Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Daredevil Director's Cut (2004)

In November of 2004 Marvel entered a film into the ranks of the often despised Director’s Cut DVDs. It’s hard enough releasing a Director’s Cut of a good movie as the average buyer doesn’t want to fork out for another copy of a movie they already have no matter how good it is, let alone one who’s core audience hated the theatrical version. But with just a little word of mouth a fire spread. I’ve already established a little note on several reviews relating to Director’s Cuts/Extended Editions, but this one is so drastically different that it deserves its own review.

The differences between the Theatrical and Director’s cuts are ridiculous and go a long way to show how producers can ruin a movie. While the annoying voice over in the beginning and playground fight scene are still in the movie, there is plenty of other stuff to make up for it. For starters there’s an entire subplot that was cut from the theatrical version that involves a man framed for murder that Matt Murdock is defending. At first this subplot just feels a little tacked on but then surprisingly it ends up being very key to the main plot and at the same time is very entertaining (including a scene with Murdock driving a crooked cop’s car with the cop in it freaking out).

Also with just a few scenes there is far more character development for damn near everyone, even a couple really short ones involving the nearly unused character of Karen Page (who in the comics is a very, very important character in Matt’s life) and Foggy Nelson. It is truly stunning how much character development there is for them in just two very short extra scenes of interaction. Equally short and equally effective is an awesome introduction of the Kingpin that clearly establishes that this is not a guy to fuck with.

But my favorite change is that Matt and Elektra never have their Hollywood-style (see, I told you this comment from my Daredevil review would make sense) “We’ve known each other for an hour maybe, I love you, let’s go boink!” moment. In the theatrical version when Elektra asks Matt to stay while he hears a guy getting mugged (that she can’t hear) he lets the guy get mugged and goes to get some. In the Director’s Cut he just apologizes and walks away to kick the thug’s teeth in (this scene was used in the theatrical version, just in another spot), no doubt with a little extra aggression for the cock-block.

Marvel Movie Score = 5

Why That?: The theatrical version is an embarrassment compared to this. In fact directly compared to the theatrical version the Director’s Cut would be an 8, but the fact is it’s a little hard to gauge how it would have been received if it was released in theaters and no one had ever seen what we got. Still its high points are good and it’s definitely worth seeing.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

What does it take to balls up and make a sequel to a perfect super-hero movie? Balls up and make the sequel perfect as well.

In Spider-Man 2 even the opening credits are perfect. Well not the credits themselves, but the included paintings that retell the entire story of the first movie. Add in the fact that they were painted by comic art legend Alex Ross! We go right from that to a movie that just loves kicking Peter Parker in the crotch. The first thing that happens; he’s delivering pizza, stops to save some kids, ends up being late with the delivery, and as a result gets fired. That is just a brutal way to start a movie about a kid trying to do the right thing.

Skipping over a lot of other depressing stuff in Peter’s life, we’re introduced to the pre-villain Otto Octavious as he and Peter begin to bond over their love of science and the idea of finding one’s soul mate. Of course things go wrong with Otto’s big experiment so he and Peter have to punch each other to work things out. Isn’t that always how it is?

Ok, so more specifically we get a great origin story for Dr. Octopus where his life’s work nearly killed all of downtown New York therefore ruining his credibility, and on top of that the accident ended up killing his wife, the only person he had in the world. Because of this we get the first Raimi-esque scene in years. As surgeons prepare to remove the metal arms fused to Dr. Octavius’ body, the arms begin defending themselves and we’re shown this through several quick cuts, fast zooms, people screaming, blood flying, humorous focuses, and stylish lighting. As a HUGE Evil Dead/Army of Darkness fan I almost wet myself because of how cool this was.

While they did skip on showing Spider-Man fighting random street crime, the fight scenes between Doc Oc and Spidey are plentiful and fantasticalnominal. This does lead to my only complaint for the movie; Spider-Man has super strength yet he can land a punch to Dr. Octopus’ face without it just caving in. Not only that, but his sunglasses remain intact. A small gripe but I figured it should be mentioned.

The rest of the cast really stepped it up for this sequel as well, especially James Franco as we watched Harry Osborn slowly go more and more insane because of his belief that Spider-Man killed his father, a father who he was always trying to receive approval from. This culminates in not only brilliantly setting up another sequel but also a very surprising, though brief, return of Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, now a psychosis induced vision of Harry’s.

And to take a brief step back to the depressing stuff that keeps happening to Peter, this goes a long way to mirroring the comics where Peter is constantly struggling to keep every aspect of his life from falling apart. In the movie Peter gives up on being Spider-Man under the assumption that everything’s going to be fine from here on out, but the first thing we see as he walks happily without a care in the world, is him tripping/falling on the sidewalk. Raimi has made sure that everyone should understand one simple thing: It sucks being Peter Parker.

Much like X-Men 2, this sequel flows perfectly almost to the point where with a little modification to the closing of the first and the opening of the second, it could be one really long movie.

Version 2.1 Note: See this! If not for the extended train fight sequence, then for a new scene of JK Simmons TOTALLY hamming it up and stealing the show!

Marvel Movie Score = 10

Why That?: Like the first one the only faults are so minor it’s ridiculous to even address them. And I really don’t have much more to say about it because it’s just kicks so much ass.

Friday, March 7, 2008

The Punisher (2004)

A brief history lesson: In 1989 Marvel licensed the film rights for the Punisher to New World Pictures. However Marvel would only let them use the names “The Punisher,” “Frank Castle,” and the basic origin story. They weren’t allowed to use the famous skull symbol at all or use any existing stories as a basis for the movie. Staring Dolph Lundgren, the film never saw an American theatrical release due to New World Pictures going bankrupt. However the movie actually has a lot of really good dialogue very befitting of the Punisher and a very high body count.

So the first Marvel movie of 2004 was The Punisher, and man did it rock. And it rocked despite the inclusion of John Travolta as a crime boss villain. I don’t think there are two scenes in the entire movie where he’s acting as the same character in each. He goes from over the top to dead pan to weaselly and never in a manner that feels like that’s what the script/story was calling for. So to sum up, he was terrible.

Thomas Jane on the other hand made this movie! He looked and he acted the part perfectly, of course it helps that he’s a legitimate comic fan who is very familiar with the character. He started out as a man who was letting go of a hard job and ready to be happy with his wife and child who he loved more than anything, and he very quickly becomes a man with a very hard, but to him necessary mission all the while seeming lost. Like I said, perfect.

Like the comic (these days more so), the movie is more of a crime story, as everyone is lacking super powers. It’s just one complete badass taking down an entire criminal empire one bullet at a time.

Now a lot of people complained about the supporting cast of the neighbors in the apartment, but what they don’t realize is these characters are very well translated from the comic story “Welcome Back, Frank,” which was a key story in the return of the Punisher character to his roots after someone had thought it’d be a good idea to kill him and have him come back as an agent of Heaven who can pull high tech weapons out of his coat at will. Yes I do wish I was making that up. But I digress, these characters helped to flesh out the change of Frank to the Punisher, showing him that he still has people to fight for, the innocent who can only fight so hard before they need help.

While at first I really disliked the scene where Frank is fighting for his life against the Russian, because of it being offset by the neighbors listening to opera music and trying to have a good time, it’s grown on me. The fight itself takes on a couple somewhat comedic moments, but in the middle of such a serious movie it lets you breath for a moment.

Director’s Cut Note: While I thought it was interesting and well done how they expanded just how the Saint’s discovered who Frank was, it ended with a very uncharacteristic move on the Punisher’s part of forcing a friend to commit suicide while Frank watched.

Marvel Movie Score: 9.5

Why That?: Thomas Jane had a lot of points to make up for Travolta’s horrible performance, but he did it with ease. And they never once tried to make the Punisher into a real hero. He was flat out killing bad people for the bad things they did and not making any apologies for it. It’s too bad Jane is off of the sequel as he thought the script was too comic book-y. This lowers my expectations drastically.