, and he’s a fantastic dancer to boot. He has vibrantly shined in Hollywood and on Broadway, a feat that few have ever achieved, and he has yet to peak as far as I’m concerned.

The man looks good, whether perfectly trimmed and spruced up to host an awards show or scruffed up and fierce enough to reclaim his place as an action star. If the sight of him doesn’t make you smile or swoon, you must have never learned to appreciate natural beauty. He is a piece of art – his face sculpted by the most skilled angels in Heaven and his body is enough to put Michelangelo’s David to shame. He never fails to capture an audience with his physicality, especially whilst shirtless, skin a-glistenin’ and muscles a-ripplin’ in the light sparkle of sun. And let’s not even mention the fact that he jumps into a waterfall BUTT NAKED.

Because talent and looks are simply not enough, he has been graced with a better personality than a contemporary superstar like him could hope to exude. He can pull off the serious, brooding look in the movies, but in life he has a fantastic, exquisite sense of humor and humbleness. He pulls the purest of emotions out of me. When he laughs, I laugh; when he cries, I cry; when he broods, okay, I don’t exactly brood, but I get a very funny and sensational tickle inside of me like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and I like it. A lot.

To simplify what I think of him, it’s easiest to say that he is the prime male specimen.

But the dialogue in Wolverine was pretty bad and the special effects looked cartoon-y at times.

The Most Beautiful Thing I Have Ever Seen. Absolutely.

Didja Notice?

How awesome the name Victor Creed is?
That graceful jump into the waterfall (and all of the glory that happened just before it?)
How many times does Wolverine have to walk in front of an explosion? I secretly love it…
Blob’s “Save the Whales” shirt? Totally love it!!
Ryan Reynolds is pretty hot.
So is Taylor Kitsch. And Liev Schreiber. And Daniel Henney. And Dominc Monaghan.
Yeah, Lynn Collins is pretty hot, too.

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

I think it depends on how you felt about the ending. There is an extra scene a few seconds into the credits and another one at the end.

Intermission!

Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are good friends. Jackman asked Schreiber to be a part of the movie. Schreiber was originally intended to play Stryker, but he was more interested in Sabertooth/Victor Creed.

Groovy Quotes

Logan: You’re gonna die for what you did to her.

Victor Creed: Do you even know how to kill me?
Logan: I’m gonna cut your g****mn head off. See if that works.

Wade Wilson: (after eliminating all of the henchmen) Okay, people are dead.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Lissa does The Dark Knight

Lissa — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:52:59 +0000

”Wanna know how I got these scars?”

The Scoop: 2008, PG-13. Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Tagline: Why so serious?

Summary Capsule: Bruce is the dark knight, Harvey’s the white knight, and the Joker’s wild.

Lissa’s Rating: Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Oops. Wrong Joker. Sort of.

Lissa’s Review: Of all the solo superheroes, Batman appeals to me the most. I think mainly because he’s not so super strong that he’s invincible. There’s a level of “hey, I could do that!” in him. He’s not so much a superhero as he is someone with really, really cool technology.

But still, I just can’t seem to get too into Batman, even though he’s the best of the superheroes. Well, maybe Spider-Man. I don’t know. It depends on my mood and whose girlfriend is being less annoying.

However, for all that I’m finding solo superheroes kind of boring, I fully support the new, grittier versions of them. You know, the ones where they actually get tired and have moral dilemmas and dislocate shoulders and stuff. Batman Begins started that for this franchise, and The Dark Knight certainly continues it.

That said, I was underwhelmed.

I KNOW. Shock of shocks, and stone me and throw me into a pit today, for I have foresaken my geekdomness. I’ll hand over my badge, okay?

Look, I’m not calling it a bad movie. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I was expecting something really twisted and really off the wall, I think just from all the hype. I was expecting not to be able to sleep after this movie, like I couldn’t sleep after Blood on the Scales or Schindler’s List.

I slept just fine.

And it wasn’t that the movie was bad, or the acting was bad. Christian Bale still is my favorite Batman of all time, with his brooding moodiness and tortured what-the-hell-am-I-doing-running-around-in-a-costume-ness. And Heath Ledger did deserve his Oscar, because he totally knocked it out of the park with the Joker. Even moreso if you’ve seen Brokeback Mountain, because I seriously cannot imagine two more different characters than Ennis del Mar and the Joker. And the one who really got me was Aaron Eckhart, playing one of the most understandable, sympathetic, no-don’t-go-there! villains ever. Seriously, I don’t think I’d ever seen much he’s done before now, but I was totally sold. Add in Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman (do either of them EVER turn in a bad performance?), and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and you’ve got some excellent acting all around. Excellent effects, good plot (albeit a bit on the long side), and some decent dialogue… it’s not like I can say “this part SUCKED and ruined the movie for me.” And really, the movie wasn’t ruined for me at all. I enjoyed it. I was just expecting to be thoroughly depressed after it, and I wasn’t.

Oh well. Such is hype, I suppose.

But for the most part, The Dark Knight did a pretty good job living up to the positive reviews. I won’t say it lived up to the hype because few things ever do, but it was a pretty darn good movie. And yet, I just can’t get into jumping up and down and telling you you absolutely MUST see this movie NOW. Maybe it’s because you already have. Maybe it’s because it’s Batman. Maybe I’m just lazy today, I don’t know. I think the truth is that you know going into this one if you’ll like it or not. If you like Batman, you’ll probably like it. If you don’t, you won’t.

So take that for what it’s worth.

Want a second opinion? Check out Al’s review of The Dark Knight!

PROTIP: Don't look behind you.

Didja Notice?

William Fitchner in the William Fitchner role?
The Scarecrow? Yay, a rogue’s gallery!
“Here’s my card.” Heh.
Lucius Fox mentions the new suit should do fine against cats? Maybe a little bit of foreshadowing?
Senator Patrick Leahy at Bruce Wayne’s fundraising party?
Anthony Michael Hall as the host of Gotham Tonight?
The Jerry Maguire reference?
The “I believe in Harvey Dent” sticker on Joker’s nurse outfit?
That The Joker apparently rigged an entire hospital with explosives and no one noticed?
That headache you get when you look at Bat-sonar for too long?

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

No.

Intermission!

While developing the style and mannerisms of the Joker, Heath Ledger relied on the look of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of Alex De Large in A Clockwork Orange.

This is the last film role Heath Ledger completed prior to his death on January 22nd, 2008.

Ledger won 32 posthumous Supporting Actor awards for his work on this movie.

Much of the script sprung from the Batman stories “The Long Halloween,” “The Killing Joke,” “The Man Who Laughs,” as well as some early appearances of the Joker in the 1940s.

Groovy Quotes

The Joker: I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you… stranger.

The Joker: How about a magic trick?

Harvey Dent: The famous Bruce Wayne. Rachel’s told me everything about you.
Bruce Wayne: I certainly hope not.

Harvey Dent: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

The Joker: Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?

The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan?

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Batman Begins
Batman (1989)
Heat

Justin does Wanted

Justin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:17:40 +0000

“Kill one, maybe save a thousand.”

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angeline Jolie

Tagline: Choose your destiny.

Summary Capsule: Guy discovers he’s a super-assassin, and doesn’t have much problem with that.

Justin’s Rating: Just say no to assassin groups, kids.

Justin’s Review: We at MRFH have long ribbed the geek industry for promoting their more serious comic books as “graphic novels”, yet it’s not without a certain level of support, either. From the 70’s through the 90’s, geek culture has been viewed as niche, populated by pimply nerds playing D&D in basements and largely unable to be cool in any regards. In turn, geeks grew frustrated that the depth and originality of their passions went overlooked or were outright dismissed for the shallow patronage of football and laugh track sitcoms. One of the great fights of the geek movement was for graphic novels – which saw their incredible rise to fame in the mid-80’s – to be as well-respected as any movie or piece of literature.

It’s been a long road getting from there to here (wait, am I quoting Star Trek Enterprise now?), but now that the internet and the popularity of scifi and superhero films has exploded into the mainstream, geeks are quickly becoming the norm – and with them, the respect for the quality of their achievements they’ve known all along. From 300 to A History of Violence to Sin City to Batman Begins to… well, let’s just forget LXG, Hollywood has sat up and taken notice of the terrific, deep, rich stories that lay between the covers of these works. I think it’s a great time to be a geek, don’t you?

Wanted began as a comic book miniseries about a guy who finds out that not only is he a natural assassin with uncanny abilities, but that the world is secretly being run by super-villains who have axed all those pesky do-goodie superheroes. Sadly, this intriguing premise was stripped down to just the “assassin” part for the movie adaptation, but somehow it still managed to rock hard.

Huh, who’d expect that from a relatively unknown director helming an R-rated summer movie based on comic books that slipped on by most of our attentions?

At the beginning of the film, our protagonist Wesley is a well-behaved, mild-mannered, law-abiding desk jockey. Obviously, that’s a sin of epic proportions in the movie world — he’s not interesting! — so the subsequent two hours is devoted to how he has hidden super-powers, how he can learn to kill and maim without being bothered by much of a conscience, and how he’s not going to take any crap from anybody. Yeah! From nice guy caterpillar to killer jerkwad butterfly, the transformation is complete.

I read somewhere that this sort of movie phenomenon – where an average guy or gal suddenly learns they have extraordinary abilities just lying around, waiting to be activated – is a reoccurring theme of wish fulfillment in our own lives. Chances are, we are not extraordinary. We’re just people, with our strengths and weaknesses, but very few of us outside of mental asylums or scifi conventions claim to be able to manipulate the Force. Our only hope for greatness pretty much rests in dormant mutant genes that might someday be activated by high voltage current while we microwave a burrito.

Anyway, good for Wesley: now he can kill people. After a painful training montage, complete with milk baths (?), Wesley casts aside any moral doubt and starts gunning people down based on the hidden codes that his boss Cross (Morgan Freeman) interprets from a mystical loom that’s been weaving fabric for, like, 800 years or so. That’s one big scarf!

It’s all silly if you try to take it seriously or question the logic, but Wanted doesn’t apologize for that – it just desires to be entertaining. Part Matrix, part Fight Club and all rock opera, this film zips through stunt sequences that make many other superhero flicks seem like hobbled mules. Plus, since the film entire is an anti-hero story, it makes for an interesting experience to watch bad guys with super powers do their thing. There’s a bit of flimsy ethical struggle by Wesley, but once he’s told to trust the loom, any possible barrier between bullets and heads evaporate. I dunno, I think I would keep questioning past the “magical cloth” bit, personally, but that’s because I’m not extraordinary.

Helmed by Timur Bekmambetov, he of Night Watch/Day Watch fame, Wanted’s greatest asset is its insanely sweet visual style, innovation and pinache. Timur excelled with these things in the Watch series, but he never quite got the storyline to any sense of cohesion; fortunately, Wanted is a lot easier to follow, in English, and has Angelina Jolie if your eyes get bored or something. She’s legally contracted to disrobe at least once per film she’s in, but this time around it got a bit more scary for me. Her kids are going to have a heck of a time once they come of age and their friends have compiled a series of movie clips into a YouTube video.

It’s not perfect – the action and message get pretty mean and rough at times – but Wanted never ceased to be interesting, and that says a lot considering the blockbuster competition that surrounded it.

Didja Notice?

“Wanted” is a very weird word once you start looking at it for a length of time. Wan-ted?
In the office at the end of the film a nameplate is visible on one of the cubicle walls. The nameplate reads “J.G Millar” which is a composite of writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones, on whose comic the film is based.
One of Cross’ victims is identified by the Gunsmith as “Rictus”. The main antagonist in the comic book is Mister Rictus.
The graphic novel features superhero costumes worn by many characters but the film eliminates them, except the leather attire worn by Wesley and The Fox.
There are no opening credits. The title appears as a headline on a newspaper well into the movie.

Groovy Quotes

Wesley: [upon being startled by Fox] I’m sorry.
Fox: You apologize too much.
Wesley: [awkwardly] Well, sorry about that.

The Repairman: I’m the Repairman.
Wesley: What do you repair?
The Repairman: A lifetime of bad habits.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Kyle does Watchmen

Kyle — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:21:51 +0000

“None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!”

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Zach Snyder and starring Billy Crudup, Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino.

Tagline: They watch over us… but who watches them?

Summary Capsule: Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ magnum opus gets filmed.

Kyle’s Rating: “You’re in the wrong place, my friend, you better leave”

Kyle’s Review: Watchmen is one of those rare films where I was completely entertained by it, I never want to see it again, and I’m especially glad it “failed” at the box office. Now that it’s over, we don’t have to worry about it, and because of its perceived lack of cultural relevance we don’t have to worry that the next ten years of superhero films will be striving for that dark, R-rated comparison in its wake. Although I certainly wouldn’t mind more (female) nudity in my superhero films, know what I mean?

I think of Alan Moore, acclaimed author of Watchmen and other seminal comic book works, to be wholly overrated. He deals with fairly simplistic stories and characterizations, which is fine, and delves so deeply into relevant research and writerly glosses that you can only dismiss his work outright or shower him with awards, and early on that ubiquitous ‘they’ chose to go the awards route, and so on and so forth. I say that with both love, since I think his V for Vendetta book is absolutely genius and a lot of his other work is pretty good, and with utter jealousy, since he’s a lot better than I am at this point. Rragh!

That said, while I consider the Watchman graphic novel to be similarly overrated, I certainly respect it. And even if I didn’t, I would have to respect its influence, since there is not a single person working in comics (and very few hardcore readers) who have not read Watchmen at least a handful of times. It is The Beatles of comics, the book that even non-fans nod knowingly at the mention of because you never know when a fan with Bowflex muscles is willing to fight about it being “the best graphic novel of all-time, man!” Hipster bar fights always start over the weirdest things, have you ever noticed?

So I had a horse in the race, so to speak, in seeing Watchmen adapted for the big screen. Morbid curiosity played a significant role, but even the biggest hater should show up to support something up his alley; at least that’s the argument that got me and a massive bag of 50-cent tacos for both The Unborn and The Uninvited. So of course I was going to see Watchmen. I just didn’t expect to see the 3:15 a.m. Imax showing because my friends were determined (determined!) to see it as soon as possible.

First off, if you can see a film after 3 in the morning, part of me wants to implore you to wait. You’ll be so much happier with some sleep and after some delicious scrambled eggs. That said, why not do it? It is an experience unlike most not found in Las Vegas, and if you’re with a big group of similarly psyched though groggy friends and a big backpack of contraband goodies, even a nearly three-hour film will be a bonding experience. Hooray!

So basically the deck was stacked for me to enjoy Watchmen despite myself, and really that’s what happened. Which isn’t to say that Watchmen isn’t a really solid adaptation of what was thought to be an unfilmable work, because it is. But it seems like in trying so hard to make sure no one got too offended in what was filmed and what wasn’t, there was no room left for any kind of innovation. So what is left is a film that proves Watchmen could be adapted as a film, but makes no kind of argument for why it should be. Definitely worth your time, and I would even be up for viewing the inevitable unrated director’s cut DVD that should push the four-hour mark out of added curiosity. But if they were intending for this film to be anything more than a solid entry into the overall superhero film oeuvre, they missed the mark.

Although if they intended me to get beat up by every single one of my peers when I boldly and without a hint of sarcasm tell them the best thing about the Watchmen film is My Chemical Romance’s cover of ‘Desolation Row,’ I say BRING IT ON.

Looking for a second opinion? Check out Mike’s and Lissa’s reviews of Watchmen!

Whoever said purple is the new gray was seriously disturbed.

Didja Notice?

Ozymandias’ German accent when he’s not in public?
How much Nite Owl and Silk Spectre look like Clark Kent and Lois Lane?
Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing in Veidt’s lobby?
Doc Manhatten’s package? Yeah, if I was packin’ that much heat, I’d walk around naked all the time too.

Intermission!

Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass were both previously scheduled to direct.

Groovy Quotes

The Comedian: Here I am spilling my guts to my arch enemy. Truth is, Moloch, you’re the closest thing I have to a friend. What does that say?

Silk Spectre: Breaking into a national security prison is not the same thing as fighting a tenement fire.
Nite Owl: You’re right. It’s more fun.

Lee Iacocca: And we all know ‘free’ is just another word for communist.

Rorschach: Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true.

Rorschach: You keep calling me Walter. I don’t Like you.
Dr. Malcolm Long: Oh… why not?
Rorschach: You’re Fat.

Rorschach: None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

300
Sin City
Wanted

Lissa does Watchmen

Lissa — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:31:58 +0000

“None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!”

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Zach Snyder and starring Billy Crudup, Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino.

Tagline: They watch over us… but who watches them?

Summary Capsule: Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ magnum opus gets filmed.

Lissa’s Rating: There are times and places for “Hallelujah”, and this is NOT it.

Lissa’s Review: This past Friday, I finished reading Watchmen for the first time. This represents the culmination of years of a mind changing process.

I am a total geek. We all know this. Come on, I write for a website called Mutant Reviewers From Hell — what else would I be? But despite that, I clung to my belief that comic books (and yes, they were ALL comic books) were lesser art forms. Meant for kids. Archie and Jughead and anything else was just sort of unthinkable. Over the years, I’ve made friends (about 90% of them guys) that read graphic novels. I politely ignored their love of them and mentally patted them on the head much the same way they probably did the same thing when I waxed poetic about Harry Potter. Then I saw V for Vendetta.

V for Vendetta is everything I love in a story. End times. Dictatorial regime. Persecution. Desperation. Tight bond between two characters that is not necessarily sexual. I loved the movie, and actually considered reading the book. Hey — for me, this was a big leap forward. I really started looking at graphic novels differently, understanding what sort of stories they could tell.

Then that survey started going around on LiveJournal and Facebook. The one that asks how many of the Times Top 100 books have you read? And Watchmen was on that list. Okay, that gave me a kick, especially since a lot of the other books struck me as pretentious, and frankly boring. Shortly after I saw that, I wrote a story that I really, really liked, and someone illustrated part of it like a graphic novel. Seeing my own work brought into imagery that way… I suddenly got it. Completely and utterly got it. I now understand what graphic novels can really be if done well, and just how valid an art form they really are. So I picked up Watchmen, and needless to say, I adored it. Add me to the fan list, even if I’m the most recent name on it. (I suspect I’m not.)

So, Friday I finished reading Watchmen. Saturday I went to see it.

Now, one of the best parts about being a newly converted fangirl is I haven’t had the time to soak up all the details and the intricacies and the implications. So when I went to see the movie, I just really, really enjoyed it, especially given how freaking faithful it is to the novel. I completely agreed with what they cut, was amazed at how much they kept in, and was okay with the change at the end, although I know other people weren’t. (I’m not going to say they’re wrong. I spend too much time ranting about Harry Potter and Battlestar Galactica to tell them “hey, it’s just a movie and they just streamlined it a little.” I get that frustration. But I haven’t earned my spurs as a Watchmen fangirl, so I’ll leave that analysis and rant for someone else.)

For the uninitiated, Watchmen is a superhero story, but it’s a different take on superheroes. Instead of making these people out to be mountains of nobility, Watchmen starts with the premise that it takes a very specific mindset to dress up in a costume and go out fighting crime, and chances are these people are lunatics. Well, come on. Do you dress in latex and patrol the streets? I didn’t think so. But the idea that it takes a very extreme personality is very plausible. And then to put these personalities into proximity of each other… it’s like an especially, incredibly dysfunctional forerunner of the X-Men family. And it’s awesome.

It’s a fantastic story, yes. How is it as a movie? I wasn’t at all disappointed. The effects are beautiful, particularly those on Mars. (Although I would have liked to have seen more of Mars, just because we’ve been reading books about the planets with Ducklet.) The acting ranged from acceptable (wasn’t that impressed with Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozy) to stellar (Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian were complete standouts). There was some really neat cinematography, especially the pauses during the fight scenes where they basically shouted “Look how perfectly we’re recreating the novel!” and the “The Times they Are A-Changing” sequence at the beginning. I wasn’t even all that phased by the naked Dr. Manhattan, although when I mentioned that fact Duckie was suddenly relieved he didn’t go see the movie on the IMAX screen.

It was a bit long, I have to admit. However, I should lodge that complaint more at the people who make the movie seats than the people who made the movie. I wasn’t bored — my butt just started hurting, that’s all. (But boy, let me tell you how grateful I am that they cut the monologue at the end down a bit!) In fact, I can’t wait for the director’s cut, because I’m dying to see the stuff that got cut out.

So, yeah. I loved it. But as I said, I’m a brand spanking new fan, and I’m still in the infatuation phase, so take my review with that in mind. I’ll certainly reread the novel, and I’ll certainly buy the DVD and watch it that night, and probably several more times. Really, unless you truly despise any sort of fantastical elements whatsoever in a plot or are very, very squicked by violence or are under a certain age, there’s no reason not to see this one.

Want a second opinion? Check out Mike’s review of Watchmen here!

Whoever said purple is the new gray was seriously disturbed.

Didja Notice?

Ozymandias’ German accent when he’s not in public?
How much Nite Owl and Silk Spectre look like Clark Kent and Lois Lane?
Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing in Veidt’s lobby?
Doc Manhatten’s package? Yeah, if I was packin’ that much heat, I’d walk around naked all the time too.

Intermission!

Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass were both previously scheduled to direct.

Groovy Quotes

The Comedian: Here I am spilling my guts to my arch enemy. Truth is, Moloch, you’re the closest thing I have to a friend. What does that say?

Silk Spectre: Breaking into a national security prison is not the same thing as fighting a tenement fire.
Nite Owl: You’re right. It’s more fun.

Lee Iacocca: And we all know ‘free’ is just another word for communist.

Rorschach: Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true.

Rorschach: You keep calling me Walter. I don’t Like you.
Dr. Malcolm Long: Oh… why not?
Rorschach: You’re Fat.

Rorschach: None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

300
Sin City
Wanted

Justin does Jumper

Justin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:35:01 +0000

“You think it could go on like this forever? Living like this with no consequences? There are always consequences! “

The Scoop: 2008 PG-13, directed by Doug Liman and starring Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell and Rachel Bilson

Tagline: Anywhere is possible.

Summary Capsule: Guy discovers superpower, gets chased, girl tags along for the ride.

Justin’s Rating: Does Nightcrawler know you’re stealing his thing?

Justin’s Review: “We got a jumper!” “Don’t come any closer, I’m warning you! I’ll do it!” “Don’t jump, kid, you have so much to live for!” “Oh, okay.” And then the crowd waiting on the street below applauds now that they won’t have a 140-pound young adult falling onto their heads.

Yeah, this isn’t that sort of movie. Just in case you were wondering.

Based on the cult 1992 novel, Jumper introduces you to David Rice (Max Thieriot/Hayden Christensen), an abused teen who discovers that he has the power of teleportation. If he can see it, if he’s been there, or if he looks at a photo of it, he can jump to it instantaneously. It’s a superpower that’s been given as a consolation prize to some second-tier X-Men and the like, but never looked at as closely as author Stephen Gould did. Think about it: if you had the ability to go anywhere, at any time, taking whatever you want with you, what would that mean for your life? Beyond saving a chunk on gas money, it opens up dozens of questions into the ethics and morality of a human with a super-human potential.

Both novel and film begin roughly the same: abuse and panic triggers his latent “jumping” ability, and David goes on the run to NYC. There, nearly broke and homeless, he realizes that jumping allows him to break many rules, including the one of “thou shalt not steal from bank vaults”. Over the course of one night, David goes from being penniless to a millionaire, and the world is his slimy oyster.

Here, the movie veers away from the more introspective plot of the book and towards a landscape littered with gratuitous CGI. I know Christensen is trying hard to distance himself from the Star Wars-only image most folks have for him, but this vapid special effects fest wasn’t the best of moves. Plus, appearing in a movie to battle Samuel L. Jackson is only going to make people think “Woo! Darth Vader versus Mace Windu!”

All too quickly, the fun of exploring teleportation’s possibilities is over, leaving David to jitter through the rest of the plot looking unhappy and dragging an even more unhappy-looking girl along with him. Apparently, there are more jumpers than just him, and over the centuries they have been hunted by quasi-religious technowarriors known as “Paladins”, who claim that jumpers must be killed because “being everywhere is only a power that God should have.”

Excuse me and my first year of seminary experience, but the ability to travel anywhere instantaneously is not the same as God’s omnipresence. But this sort of theological thinking would put the Paladins out of a job, and since jumper-killing is so lucrative and offers a really nice dental package, they ignore the obvious and go on trying to electrify jumpers so that there’s only a piece of human-shaped charcoal teleporting around the world in misery. I’d hate to see what they’d do to the Star Trek crew and their transporter antics.

Both fans of the novel and any clear-thinking person could see that Jumper had a lot of potential. The action sequences are technically well-done, such as when a jumper hijacks a British double-decker bus to the Sahara desert as a way to crush a Paladin, but if there’s no humanity, characterization or story behind it all, it’s just a clanging of gongs and cymbals.

What’s worse is that Jumper doesn’t even try to tie up what little story it has, electing instead to set up for a (proposed) trilogy of teleportation-and-moping movies. There’s nothing I hate more than a movie that hasn’t even proved itself assuming that I’m going to stick around for the next one. Fat chance.

...And now I'm stuck. Great.

Intermission!

David Ritchie, a set-dresser on the Toronto shoot, was killed while dismantling part of the set

Groovy Quotes

Roland: Only God should have this power.

Roland: You think it could go on like this forever? Living like this with no consequences? There are always consequences!

David Rice: Let me tell you about my day so far. Coffee in Paris, surfed the Maldives, took a little nap on Kilimanjaro. Oh, yeah, I got digits from this Polish chick in Rio. And then I jumped back for the final quarter of the N.B.A. finals–courtside of course. And all that was before lunch. I could go on, but all I’m saying is, I’m standing on top of the world.

Griffin: Big coliseum, guy peeing… it’s not a fashion show, can you give me some space?

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Al does The Dark Knight

Alan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:57:45 +0000

”Wanna know how I got these scars?”

The Scoop: 2008, PG-13. Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Tagline: Why so serious?

Summary Capsule: Bruce is the dark knight, Harvey’s the white knight, and the Joker’s wild.

Al’s Rating: So, this movie came out that you may have heard of…

Al’s Review: Or, actually, if you read this website, maybe you didn’t. Some of you have no doubt noticed that, since July 2008, The Mutant Reviewers from Hell has been curiously lacking in the Batman department. Now, I have not consulted with the other Mutants in the office, but I feel I can say that it’s not for a lack of trying. After all, The Dark Knight was fantastic. The new characters are complex and layered. The returning characters are pushed in interesting directions. The plot is involved but rewards those who pay attention. All around, it is simply a masterful film and everybody (excluding a handful of misguided souls) knows it. So, really, the problem becomes, what else is there to say?

Right now, the database at mrqe.com lists 270 reviews of The Dark Knight. I will sum them up for you here: The Joker was awesome. Two-Face was creepy. Maggie Gyllenhaal was okay. Batman’s voice was stupid. They are the same things I was going to say and the same things you probably already know. But let’s talk about ‘em anyway.

1) The Joker was awesome. Seriously. Heath Ledger deserves every bit of praise that the talking heads have thrown his way. He is brilliant, terrifying, and absolutely insane. Make no mistake, Jack Nicholson played a truly great Joker. The difference is that Jack Nicholson would never blow up a hospital in a nurses’ outfit; he had too much style. There’s no style in this monster. There’s no self-control. There’s no forethought and no afterthought, or perhaps there is so much of all of it that it just seems that way. Nicholson played the Joker as the Clown Prince of Crime. Ledger plays the Joker as an id with a machine gun.

2) Two-Face was creepy. Traditionally, Two-Face’s disfigurement had been limited to a bumpy, discolored face and maybe one bulging eyeball. You might want to walk the other way rather than pass him on the street, but it didn’t really strike fear into your heart or anything. This Two-Face, however, is the stuff of nightmares. Blackened skin, bits of bone, muscles and tendons that are bare and oozing. Its repulsiveness is in its realism. It’s the kind of thing that screams ‘infection.’

On top of it all, the film made him make sense. I mean, I’ve always understood Two-Face’s motivation, but until this movie I had never realized that I didn’t buy it. I accepted it, but that’s really not the same thing. Aaron Eckhart made me believe in the allure of letting a coin flip solve your problems, and that creeps me out even more.

3) Maggie Gyllenhaal was okay. I was one of those crazy people who thought Katie Holmes did a pretty good job in Batman Begins. I was disappointed when she didn’t want to come back for the sequel, although Maggie is certainly a great choice to replace her. In the end, though, it turns out that the switch is pretty much a non-issue because Rachel Dawes doesn’t really have a lot to do in The Dark Knight except get captured and be thrown off of buildings. She’s important, sure, but it seems the concept of Rachel Dawes matters more than the woman playing her. That’s not to disparage Maggie’s performance, of course. There just isn’t enough of a role there to be worth mentioning.

4) Batman’s voice was stupid. Batman Begins didn’t feature a lot of talking by our hero while he was in-costume. He’s still reasonably quiet in The Dark Knight, but Batman definitely has a lot more to say this time around and that means we hear a more of his Gravelly Batman Voice. It makes sense that Bruce Wayne would have a Gravelly Batman Voice for when he was under the cowl, but a little goes a long way and The Dark Knight simply had too much. Of course, they could’ve taken my suggestion and just let Kevin Conroy dub the whole thing, but that’s another conversation altogether.

Obviously, there is plenty more that is worth talking about. The bat-gadgets. The sweeping cityscapes. The way the Joker manages to look even more disturbing without his makeup. It’s a conversation I could have for hours. But instead, I think there’s an easier way for me to sum up my feelings on The Dark Knight: Me too. “I loved the interrogation scene.” Me too. “I thought the score was brilliant.” Me too. “I’m really surprised Batman jumped off a building then fell several stories onto taxi cab and walked away.” Me too.

All the good stuff you’ve heard? Me too.

Most of the bad stuff you’ve heard? Me too.

And you know those chills you get when you think about a sequel? Me too.

PROTIP: Don't look behind you.

Didja Notice?

William Fitchner in the William Fitchner role?
The Scarecrow? Yay, a rogue’s gallery!
“Here’s my card.” Heh.
Lucius Fox mentions the new suit should do fine against cats? Maybe a little bit of foreshadowing?
Senator Patrick Leahy at Bruce Wayne’s fundraising party?
Anthony Michael Hall as the host of Gotham Tonight?
The Jerry Maguire reference?
The “I believe in Harvey Dent” sticker on Joker’s nurse outfit?
That The Joker apparently rigged an entire hospital with explosives and no one noticed?
That headache you get when you look at Bat-sonar for too long?

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

No.

Intermission! [source: IMDb]

This is the first Batman film not to incorporate the word Batman in it’s title.

While developing the style and mannerisms of the Joker, Heath Ledger relied on the look of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of Alex De Large in A Clockwork Orange.

This is the last film role Heath Ledger completed prior to his death on January 22nd, 2008.

Ledger won 32 posthumous Supporting Actor awards for his work on this movie.

Much of the script sprung from the Batman stories “The Long Halloween,” “The Killing Joke,” “The Man Who Laughs,” as well as some early appearances of the Joker in the 1940s.

Groovy Quotes

He prefers all his photos be taken from his good side.

The Joker: Wanna know how I got these scars?

The Joker: I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you… stranger.

The Joker: How about a magic trick?

Harvey Dent: The famous Bruce Wayne. Rachel’s told me everything about you.
Bruce Wayne: I certainly hope not.

Harvey Dent: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan?

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

Batman Begins
Batman (1989)
Heat

Mike Watches the Watchmen

Mike — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:36:01 +0000

“None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!”

The Scoop: 2008 R, Directed by Zach Snyder, Starring Billy Crudup, Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino.

Tagline: They watch over us… but who watches them?

Summary Capsule: Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ magnum opus gets filmed.

Mike’s Rating: This movie is afraid… I have seen it’s true face…

Mike’s Review: I’m unique among most sequential art (that’s comic books to you lay people) aficionados, in that I don’t deify Alan Moore or his creepy magic beard as the second coming, and while I was just as blown away as anybody by his ridiculously intricate and layered storytelling in the Watchmen graphic novel, I was never of the opinion that to make a movie based on said masterpiece would ever be akin to heretical blasphemy. Now that the movie has been made, I want you to go look out the window, taking note that the world has, in fact, not stopped spinning, then pick up the dog-eared copy of the graphic novel and you’ll find it’s still there and did not burst into flames in a show of unbridled outrage. See? Everything’s ok. Now take a deep cleansing breath and go back to making fairy tale porn, Mr. Moore.

Alright, now that I’ve snarked at a comics legend, let’s talk about the movie. Set in an alternate 1985, (anybody else flashing back to Back to the Future Part II…? Not just me..? Awesome.) in which America and Russia stand on the brink of nuclear armageddon, costumed vigilante cum government spook The Comedian is thrown to his death from his penthouse apartment. Fellow crimefighter Rorschach takes it upon himself to investigate the murder, convinced that the trail will lead to a serial killer picking off costumed heroes. Said heroes, who have been forced into retirement since 1977, include Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, a couple of second generation heroes who find themselves falling back into adventuring, Ozymandias, the “world’s smartest man”, and Doctor Manhattan, a near omnipotent (and uncomfortably naked) superhero who is losing touch with humanity.

When I first viewed the trailer for Watchmen, I was gob-smacked at how pretty it was, but a bit worried as well. The original Watchmen comic was, after all, better known for it’s mind-blowing epic story and zillions of intertwining sub-plots. I feared that the story would be back-burnered in favor of sheer spectacle. As it turns out, Zack Snyder does an amazing job bringing Moore’s four-color creations to the big screen. It’s a shame that Alan Moore insisted on having his name removed from this one, actually, because it really is a great film that offers some terrific action sequences and special effects without sacrificing any of the essentials of the story. The characters are larger than life, yet flawed and believable at the same time. They’re human beings, whose motivations are explored and fully realized. Rorschach’s story is exceptionally scary and heartbreaking at the same time, and his character definitely got the most cheers during the opening-night viewing I attended.

Perhaps the biggest triumph of the movie is the way it portrays just how cool it is to be a superhero (being able to take a room full of tough guys, playing with ultra cool tech gadgets, getting the girl), while at the same time showing how such a life can eat away at your sanity. In a world where we have flicks like Batman Begins and Dark Knight, the superhero deconstruction myth is not exactly a new idea, but Watchmen did it first and this movie proves that it did it the best. The fight scenes are brutal and well choreographed. The effects are gorgeous and various scenes are almost perfect recreations of the comics book panels. The soundtrack was especially well done and made for a great time stamp of the era being portrayed, particularly during the opening credits sequence. Even the infamously tweaked ending elicits the same shock and speculation. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it even makes more sense than the original and makes the comic ending seem a little silly. That being said: please send all flames to Cheshirekat5865@gmail.com.

The only real complaint I’d have is that certain scenes seem overly lascivious and ultimately gratuitous. I know I might run the risk of being labeled a prude here, but do we really need to watch two characters have graphic sex in slow motion for a full minute? That same scene was dealt with discreetly in the comic with silhouettes and I felt that to sit through this unnecessary scene for so long took me out of the story a bit… and yes I found the inclusion of Doctor Manhattan’s package more than a little distracting.

If that kinda thing doesn’t bother you, or if you don’t mind staring at the ceiling for a couple of scenes I highly recommend this, whether you’re a fan of the comic or not. I’ll go so far as to say this is the most intelligent superhero movie made in recent memory, and this is with Dark Knight still fresh in my mind.

The Blue Man Group’s new 'nude emo' look didn’t go over well.

Didja Notice?

Ozymandias’ German accent when he’s not in public?
How much Nite Owl and Silk Spectre look like Clark Kent and Lois Lane?
Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing in Veidt’s lobby?
Doc Manhatten’s package? Yeah, if I was packin’ that much heat, I’d walk around naked all the time too.

Intermission!

Nathan Fillion was considered for the roles of The Comedian and Nite Owl.
Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass were both previously scheduled to direct.
The first official image from director Zack Snyder – a test shot of Rorshach holding The Comedian’s button – was actually hidden in a trailer for Snyder’s previous film, 300. It features the film’s associate producer, Wesley Coller, wearing a makeshift mask in front of a composite New York backdrop, and was created as an experiment by Snyder to establish the mood and look of his proposed Watchmen project. Snyder’s wife, Deborah Snyder, bet him $100 that no one would discover it, while he was convinced that someone would find it almost immediately. He won.

Groovy Quotes

The Comedian: Here I am spilling my guts to my arch enemy. Truth is, Moloch, you’re the closest thing I have to a friend. What does that say?

Silk Spectre: Breaking into a national security prison is not the same thing as fighting a tenement fire.
Nite Owl: You’re right. It’s more fun.

Lee Iacocca: And we all know ‘free’ is just another word for communist.

Rorschach: Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true.

Rorschach: You keep calling me Walter. I don’t Like you.
Dr. Malcolm Long: Oh… why not?
Rorschach: You’re Fat.

Rorschach: None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

300
Sin City
Wanted

Drew does Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Drew — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:00:44 +0000

“Sit down! Proud, empty, hollow things that you are. Let this remind you why you once feared the dark.”

The Scoop:

Tagline: Saving the world is a hell of a job.

Summary Capsule: The best damn demon hunter in the world (sorry, Buffy) has to contend with an uptight new boss, an indestructible army, and a hormonal girlfriend. Guess which one he’s dreading most?

Drew’s Rating: Like what would happen if George Lucas and Barry Sonnenfeld had a baby. (And, ew.)

Drew’s Review: For a filmmaker, there’s only one way to guarantee yourself a sequel: make the first one profitable. Right or wrong, studios care about the bottom line, period. You can drop the biggest cinematic deuce ever committed to celluloid, but if people go see it in droves, rest assured you’ll be making Scary/Date/Epic/Disaster Movies until the end of time. Whereas if you create a masterpiece that makes Roger Ebert cry but that just breaks even, the studio will congratulate you heartily and let you know that your story has reached its logical conclusion. It’s scary but true – if Star Wars had tanked, there never would have been an Empire Strikes Back. Think about it.

But there are rare exceptions to that rule, which almost always boil down to two things: goodwill and respect for the director, and sheer force of will on the part of those trying to get the sequel made. Which brings us to Hellboy II and Guillermo del Toro, acclaimed filmmaker and avowed Hellboy fan. del Toro has never made a secret of his love for Mike Mignola’s creation, and while the first Hellboy movie wasn’t a flop, neither was it the Spider-Man-esque hit studios were hoping for. It took a good few years and more than a little effort to get a sequel made, but it finally arrived with del Toro at the helm, promising to deliver the same horrific fairy tale creatures seen in Pan’s Labyrinth. Ah, but in what context?

'Don't look at me, Abe, that's what your mom said would happen.'

A young Hellboy once heard tell about a war between men and elves, in which the elves created 70 times 70 indestructible mechanical soldiers to decimate their enemies. Horrified by the ensuing carnage, the Elf King made peace with mankind, hid away the golden army, and broke the crown needed to control them into three pieces. And so the story passed into myth until the present day, when one of the pieces is discovered, drawing the king’s son Nuada out of exile. Fed up with the way humans have despoiled the planet while the people of the earth — elves, faeries, goblins, and the like — have been driven underground, he sets out to reclaim the other pieces, revive the golden army, and lay waste to the race of men. Standing in his way? His twin sister Nuala, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, and one pissed-off, cigar-chomping demon with a gun. It’s a bad day to be a bad guy.

Let’s get it out of the way: if your favorite part of Star Wars was the cantina scene, you’re not going to be disappointed. Hellboy II answers back with a lengthy scene set in a troll market, and the numerous beasties Nuada throws at our heroes (including, spoiler, the golden army itself) can’t fail to impress with their unique and bizarre looks. From the bustling activity of the market to the helmet of new hero Johann Krauss, del Toro clearly subscribes to the theory that there should always be some random machinery or creatures in motion at all times. Speaking of Krauss, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane makes his motion picture debut as Hellboy’s officious new boss who happens to consist of ectoplasm occupying a containment suit. I have no idea how accurate MacFarlane’s accent might be, but he’s both amusing and reasonably restrained, something I wasn’t sure he could pull off. Perlman is great once again as Hellboy, striking the pitch perfect notes of the working man’s demon smasher, while Doug Jones gets a chance to shine as Abe Sapien, this time with more to do. Selma Blair is fine as Liz, but doesn’t get to emote as much this time around… ironic, given her circumstances. That said, the heavy makeup and prosthetics of the elf twins means Nuada never seems as angry as he should, and the tenderness Nuala is supposed to be showing is always tempered by a slight ick factor. But maybe that’s what del Toro was going for… they are outcasts, after all.

While Hellboy II gets a lot of things right, I think in one area it reaches a bit further than it probably should have. We all saw the first Hellboy movie, and more importantly we saw X-Men… the notion of a hero protecting a world that fears and hates him is old hat. One of the things I like about the Hellboy comics is that his existence has always been public, so nobody bats an eye at the giant devil creature standing next to them. Here we’re treated to more of the standard “once the novelty wears off, people start to hate him because he looks different” vibe, and it just feels so tired. I know they’re building up the theme of Hellboy having more in common with his enemies than those he protects (see also: the first movie), but did we really need the angry mob who turn on him for rescuing a baby? I expected more subtlety from a director of del Toro’s ability; as is, it’s so over the top that HB might as well be bellowing “Fire bad!” at the top of his lungs. (Mind, they actually do show a clip from The Bride of Frankenstein on a TV in the background of the very next scene. Y’know, in case you didn’t get it.)

That’s a relatively minor complaint, though, and Hellboy II does far more right than wrong. Granted, I’m a little disturbed that both Abe and Liz make decisions to save their loved ones at the theoretical expense of the rest of the world — so much for the greater good, I guess — but if you’re a romantic at heart, you’ll probably appreciate a movie filled with so many pariahs in love. On the other hand, if you’re someone like me who just likes watching gruff heroes take on mad (but slightly sympathetic) villains who respond by unleashing a cavalcade of horrors on them, this film has got you covered. We may never know exactly what convinced movie execs to take another chance on Hellboy, but be glad they did, and hope that someday Hellboy III is just as strong of an effort.

If anyone yells 'Go team!', I'm leaving.

Didja Notice?

Young Hellboy is… terrifying, frankly. Guess he grew into those ears and teeth, huh?
Agent Myers from the first Hellboy movie doesn’t appear because the actor who played him, Rupert Evans, was committed to appearing in a play in London. He’s mentioned in passing, Hellboy claiming to have had him transferred to Antarctica.
I’ll admit it’s kind of badass, but the twirling blade thing is so overplayed, don’t you think?
The Elf King’s guards remind me of Pyramid Head from Silent Hill.
In the first Hellboy movie, all of HB’s fellow agents were named after things found in the earth: Lime, Moss, Quarry, Stone, and Clay. The Golden Army continues the trend, with the agents named after slightly tougher materials: Marble, Flint, and Steel.
At one point a theater marquee can be seen reading “See You Next n sday”. This is a nod to John Landis, who references the fictional film “See You Next Wednesday” in all of his movies.
When Hellboy holds a baby he’s rescuing with his tail and comments “First piece of tail, kid,” my DVD subtitles interpreted that as “First praise the tail, kid.” Which is good advice for everyone, really.
In the comics, Hellboy is simply said to be the son of *a* high-ranking devil; The Golden Army takes this one step further, labeling him as the son of the Fallen One.

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

Nah.

Intermission!

In Hellboy, Abe Sapien was physically played by Doug Jones, but voiced by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce. Jones would go on to voice Abe in the two animated Hellboy movies, and in The Golden Army he portrays Abe both physically and vocally. Jones also played the Angel of Deat h- the vocal effect was achieved by him recording each line twice, once in a high-pitched voice and once lower-pitched, and overlaying the two.

Nuada’s henchman, the one-eyed troll Mr. Wink, was named after Selma Blair’s one-eyed dog Wink.

She's certainly no uggo, but with all respect, I'll still take Liv Tyler, thanks.

Groovy Quotes

Manning: Officially we do not exist, you see. So that’s the problem when we get these. Subway. Highway. Ah, park. And he posed for this one and gave an autograph. I suppress each photo. Cell phone videos. They cost me a fortune and they show up on YouTube! God, I hate YouTube.

Liz: We have no survivors, no bodies.
Hellboy: Same story here, babe.
Liz: Don’t call me “babe.”
Hellboy: “Abe,” I said. “Abe.” Wrong channel. *flips button* Phew. Abe, I think Liz is still mad at me.
Liz: Still the same channel.

Abe: There are no corpses because there are no leftovers. Have you noticed the floor?
Hellboy: Aw, crap.
Abe: Precisely. All these things do is eat and eat, then poop, and then eat again.
Liz: Remind you of anyone?

Johann: Nice baby!
“Infant”: I’m not a baby, I’m a tumor.

Johann: You will learn to obey me, follow protocol, and stay focused at all times.
Hellboy: Oh, that word, “fockused”? Yeah, with your accent, I wouldn’t use it that much.

Hellboy: You’re in love. Have a beer.
Abe: Oh, my body’s a temple.
Hellboy: Well, now it’s an amusement park.

Liz: We are looking for Prince Nuada.
Goblin: Ah, him I know. Trade me something and I’ll take you to him.
Liz: Here- I have a shiny belt.
Goblin: But I have no pants.
Liz: Look! A wonderful set of magic eyes.
Goblin: I already have binoculars.

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