Random Reviews: Ant-Man

My feelings about the Ant-Man movie are complicated.  I was really excited about Ant-Man when it was first announced that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) was going to be directing it.   Needless to say I was disappointed when he left due to creative differences with Marvel Studios.  So for me Ant-Man will always have to compete with the pure Edgar Wright version of the movie that only exists in my head, and like anytime when reality has to compete with fantasy it is tough for reality to compete.

That said, Ant-Man is a fun movie.  Marvel Studios seems to have making superhero movies down to a science now, even when translating their lesser known properties to the screen.  Also, with the sheer number of movies Marvel Studios has produced in recent years they have smartly started to play with the genre a bit.  The Captain America: The First Avenger was naturally a superhero film mixed with a period piece, but the Captain America: The Winter Soldier was also a mix, this time of superhero film and a spy thriller.  Ant-Man is a superhero film mixed with a heist movie.

Like any heist movie, Ant-Man establishes what needs to be stolen, then establishes all the reasons why it is impossible to steal the item.  It then has the ringleader establish a crew with specialized skills that can overcome the security around the item to be stolen.  Of course, the heist has complications which are only overcome by quick thinking on the part of the crewmembers during the heist.  In the end, despite these complications the heist is successful.

Of course, since it is not a pure heist movie Ant-Man also has to fit in time for a traditional superhero origin story and a big supervillain battle before the movie is over.  Like Avengers: Age of Ultron it also takes some time away from the main plot to establish ties to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe by having Ant-Man fight an Avenger to get a MacGuffin “needed” for the main heist.  Personally, I wish they had kept it closer to the traditional heist film structure and eliminated the battle at the end, merely leaving Darren Cross raging at how Hank Pym had pulled one over on him.  I am guessing my opinion is in the minority on this though.

As someone of Latino descent, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a bit about Luis.  Played by Michael Peña, Luis is one of the first* Latino characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  While I wish he was more then a comedy sidekick, he is genuinely funny and gets the most to do of any of the secondary characters.  Welcome to the MCU Luis, hopefully we will see you in the sequel.

All and all I enjoyed Ant-Man.  It had a good mixture of action and humor.  I don’t feel it was quite as enjoyable as last summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy but I would definitely recommend it to superhero movie fans.

 

3.5 carpenter ants out of 5 

 

*Maria Hill is Latina in the comics, but in the MCU she is played by a white actress (Cobie Smulders).  Conversely, Agent Sitwell is white in the comics, but is played by a Latino actor (Maximiliano Hernández) in the MCU.

Random Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy

Unlike most of the movie going audience, I actually knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were before it was announced they would be appearing in a major motion picture.  That being said, I was pretty ambivalent when it was first announced.  Even though I am a Marvel fanboy, the Marvel cosmic characters were never my thing.  I figured I would catch it on Netflix at some point.  Then the quirky marketing campaign started and I decided to take a chance and see it in the theaters.  I am glad I did.

Guardians of the Galaxy is less of a superhero movie and more of the kind of old-fashioned sci-fi romp that they don’t make anymore.  There is more Star Wars in its DNA than Iron Man.  Peter Quill, or Star-Lord as would prefer to be called, is part Han Solo and part Captain Kirk—at least when it comes to Kirk’s penchant for banging alien-chicks of various skin colors.

Despite being the only human in the cast, Peter Quill is not a point of view character.  By the time you see him as an adult, he has been in space since he was eight years old and is fully acclimated to the strange universe he inhabits.  That is one thing I appreciate about this movie, it is confident enough to do its world-building on screen and drop you straight into the middle of the action.  They filmmakers felt no need to put earth in peril to artificially make the audience care about what was happening.  Instead, the spent the time making you care about the characters and the universe they inhabit.

A lot of the credit for the success of this movie goes to Chris Pratt.  I have been a fan of the actor since I first became aware of him on Parks and Recreation, and his charisma and humor come through full force on the screen.  Much like I have trouble seeing anyone but Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark nowadays, I can’t imagine what this movie would be like without him in it.

This is not to undercut the other performances.  Bradley Cooper is amazing as the voice of Rocket and Vin Diesel is able to convey a surprising amount meaning in saying, “I am Groot”.  Even some of the smaller roles, like John C. Reilly’s “beleaguered cop” member of the Nova Corps and Michael Rooker’s “blueneck” portrayal of Yondu were a joy to see on screen.

Most importantly, the movie knows how to have fun.  It is not the full on comedy you might think it is from seeing the trailers, but it had plenty of laugh out loud moments.  Perhaps more surprising is that the movie was just as good as evoking pathos as it was at evoking laughter.  There are many moments where you really felt the pain of the characters in the movie, even if they were a CGI raccoon or a green skinned alien.

This is my favorite Marvel movie since the Avengers, but the impressive thing is I have been a fan of the Avengers since I was a kid and the Guardians of the Galaxy were a group I mostly knew about as a point of trivia.  The fact that I enjoyed this movie so much is an impressive feat.

Thoughts on the Amazing Spider-Man teaser trailer

The teaser trailer for the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man movie is out.  Feel free to check it out below.

I have to admit Andrew Garfield makes a better Peter Parker than I thought I would.  Nevertheless, the trailer leaves me with several concerns.

My biggest reservation is that I simply think it is too soon for a reboot.   I understand that bringing back the old cast simply wasn’t feasible.  There was also no way Sony was going to let this property revert to Marvel without squeezing every last dollar they could out of it.  So a new movie with a new cast was inevitable.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I just wish the movie didn’t go all the way back to the origin story.  A soft reboot, like Marvel did with The Incredible Hulk after The Hulk flopped, would have worked better.   Most people who are going to see this movie already know how Peter Parker became Spider-Man, and if they don’t, the briefest of recaps should suffice.

See that wasn’t so hard!

Another thing that seems odd is that it looks like the movie is going to play up the fact that Peter Parker’s parents were secret agents.  This is a part of Spider-Man’s backstory that is probably best ignored.  It complicates Peter’s origin and yet makes him a less relatable character. 

One of Peter Parker’s strengths as a character is that for all of the strangeness in his life he remains relatable.  This works because he was a relatively ordinary kid prior being bit by a radioactive spider.  Adding fantastic elements into his life prior to the spider bite eats away at this ordinariness.

Of course, maybe I am just making too much of the scenes where his father says goodbye to him and when he finds the old attaché case. 

I certainly hope that is the case.

“A Former Hooters Waitress” -- Really MTV News?

The comic book blogosphere has been abuzz with the news that Amy Adams has been cast as Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel.  There has been a lot of talk about the fact that she is a three time Academy Award nominee.  Along with the casting of big name actors like Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent, this is seen as a sign that the reboot is going for a more serious and less campy tone than some of the previous films.

There has also been a lot of coverage about the fact that she is 36-year-old woman.  This probably wouldn’t be getting as much press as it is if it wasn't for the fact that Superman Returns featured 22-year-old actress Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, who was supposed to be believable as the mother of a 6-year-old kid.

I’m glad I read the MTV News write-up of the story though, or I never would have known that Amy Adams was a former Hooters waitress!

The reference bugged me.  Please note that I have nothing against Hooters waitresses, present or former.  I found it annoying because it seemed to be included in the article simply because some people would find that detail salacious.

After all, when Kevin Costner was announced as Pa Kent, I can’t imagine anyone wrote:

“A former bus driver and male model, Kevin Costner made his debut in 1981’s Malibu Hot Summer playing John Logan.”

Oh well.  It is really nothing to get too worked up about I suppose.  After all, it IS only MTV news and not a “serious” news publication like the New York Times or the Washington Post.  MTV News makes a business of being provocative.

I swear though, if I am ever written up by MTV News and they describe me as “a former Patio busboy”, it is on like Donkey Kong!

Random Reviews: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is a direct to video animated movie featuring the Justice League versus their counterparts in the Crime Syndicate.  It has a bit of an odd history as it started its life as an entirely different direct to video animated movie called Justice League: Worlds Collide. 

Justice League: Worlds Collide was part of the DC Animated Universe continuity and was intended to bridge the gap between the Justice League animated series and its replacement series Justice League Unlimited.

Ultimately, Justice League: Worlds Collide was never produced because they lacked the staff to produce both the movie and the television show simultaneously.  The storyline was too good to leave on the shelf indefinitely though, so references to the television show were removed and it was released as a stand alone movie with a different animation style.

This unusual history does make Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths a bit of an odd watch for fans of the DC Animated Universe Justice League though.  While there are no overt references to the show, several plot threads carry over.  Specifically, the expansion of the Justice League and the origin of Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane are addressed.  On the other hand, the league lineup is somewhat different, so it can’t be viewed as a lost episode either.

Despite this, the important question is how does Crisis on Two Earths hold up on its own?  Thankfully, the answer is very well.

The basic premise of the movie is simple.  The Crime Syndicate is a group of evil doppelgangers of the Justice League from an alternate earth.  Ultimately, the evil Crime Syndicate comes in conflict with their heroic counterparts in the Justice League. 

Despite this simple premise, it is the little details that make this movie.  One nice touch is that each member of the Crime Syndicate is the head of their own criminal organization.  Each of these organizations is filled with evil versions of existing DC heroes.  For the DC Comics fan, this provides a ton of Easter Eggs as you try to determine if that is really an evil version of Vibe that just came on screen.

Another highlight is that James Woods puts in an amazing performance as Owlman (a Batman analogue).  Cold, calculating, and utterly nihilistic, Owlman is more chilling than an animated character has a right to be.

If you are a fan of the DC Animated Universe or simply a fan of DC Comics in general, Crisis on Two Earths is definitely worth taking a look.  With a story as good as this one, I can see why Warner Brothers decided not to let it sit on the shelf forever.

Random Reviews: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins

Everyone has their guilty pleasures.  Jolly Blackburn, the creator of Knights of the Dinner Table, has spent an inordinate amount of time praising the low-budget fantasy flick Hawk the Slayer.  Chris Sims of the Invincible Super-Blog has sung the praises of Gymkata, the movie which combines “the skill of gymnastics with the kill of karate.”

  My guilty pleasure is Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.  Since the movie recently became available on Netflix’s streaming service, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to review it.

Loosely based on The Destroyer novel series, Remo Williams recounts the adventures of a New York City cop and Marine Corps veteran who is unwillingly recruited into a secret government organization known as CURE. 

The bulk of the movie involves Remo being trained in the ancient Korean art of Sinanju.  According to the movie, Sinanju is the source of all modern martial arts. Its practitioners have acted as assassins throughout history, killing such notable people as Napoleon and Robin Hood (a bandit!).  Much of the humor and charm of this movie comes from the interactions between Remo and Chiun, which manages to (somewhat) surpass the stereotypical East meets West conflict it begins as.

Ultimately Remo ends up on a mission to take down George Grove, a corrupt weapons manufacturer whose money and power leaves him beyond the reach of traditional  justice.  While I won’t go into the details here, suffice it to say Remo emerges victorious and ready to star in a number of sequels which never came about.

The Good

• Remo Williams provides a number of interesting set pieces for its action sequences, most notably the scaffolding around the Statue of Liberty during its cleaning.
• The main mystery involving the HARP weapon is actually fairly interesting.
• There is decent chemistry between the main cast, especially Remo, Chiun, and Major Fleming (a.k.a. Mrs. Columbo, a.k.a Captain Janeway).
• The movie does not take itself too seriously.

The Bad

• Chiun is yet another case of Yellowface in American Cinema.  Of course the movie was released in 1985, so I am willing to cut them a little more slack than I would a movie released in 2010 (like The Last Airbender).
• Pretty much all the villains exist just to be villainous.  This is especially noticeable in the minor bad guys like the teamsters at the Statue of Liberty.
• The plot is… well, frankly the plot is somewhat thin.

Final Thoughts

I know that a lot of my affection for Remo Williams comes from the fact that it is a movie I enjoyed as a teenager.  If I came to it for the first time today, I might not be as charitable.

Nevertheless, I stand my my opinion that this is a fun, if somewhat goofy, action flick.  If you have Netflix streaming and have a couple of hours to kill, you could do much worse than spend it with Remo.

New Decade, New Spider-Man

I am a fan of the Spider-Man film franchise. A lifelong fan of the character, I felt that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire managed to bring Spider-Man to life on the big screen with a care rarely seen in superhero movies. When it was announced they were both on board for Spider-Man 4, I was truly looking forward to more films with the two of them.

Apparently, it is not meant to be. Sony has recently announced that Spider-Man 4 will no longer include Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire and that they are going to reboot the franchise. They are looking for a younger cast and are planning on making the franchise “grittier”. It also sounds like they are hoping to focus more on Spider-Man’s high school years, which were rushed through the first time around.

So as an avowed fan of the franchise so far, what do I think?

Recasting Peter Parker

The recasting of Peter Parker has both pros and cons. Tobey Maguire was a great Peter Parker. He gave us a Peter who was thoughtful, emotional, and believably nerdy. Tobey Maguire’s performance as Peter Parker emphasized that Peter is an everyman, which is what made Peter’s actions as Spider-Man all the more heroic.

On the other hand, I was much less of a fan of Tobey Maguire’s performance when he was behind the mask. His quips as Spider-Man always seemed a bit hollow. Tobey also specializes in conveying his emotions via his facial expressions, which was impossible when his face was hidden behind a full-face mask.

So maybe it is time for a new Spider-Man. Regardless, whoever gets the role should realize that they have pretty big shoes to fill.

A new director

I will miss Sam Raimi. He was a fan of the character and it showed. People often complain when novels are brought to the big screen about how much is left out. How much more complex is this when you have a character with a forty year publication history behind him? Sam Raimi did such an amazing job because as a fan he had a personal vision of Spider-Man to guide him.

This doesn’t mean that the new director won’t be up to the task. It does point to what factors Sony should look to when hiring the new guy. Once again, whoever comes in as director will be judged against the high standard Sam Raimi set.

Rebooting the franchise

I am a worried that it is too soon to reboot the franchise, but continuing the existing series with a brand new cast and new director seems like an equally dubious prospect. Personally, I would rather that they put the franchise on hiatus for a few years.

Of course that will never happen. Spider-Man is a major cash cow for Sony Pictures, and they want to milk it as much as they can while they still have the rights. I used to speculate that Sony would simply buy Marvel rather than let the rights revert back. Now that Disney owns Marvel, that option is off the table. So assuming that the rights will eventually revert to Marvel, it seems more logical to continue with Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi during the time they have left.

According to all reports that was the plan. After Spider-Man 3, Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi seemed ambivalent about doing a fourth installment. Sony went to great lengths to get onboard for Spider-Man 4. So it is a bit of a shock when Sony announced their intention to reboot the franchise instead.

We will probably never know what happen behind closed doors. Regardless, it seems obvious that rebooting the franchise wasn’t Sony’s first choice.

It wouldn’t be my first choice either.

A younger cast

I don’t have a problem with this. Frankly, Tobey Maguire was always a bit old for the part of Peter Parker. While he managed to pull it off pretty well, this is something that became harder to overlook with each successive movie. I think a younger actor playing the part would help underscore how extraordinary it is that Peter chooses to be a hero at an age when most of us were still trying to figure out how to score booze.

A focus on the high school years might also give face time to more of Peter’s supporting cast. While there were a few cameos, only Mary Jane and Harry Osborn had any significant roles in the movies. I would love to see characters like Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, or even Ultimate Spider-Man cast members like Kong get a chance to shine.

A grittier Spider-Man

I hope this is just marketing talking. While I have enjoyed the occasional gritty Spider-Man story (i.e., The Death of Jean DeWolf), it isn’t really where the character belongs. While Peter Parker is often burdened by his own sense of responsibility, being Spider-Man is also a release for him. This sense of fun is as important to Spider-Man as his ability to stick to walls or spin webs!

Final Thoughts

Spider-Man 4 has the deck stacked against it. The first franchise was spectacular, but it seems unlikely that lightning will strike twice. I wouldn’t count Spidey out yet though… he does his best work when the odds are against him!

Random Reviews: Coraline

I suppose I should start by specifying that this is not a review of the book Coraline or the graphic novel Coraline.  Rather, it is a review of Coraline the 2009 animated movie adapted by director Henry Selick from Neil Gaiman’s original novel.

The first thing I have to say about Coraline is that I wouldn’t recommend it for very small children.  Things get pretty intense at certain points.  While I am not going to say keep kids away from the movie, I would advise you to take the PG rating very seriously.  If I was a parent I would definitely view the movie first and then decide if my kids were ready for it.

Without getting too deeply into spoilers, Coraline and her parents recently moved into a new home.  Well, new for them.  The house itself is quite old and has quite a bit of history.  None of this matters to Coraline, who misses her friends and is feeling uprooted.  The situation is made worse by the fact that her parents are very busy with their jobs and getting situated after the move.  As a result, Caroline feels somewhat neglected. 

It is then that she discovers a locked door in the house that has been wallpapered over.  Eventually, she finds that the door leads to another world.  This world contains versions of her parents, called Other Mother and Other Father, who always cook homemade dinners and are attentive to her every need.  It seems to good to be true, so I don’t think I am spoiling anything by saying that it is.

When asked what the message of Coraline is, Neil Gaiman said: "People who love [you] may not pay you all the attention you would like, and people who give you all the attention you would like may not have your best interests at heart."

Personally, this is one of the things I really liked about the movie.  Many movies start out with distant workaholic parents who make a turnaround to become completely focused on their children.  This is a lovely sentiment, but perhaps a bit unrealistic.  In Coraline, the parents probably do need to spend a bit more time with their daughter, but it acknowledges that they still need to spend some time working to pay the bills too.

Incidentally, for those of you who care, the script is pretty close to Neil Gaiman’s original novel.  One significant change is that it introduces an entirely new character named Wybie Lovat.  According to interviews with both Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman this character was added because Coraline spends a lot of time alone with her thoughts in the novel.  To translate this to film would require her either narrating the film or breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience. 

Personally, I don’t find either of these alternatives a good fit for the story.  So giving her someone to talk to was probably the best choice.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I enjoyed the movie a great deal.  It has the feel of a dark fairy tale, probably more so than any recent film besides Pan's Labyrinth. However, I tend to go for that sort of thing anyway, so your mileage may vary.

I Watched the Watchmen

I know I have a bit of a reputation for being longwinded.  So, I will start this thing out with the short version of my review: 

I watched the Watchmen on Friday night, and it was good.

If that is all you needed to hear, then you can stop reading now.  Otherwise, here is the long version:

Even though I am a fan of the original, I had some concerns about the movie going in.  Watchmen, with its text pieces and comic within a comic, would not be an easy comic to adapt.  The previews looked slick, but maybe a bit too slick.  Not to mention, I kept hearing that Zack Snyder had changed the ending.

I need not have worried.  The movie is one of the most faithful adaptations of a comic book to the big screen, perhaps surpassed in faithfulness only by Zack Snyder’s previous film 300.  The changes made were minimal, and even the much touted change to the end of the film did not bug me that much. 

Faithfulness isn’t the only measure by which a movie adaption should be judged though.  It also has to succeed on its own terms as a movie.  I believe it did.  In general, I think an excellent job was done in casting the film.  Specifically, I felt Billy Crudup did an excellent job portraying the benign detachment of Dr. Manhattan, Patrick Wilson was wonderfully nerdy as Dan Drieberg, and Jackie Earle Haley was convincingly psychotic as Rorschach.

I will also go on the record as saying that I liked the soundtrack.  I have heard complaints that it was too obvious, too clichéd, or simply “crazy”.  It was all of these things.  It was also fun, and in a movie as dark as Watchmen, you take your fun where you can get it.

That being said, Watchmen is probably not a movie for everyone.  It is violent and quite gory at times.  Limbs crack, skulls are split, and people explode into bloody goo.  It has some depressing things to say about the human condition.  After all, the only character willing to tell the truth about a mass-murderer is a violent psychotic. 

All I can say is it was everything I wanted out of a Watchmen movie.  I am frankly amazed that a movie like this was able to come out of Hollywood.

Or to put it another way:

I watched the Watchmen on Friday night, and it was good.

Tales of the Black Freighter

With Watchmen mania continuing to grow, I was curious if one aspect of it was going to make it to the big screen.  Namely, the infamous "Tales of the Black Freighter" comic book within a comic book.  While it appears that it will not, it will at least be making it to the small screen!

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood will be released on March 24th. It will not only include an animated version of "Tales of the Black Freighter", but a live action version of Nite Owls tell all biography, "Under the Hood".

But just don't listen to me blab about it. Check out the trailer yourself!

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Arrrgh! Pirates!

Talz Tales in Star Wars: The Clone Wars

I have a confession to make.  I have been enjoying Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  It may not be high art, but it reminds me of the kind of stories you would see in a Star Wars game brought to the small screen.  At least that is what it does for me normally.  However, I felt that Trespass, the most recent episode, was not very good.  FYI... my commentary below has a ton of spoilers, so don't read it if you haven't watched the episode yet.

The story starts simply enough.  For reasons never fully explained the Republic placed a Clone Trooper base on an uninhabited ice planet.   They lose contact with this base, so they decide to send a group consisting of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C-3P0, R2-D2, a bunch of Storm Clone Troopers, and two politicians from a nearby planet, who I will call Chairman Homicidal and Senator Jailbait.

They arrive at the base to find it deserted, with the exception of Clone Trooper helmets on spears.  Chairman homicidal immediately decides it must be the work of those wacky Separatists.  Were the spears the tip off?  In any case, they travel to the nearby Seperatist base, who apparently also love uninhabited ice planets, only to find the head of droids on pikes as well.

Eventually, it is discovered that the stone cold killers known as the Talz are responsible.  Apparently trained Storm Clone Troopers and Battle Droids are no match for primitive aliens chucking flint tipped spears.  Although, to be fair, decades later Storm Troopers fair no better against Ewoks.

Obi-Wan and Anakin go to speak with the Talz, and eventually receive their demands.  Well, one demand actually: "Leave or we kill you".  When this is reported back to Chairman Homicidal, he immediately decides to commit genocide.

Fortunately, Chairman Homicidal is pretty ineffective at wiping out the primitive Talz.  Taking some Storm Clone Troopers out on military speeders, the kind with shields and blaster cannons, they manage to get ambushed.  They then stop the bikes and engage the spear-wielding Talz with their blaster pistols.  Unfortunately for them, the Talz spears cut through Storm Clone Trooper armor like a knife through butter and Chairman Homicidal is fatally wounded.

Obi-Wan urges Senator Jailbait to make peace with the Talz, which is all she has wanted to do all along.  She then concedes to the Talz demands to leave the planet forever, and Obi-Wan praises her skill as a negotiator.  The End.

I know Star Wars often has plot holes you can drive a truck through, but it was seriously bad this episode.  The ice planet is a complete MacGuffin, and a bad one at that.  Everyone is fighting over the planet, but there seem to be no consequences for leaving it.  Similarly, Chairman Homicidal's evilness and Senator Jailbait's innocence are comically overdone.

Oh well.  Hopefully the next episode will be better.

Universal buys the rights to Wheel of Time

Apparently Universal has bought the film rights to the Wheel of Time series.  Granted, just because the acquired the rights doesn't mean that they are going to option it, but with the popularity of fantasy novels being turned into movies right now, it may be a no-brainer to at least make the first one and see how it does.

If it is a success, they then have enough books to make movies for the next couple of decades.  Granted, they may have to recast a few times, but if James Bond can do it, why can't they?

I do have to admit it must seem like a daunting task to adapt these novels to any potential director and screenwriter.  But if the Lord of the Rings movies have taught me one thing, its never say never.  The right director with a proper love and respect for the source material might be able to make this into the biggest hit Universal has ever seen!

Or they could cast a Wayan's brother to play Mat.  It really is kind of a crapshoot.

A Requiem for a RoboCop?

Rebooting long running movie franchises seems to be all the rage nowadays.  Some recent examples include Batman Begins and Casino Royale.  The concept of the franchise reboot makes perfect sense from the point of view of a Hollywood Studio:  It keeps the name recognition advantage of a sequel, but is friendly to new viewer who doesn't need to be familiar with the continuity of the previous films.  It also avoids the pitfalls of a prequel, where the slightest variation from established "facts" can send fans into a tizzy.

Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised to hear that a RoboCop reboot was in the works for 2010.  I was even more surprised to hear that Darren Aronofsky had been tapped to direct the project.

Darren Aronofsky is the director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream.  I loved Pi, a film that is better understood by viewing than any summary I could give here.  Suffice it to say it involves mathematics, stockbrokers, Hasidic Jews, Gematria, and the name of God.  Besides being a good movie by its own right, it should have been required viewing for anyone who played Mage: The Ascension.

I wasn't as big a fan of Requiem for a Dream, but not because it was a bad movie.  Aronofsky did an amazing job of directing the film.  The imagery he used to portray addiction in the film was horrific.  I have to admit I had some difficulty sleeping after seeing the film, which is probably I haven't seen it nearly as many times as I have Pi.

I guess this is a long way to get around to the question: What kind of film is Aronofsky going to turn RoboCop into?  I have to admit to having a soft-spot for the original RoboCop.  Yes, I know it was cheesy.  But it was kind of a fun movie that was also an enjoyable light satire.  I am guessing "cheesy light satire" is probably not the kind of movie Aronofsky is going to make.

Still, I am a big fan of Aronofsky's work.  I also have to admit that Batman Begins and Casino Royale both prove that the reboot concept can work.  So I am definitely looking forward to seeing what Aronofsky's take is on RoboCop.

I just hope it doesn't give me nightmares.

Random Reviews: The Dark Knight

Considering that this movie broke the record for opening weekend box office gross, you probably don't need me to tell you to see it.  Still, I figure I should tell you what I liked about it in as spoiler-free a manner as possible.

First, I liked this movie's take on the Joker.  A whole lot of people have talked about how this Joker is the ultimate force of chaos.  That he is an anarchist with no fear because he has nothing that wants other than to "watch it all burn".  This is all true, but it doesn't get at the heart of why I liked him.

I liked him because of the sadistic social experiments he performs throughout the movie.  Throughout the movie Batman is stymied in figuring out what the Joker wants, but what the Joker wants is obvious.  The Joker wants to prove that when it comes down to it, everyone is as bad as he is.  That civilization is a thin veneer which can easily be peeled away with just the slightest amount of pressure.

The Joker would have no problem killing your mother or your wife in front of your eyes, but given the choice he would rather get you to do the deed.  Especially if you had to choose between them.  Especially if the game was rigged so that you would lose everything anyway after you made your choice.

To quote Alan Moore from The Killing Joke, the Joker believes that the only difference between you and him "is one bad day".

Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent was also a lot of fun.  While most of the press is justifiably talking about Heath Ledger's scene stealing performance as the Joker, Harvey Dent's character is the most dynamic in the movie.  The Joker is less a person then a force of nature.  Harvey Dent is a man who finds himself having to cross lines he never thought he would cross.  The Joker has nothing to lose, while Harvey Dent loses more than he though possible.  Aaron Eckhart takes us through this character arc so effortlessly that it is easy to overlook how good his performance is.

Of course, Harvey Dent's journey is just a dramatic echo for the journey Batman undertakes.  There is a thin line that separates Batman from the villains he fights.  At many points in the movie he walks right up to that line.  In some cases, he crosses it.  Despite all of this, his "victory" is pyrrhic at best. This is the movie where Batman loses.

So if you think this would be a movie you would enjoy at all, I would recommend that you see it.  Its not "just" a good comic book movie.  It's a good movie.

"Oh Lord. I'm half-horse and half-naked!"

I am a big Futurama fan.  I think it is highly underrated as an animated series.  So not surprisingly I have been picking up the direct to video releases Bender's Big Score and The Beast with a Billion Backs.

However, after watching the trailer for the upcoming Bender's Game, I had a geekgasm.  See if you can figure out why.

D&D and Futurama! I must have died and gone to Yivo!

Watchmen Trailer

For those of you who don't know, Watchmen was a twelve issue comic book limited series published by DC comics way back in 1986.  It was written by the legendary Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons.  Like most of Moore's work, it is a dense work laden with symbolism.  It includes a comic book story within the story and numerous text pieces which expect the reader to read between the lines and make leaps of logic. 

It has also became one of them most lauded comic books ever written.  It won a Hugo Award.  It even appeared on Time Magazine's 2005 list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to present" despite the fact that it is not a novel.

When they first announced they were making a movie of it, I figured there was no way they can make it work.  Much like Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, I believed it to be too tied to the medium it came from to ever make successfully make the transition to the big screen.

To be honest, I still believe that.

Nevertheless, the trailer was interesting.  Visually it is stunning, which is not surprising coming from the director of of 300.  It has a very distinct visual style which seems both gritty and superheroic at the same time.  Oddly, the slick character design almost at odds with the visual style of the book, which often showed how ludicrous people dressed like superheros would look in real life.

In any case feel free to judge for yourself.  Apple is hosting the trailer, or you can go to the official site for more information.

Will Hellboy II: The Golden Army be better than the first one?

I am a big fan of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic series.  I have always felt it did a good job mixing pulp-noir, gothic horror, and humor together into a unique reading experience.  My love for the source material is probably why I have such mixed feelings on the 2004 Hellboy movie.

On the one hand, the Hellboy movie has some real nice touches.  Casting was superb, especially for the roles of Hellboy, Liz Sherman, and Abe Sapien.  In many ways I felt as if they had stepped right out of the comic pages and on to the screen.  Guillermo Del Toro also did a good job of getting the look and feel of the comic right.  Several scenes, especially the sequences with Rasputin and his vacuum tube gloves, the photo of Hellboy with the G.I.'s, and the scenes with Hellboy and the corpse looked like they were storyboarded off of the comics.

Unfortunately, there were also things I was not a fan of.  The Liz Sherman/Hellboy relationship just bugged me.  Granted, they are close in the comics, but its much more of a brother/sister type relationship forged from their "orphan's raised by the BPRD" status.

I was also bugged by the character John Meyers.  I understand his purpose: He is a viewpoint character for the viewers and a rival love interest for Liz Sherman.  Unfortunately, he seems to have little in the way of personality beyond those two roles.

I have high hopes for Hellboy II: The Golden Army though.  First, the trailer looked very interesting.  Many of the designs seemed eerily similar to Guillermo Del Toro work on Pan's Labyrinth, but considering what an amazing movie that was I can't complain too much.  Especially because this movie touches on the realm of the fey.

Second, it seems as if the John Meyer's character is gone.  Which is good because he will not be wasting any valuable screen time.

(I suppose I should apologize to the actor Rupert Evans.  I have nothing against him, I just feel the John Meyer's character was a poor one.  I am sure he did the best he could with what he was given)

Incidentally, Dark Horse was kind enough to release a preview comic staring the titular Golden Army.  It was a classic faerie tale, and one I really look forward to seeing continued in the movie proper.

Good Luck Guillermo!  I am looking forward to the new Hellboy movie.  So don't let me down.

Since I haven't had time to do a real post...

Just in case anyone hasn't seen it already, here is the Iron Man and Batman "Hi I'm a Marvel and I'm a DC" video.

Iron Man vs Batman. Man would that movie rock!

I promise to post Reversing Innovation: Part III soon.  Honest!

Wasn't this the ending I saw in the theater?

Someone created an alternate ending to the Transformers movie.  What I find funny is how little it has changed.