Michael Steven Johnson’s sophomore Marvel movie attempt stars Hollywood middleweight, but comic fan psychotic middleweight, Nicholas Cage as one of the most visually enticing comic character, Ghost Rider. Seriously, it’s a guy with a skull absolutely engulfed in flames, a motor cycle with flaming wheels, and he fights with a flaming chain. Just thinking about it paralyses me from awesome, so how could this go wrong?
While not a terrible movie, Ghost Rider ends up falling short on a lot of points. The one thing they did a fantastic job with is the origin, showing young Johnny Blaze, who lives with his father in a circus, selling his soul to the Devil (Mephisto, actually just a demon of a hell like dimension in the comics) to save his father from cancer, only to loose his father to a motorcycle stunt accident. The one thing they actually did better here than in the comics is they made Roxanne, the love interest, the daughter of another circus family, where in the comics Johnny is raised by Roxanne’s family after his father dies and his mother leaves, thereby giving him and Roxanne a weird brother/sister type relationship.
Years go by and Johnny becomes an Evel Knievel level stunt rider, selling out stadiums just to watch a single stunt. Yes I typed that with a straight face, but you go ahead and get your giggles out. Anyways in all that time Mephisto never came to collect, but now suddenly the moment Roxanne comes back into Johnny’s life, Mephisto’s “son,” Blackheart, decides to try and usurp daddy’s throne by taking power of a thousand corrupt souls that have been hidden since the Civil War. Also at this point it becomes confusing as to whether or not they’re trying to be an action movie or a horror movie as Blackheart is introduced walking through a barren wasteland with sudden single frame flashes of his eyes glowing red along with a quick loud noise to make people jump in their seats.
So now Mephisto comes to collect, transforming Johnny into the Ghost Rider in order to hunt down the hidden souls, or rather the scroll/contract with all of their signatures, and stop Blackheart. Blackheart sensing the awakening of the Ghost Rider recruits the aid of three elemental demons of Earth, Air and Water (sorry, not fire or heart). And here’s where things start to fall apart like a Jenga tower after five hours of drinking, but at the same time go a direction few super hero movies of this sort have.
First the good. While not happy with his new situation, Johnny doesn’t become self loathing and despondent about his new powers, instead he tries to learn, understand and control them so much so that he can access elements of them while in his human form. Kudos for that.
Now the bad. Ghost Rider stomps through all three demons without any problem. They attack him one at a time every night for three nights, and the most trouble he has is figuring out how to kill a guy made of wind, a problem that he solves in less than a minute. Until the last fight with Blackheart there is actually no real challenge for him, and even that’s mostly because they’re fighting during the day so Johnny can’t fully transform unless he’s in the shade.
Other shortcomings are Sam Elliot’s character as the Caretaker, who’s literally a caretaker of a cemetery and turns out to be [drum role] the previous Ghost Rider who was also a cowboy making this Sam Elliot’s *1,000 time playing a cowboy. (*this number is in no way accurate and is used for joke purposes only. A fact though is that Sam Elliot is awesome) The shortcoming actually comes at the end when the Caretaker transforms into his Ghost Rider form, complete with horse that leaves a fire trail like the Fire Mares in Krull, for one final ride to lead Johnny to Blackheart. After leading Johnny to a church, he turns back into his human form and rides off, presumably fading and going to heaven (or hell, I’m not sure as that whole thing is very vague). He doesn’t stay to help and fight or anything. Lame.
Then there’s Ghost Rider in general. It feels like their hands were really tied with budgeting the special effects because he really has no personality. He just kind of shows up, rides around, fights for a couple seconds then transforms back into Johnny. While I can only imagine how hard it is to inject personality into a skull that can’t really express emotion, the producers should have considered that before green lighting the project.
And lastly, the end just doesn’t make any sense what so ever. Blackheart is defeated but the souls are basically unaccounted for. Technically they should still be out and about in the world but no one seems to think that that’s a bad thing. Also Mephisto shows up to congratulate Johnny on a job well done, blah blah blah, you’ll serve me well in the future, blah blah standard set up to Johnny saying basically, I’m going to use these powers to fight you from now on. So why doesn’t Mephisto just take them back?
Extended Cut Note: It exists, but I haven’t seen it, nor do I know anyone who has. However it only has 9 extra minutes so I can’t imagine it being any better.
Marvel Movie Score: 4.5
Why That?: I could watch it again. The problems don’t hammer you over the head that much, the acting is good, and all in all it’s descent. However I believe this movie shows that Mark Steven Johnson should stick to directing. As much as I respect movies that are written and directed by the same person, his writing is still pretty weak while the visuals are very sharp and perfect for what he’s trying to do. Also for those of you who enjoy crazy like I do, rent this and watch the special features for a new found appreciation for Cage’s insanity.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
X-Men 3 is an exercise in incompetence and was so before filming even started. Originally Brian Singer was going to hammer Superman out and immediately get back to Fox to do X-Men 3. Instead Fox turned into a 3 year old who doesn’t get their way and fired him, thereby giving Singer all the time in the world to ruin Superman. They then hired British director Matthew Vaughn, who had directed the fantastic gangster flick L4yer Cake. However Vaughn quickly left stating that he didn’t want to be away from his family, but this absolutely stunk as PR chafe. A little digging found that Fox was rushing production to try and get their movie out before Singer’s in yet another childish move. So their next move was to create the ultimate in Hollywood Yes-men team of Brett Rattner directing and Zak Penn writing.
Every success in X-Men 3 is also a failure. We finally get to see a Danger Room sequence that includes Sentinels, but all we see are their eyes glowing in the dark until Wolverine has Colossus throw him at a Sentinel where we hear claws striking metal and a large head comes crashing down with Wolverine still attached to the back of it. One scene, three failures: 1) as mentioned you never actually see a Sentinel. 2) Colossus throwing Wolverine is a classic X-Men thing called a Fastball Special, but the way they do it just looks utterly silly. 3) when the Sentinel head crashes down, Wolverine is very clearly not hanging on to it but then it slides to a stop and he suddenly walks out from behind it.
New characters are introduced on both sides. For the X-Men we get Hank McCoy, Beast (played by Kelsey Grammer), which is easily the one thing they got right in the movie, massive credit to Grammer for that. Then there’s Warren Worthington III, Angel, shown heavily in trailers, a very major character in the history of the X-Men, and terribly wasted here. They try to use him to tell a moral story but I’m not sure what that is. See his father is the primary financial backer for a new mutant cure and wants his son to be cured. His son doesn’t want to be cured so he flies from California to New York to seek shelter within the Xavier institute. Then he disappears until the end when he saves his dad from falling to his death. This actually leads to another MAJOR problem but I’ll get to that in a moment.
On Magneto’s side of this whole thing we’re first re-introduced to Pyro who’s now suddenly a psychopath. Then we meet a bunch of supporting mutant characters that exist just to make comic fans angry. There’s Calisto who in the comics only has heightened senses and is a strong fighter, now she can move really fast and has the incredibly plot convenient ability to locate mutants and know what their powers are. There’s Kid Omega and no one knows why he’s called that since all he can do is sprout spikes. Even later then we get to meet the Juggernaut, now apparently a mutant who’s back story has nothing to do with Charles Xavier where in the comics they are step-brothers and Juggernaut isn’t a mutant. And to close we also get Jamie Maddrox, the Multiple Man, who as one would imagine can create duplicates of himself and in the comics has never been a villain. He’s only used for one scene after this and it’s painfully plot convenient since Magneto met Maddrox by coincidence while freeing Juggernaut. To sum up, the amount of plot convenient powers in Magneto’s little army is ridiculous.
Getting back to the problem brought up at the end of Angel’s description, there are two primary locations in this movie; the X-Mansion located in upstate New York, and Magneto’s base camp located in San Francisco, California, yet somehow people regularly travel back and forth between the two in a matter of minutes. I can let a lot of things slide, but this is just flat out stupid. It’s so stupid I can’t even think of a witty joke about it. And the fact that it happens more than once is absolutely infuriating.
Another key plot point in this is the return of Jean Grey, now known as the Phoenix, an alternate personality her mind developed at a young age. I’m just going to skip over all of that stuff though since I really want to get to the heart of the matter; the final fight. The money shot. The one thing that should make every horrible thing in this movie worth sitting through. Instead it’s just a cluster fuck of nonsense. At this point Magneto has gained Phoenix as an ally and located the source of the cure, a young mutant he openly plans to kill. He’s being kept on Alcatraz so Magneto gathers his army of idiots onto the Golden Gate Bridge and breaks off a chunk of it to transport his army to the island, where he could have just as easily moved the chunk of the bridge with nobody on it, and dropped it on the building. Then he sends his army to fight the soldiers sporting plastic guns (so that Magneto can’t stop them) that shoot darts loaded with the cure, because they’re just pawns thereby showing that Magneto does care about mutant kind (that’s sarcasm, by the way), and when his army starts loosing he yells at Phoenix to do something, because apparently he didn’t actually have a plan for her other than to get her on his side. Oh and did I mention that Magneto wanted to stop the cure because he knew the government would make a weapon out of it, while the government wasn’t forcing the cure on anybody but did develop the guns that shoot the cure for the sole purpose of defending humans from aggressive mutants, specifically Magneto? I didn’t? Well there you go. The whole final attack by Magneto actually proved that he’s wrong and incompetent.
This movie completely feels like it was done by a different crew. The only thing linking it to the previous movies is where the story picks up. The things that didn’t make sense in the first two were things that dawned on you when you think about it, but in this everything is just falling apart immediately.
Marvel Movie Score: 3
Why That?: While I honestly believe that I can actually find more flaws in this movie than Blade Trinity (as usual I did not name nearly all of them here), it had just enough things to give it just one more point. I think it’s because it’s easier to watch and more fun to pick apart. Also of note is the revelation that Singer’s version was going to gently shift the focus away from Wolverine and bring it to Jean and Scott in the same way that the Phoenix Saga did. At least one good thing came out of X-Men 3, and that’s this image of Famke Janssen as Jean Grey that was put on the backer board of the Jean Grey action figure. Show me your “Oh” face next, Miss Janssen.
.jpg)
Every success in X-Men 3 is also a failure. We finally get to see a Danger Room sequence that includes Sentinels, but all we see are their eyes glowing in the dark until Wolverine has Colossus throw him at a Sentinel where we hear claws striking metal and a large head comes crashing down with Wolverine still attached to the back of it. One scene, three failures: 1) as mentioned you never actually see a Sentinel. 2) Colossus throwing Wolverine is a classic X-Men thing called a Fastball Special, but the way they do it just looks utterly silly. 3) when the Sentinel head crashes down, Wolverine is very clearly not hanging on to it but then it slides to a stop and he suddenly walks out from behind it.
New characters are introduced on both sides. For the X-Men we get Hank McCoy, Beast (played by Kelsey Grammer), which is easily the one thing they got right in the movie, massive credit to Grammer for that. Then there’s Warren Worthington III, Angel, shown heavily in trailers, a very major character in the history of the X-Men, and terribly wasted here. They try to use him to tell a moral story but I’m not sure what that is. See his father is the primary financial backer for a new mutant cure and wants his son to be cured. His son doesn’t want to be cured so he flies from California to New York to seek shelter within the Xavier institute. Then he disappears until the end when he saves his dad from falling to his death. This actually leads to another MAJOR problem but I’ll get to that in a moment.
On Magneto’s side of this whole thing we’re first re-introduced to Pyro who’s now suddenly a psychopath. Then we meet a bunch of supporting mutant characters that exist just to make comic fans angry. There’s Calisto who in the comics only has heightened senses and is a strong fighter, now she can move really fast and has the incredibly plot convenient ability to locate mutants and know what their powers are. There’s Kid Omega and no one knows why he’s called that since all he can do is sprout spikes. Even later then we get to meet the Juggernaut, now apparently a mutant who’s back story has nothing to do with Charles Xavier where in the comics they are step-brothers and Juggernaut isn’t a mutant. And to close we also get Jamie Maddrox, the Multiple Man, who as one would imagine can create duplicates of himself and in the comics has never been a villain. He’s only used for one scene after this and it’s painfully plot convenient since Magneto met Maddrox by coincidence while freeing Juggernaut. To sum up, the amount of plot convenient powers in Magneto’s little army is ridiculous.
Getting back to the problem brought up at the end of Angel’s description, there are two primary locations in this movie; the X-Mansion located in upstate New York, and Magneto’s base camp located in San Francisco, California, yet somehow people regularly travel back and forth between the two in a matter of minutes. I can let a lot of things slide, but this is just flat out stupid. It’s so stupid I can’t even think of a witty joke about it. And the fact that it happens more than once is absolutely infuriating.
Another key plot point in this is the return of Jean Grey, now known as the Phoenix, an alternate personality her mind developed at a young age. I’m just going to skip over all of that stuff though since I really want to get to the heart of the matter; the final fight. The money shot. The one thing that should make every horrible thing in this movie worth sitting through. Instead it’s just a cluster fuck of nonsense. At this point Magneto has gained Phoenix as an ally and located the source of the cure, a young mutant he openly plans to kill. He’s being kept on Alcatraz so Magneto gathers his army of idiots onto the Golden Gate Bridge and breaks off a chunk of it to transport his army to the island, where he could have just as easily moved the chunk of the bridge with nobody on it, and dropped it on the building. Then he sends his army to fight the soldiers sporting plastic guns (so that Magneto can’t stop them) that shoot darts loaded with the cure, because they’re just pawns thereby showing that Magneto does care about mutant kind (that’s sarcasm, by the way), and when his army starts loosing he yells at Phoenix to do something, because apparently he didn’t actually have a plan for her other than to get her on his side. Oh and did I mention that Magneto wanted to stop the cure because he knew the government would make a weapon out of it, while the government wasn’t forcing the cure on anybody but did develop the guns that shoot the cure for the sole purpose of defending humans from aggressive mutants, specifically Magneto? I didn’t? Well there you go. The whole final attack by Magneto actually proved that he’s wrong and incompetent.
This movie completely feels like it was done by a different crew. The only thing linking it to the previous movies is where the story picks up. The things that didn’t make sense in the first two were things that dawned on you when you think about it, but in this everything is just falling apart immediately.
Marvel Movie Score: 3
Why That?: While I honestly believe that I can actually find more flaws in this movie than Blade Trinity (as usual I did not name nearly all of them here), it had just enough things to give it just one more point. I think it’s because it’s easier to watch and more fun to pick apart. Also of note is the revelation that Singer’s version was going to gently shift the focus away from Wolverine and bring it to Jean and Scott in the same way that the Phoenix Saga did. At least one good thing came out of X-Men 3, and that’s this image of Famke Janssen as Jean Grey that was put on the backer board of the Jean Grey action figure. Show me your “Oh” face next, Miss Janssen.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Fantastic Four (2005)
Another brief history lesson: In 1994 a studio got Director Roger Corman to film a Fantastic Four movie as fast as possible as they would have other wise lost the rights if they didn’t begin production by a certain date. Corman got it made in time and within budget, but it was never planned to actually see any form of official release. Which is good for him because even by Corman standards (seriously, read up on Roger Corman, his entire film career is incredibly interesting) this was a horrible movie that is honestly so painful I can’t sit through it beginning to end, which is saying a lot because I love bad movies and Mystery Science Theater 3000 (a show that featured many Corman movies).
So round two with the first family of comics shows us how to make a good, bad comic book movie.
The bad: Some little plot holes, missed opportunities, and HORRIBLE portrayal of one of the most loved villains in the Marvel Universe, dare I say of all comics even.
The good: Of all Marvel movies up ‘till now (and so far since) it’s the one that is the most fun. It’s not bogged down with unnecessary emotional storylines (see Spider-Man) or pseudo social commentary (see X-Men), it is just a damn fun movie.
Hands down every comic fan’s biggest complaint about the movie is the portrayal of Dr. Doom. In the comics he is unbearably arrogant (always refers to himself in the third person, made a deal with the devil only because he was so full of himself that he knew he’d be able to break the deal with no consequences), powerful, charismatic, brilliant, and answers to no one. Oh, and he’s not really a doctor as he never actually graduated. In the movie however he’s a quick talking, manipulative business man (and a bit of a scientist though this is only implied), head of Doom Industries, always looking for the best way to line his wallet even at the expense of others. Despite this I think Julian McMahon did a good job with what he was given.
However this all leads to a missed golden opportunity. In the comics whenever anything goes wrong, no matter how obvious it is as to whose fault it is, if something can be remotely linked to Reed Richards, Doom will indeed blame Richards. In the scene where the space station is hit by a cloud of cosmic radiation due to an unforeseen miscalculation by Reed, it would have been absolutely perfect if Doom had instead had the space station secretly moved prior to their arrival so that they wouldn’t have to wait so long for the storm. After which he would have still have blamed Richards.
As for the rest of the cast, kudos. Everyone did a fantastic (HAW!) job, even Jessica Alba, who was clearly cast just to bring in more fanboys. Ian Gruffudd seemed very natural as a genius still not sure of himself. Steeling the show however is a toss up to both Michael Chikalis as Ben Grimm, the Thing and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. The toss up is partially due to how well they play off each other and how perfectly it mirrors their comic counter parts, Johnny always antagonizing Ben, Ben lashing back, but the minute things become serious you can tell that they would fight to the death for each other.
A couple plot holes I feel MUST be addressed: The movie goes right from the cosmic storm hitting the station and knocking everyone out, to the crew being back on earth without even a hint as to how that happened (see Director’s Cut notes below). A quick rescue is a ridiculous idea, but it’s better than nothing. And then there’s Sue turning invisible and stripping on the bridge to get past a barricade. The idea is that somehow her being invisible will allow her, Reed, and Johnny to get passed the police, but all she does is turn invisible, strip (turn visible again so we can see her in her underwear, then turn invisible again), then she pushes through the crowd while Reed and Johnny clearly just sneak around the side of an ambulance.
But as a sign of just how fun this movie is, few people even noticed that there’s only one fight scene in the entire movie, and it’s at the very end. Sure there’s some action here and there, but nothing spectacular. That one fight scene at the end, though short, is very fun, starting with a couple minutes of the Thing and Dr. Doom just beating the tar out of each other and culminating with the Fantastic Four really working as a team.
Director’s Cut Note: If you have the option, see this version. There are three new scenes of note; the first showing what happened after the cloud crashed through the station and how they get back to earth, the second adding to the relationship development between Ben and Alicia so now instead of her showing up at the end as Ben’s girlfriend suddenly, we now know something of what happened between them, and a scene of Johnny coming to grips with himself and his immaturity.
Marvel Movie Score = 8
Why That?: The horrible treatment of Dr. Doom is unforgivable. Sure they did it this way to save on time, but this character deserves better. But in the end the movie just pulls it off somehow, unlike X-Men where all of its short comings are irritating to watch over and over, here they’re just easily ignored. Also aside from a couple of slightly questionable scenes this makes for a good family movie, leading to the sequel to be rated PG as they clearly have decided to make this franchise family friendly.
So round two with the first family of comics shows us how to make a good, bad comic book movie.
The bad: Some little plot holes, missed opportunities, and HORRIBLE portrayal of one of the most loved villains in the Marvel Universe, dare I say of all comics even.
The good: Of all Marvel movies up ‘till now (and so far since) it’s the one that is the most fun. It’s not bogged down with unnecessary emotional storylines (see Spider-Man) or pseudo social commentary (see X-Men), it is just a damn fun movie.
Hands down every comic fan’s biggest complaint about the movie is the portrayal of Dr. Doom. In the comics he is unbearably arrogant (always refers to himself in the third person, made a deal with the devil only because he was so full of himself that he knew he’d be able to break the deal with no consequences), powerful, charismatic, brilliant, and answers to no one. Oh, and he’s not really a doctor as he never actually graduated. In the movie however he’s a quick talking, manipulative business man (and a bit of a scientist though this is only implied), head of Doom Industries, always looking for the best way to line his wallet even at the expense of others. Despite this I think Julian McMahon did a good job with what he was given.
However this all leads to a missed golden opportunity. In the comics whenever anything goes wrong, no matter how obvious it is as to whose fault it is, if something can be remotely linked to Reed Richards, Doom will indeed blame Richards. In the scene where the space station is hit by a cloud of cosmic radiation due to an unforeseen miscalculation by Reed, it would have been absolutely perfect if Doom had instead had the space station secretly moved prior to their arrival so that they wouldn’t have to wait so long for the storm. After which he would have still have blamed Richards.
As for the rest of the cast, kudos. Everyone did a fantastic (HAW!) job, even Jessica Alba, who was clearly cast just to bring in more fanboys. Ian Gruffudd seemed very natural as a genius still not sure of himself. Steeling the show however is a toss up to both Michael Chikalis as Ben Grimm, the Thing and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. The toss up is partially due to how well they play off each other and how perfectly it mirrors their comic counter parts, Johnny always antagonizing Ben, Ben lashing back, but the minute things become serious you can tell that they would fight to the death for each other.
A couple plot holes I feel MUST be addressed: The movie goes right from the cosmic storm hitting the station and knocking everyone out, to the crew being back on earth without even a hint as to how that happened (see Director’s Cut notes below). A quick rescue is a ridiculous idea, but it’s better than nothing. And then there’s Sue turning invisible and stripping on the bridge to get past a barricade. The idea is that somehow her being invisible will allow her, Reed, and Johnny to get passed the police, but all she does is turn invisible, strip (turn visible again so we can see her in her underwear, then turn invisible again), then she pushes through the crowd while Reed and Johnny clearly just sneak around the side of an ambulance.
But as a sign of just how fun this movie is, few people even noticed that there’s only one fight scene in the entire movie, and it’s at the very end. Sure there’s some action here and there, but nothing spectacular. That one fight scene at the end, though short, is very fun, starting with a couple minutes of the Thing and Dr. Doom just beating the tar out of each other and culminating with the Fantastic Four really working as a team.
Director’s Cut Note: If you have the option, see this version. There are three new scenes of note; the first showing what happened after the cloud crashed through the station and how they get back to earth, the second adding to the relationship development between Ben and Alicia so now instead of her showing up at the end as Ben’s girlfriend suddenly, we now know something of what happened between them, and a scene of Johnny coming to grips with himself and his immaturity.
Marvel Movie Score = 8
Why That?: The horrible treatment of Dr. Doom is unforgivable. Sure they did it this way to save on time, but this character deserves better. But in the end the movie just pulls it off somehow, unlike X-Men where all of its short comings are irritating to watch over and over, here they’re just easily ignored. Also aside from a couple of slightly questionable scenes this makes for a good family movie, leading to the sequel to be rated PG as they clearly have decided to make this franchise family friendly.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Man-Thing (2005)
I contemplated whether or not to review Man-Thing for quite a while since it’s a) made for TV, and b) horrible. However when it first went into production, in fact while it was still being filmed, it was intended for theatrical release so I decided to go for it and just keep it short.
Another history lesson: Man-Thing and Swamp Thing were actually created by two roommates who started down the same path and then each put their own spin on a basic idea. They then amicably took their ideas to the two different big houses of comics, DC and Marvel, and sold them off.
When watching Man-Thing it’s hard to believe that it was ever intended for theatrical release as almost every aspect of it screams, “Made for TV.” While I’m sure they wouldn’t have advertised it as a Marvel film, since the character is fairly obscure, it still doesn’t really work as a horror movie. Most of the plethora of lame PG-13 horror movies to come out in the past few years, are scarier than this. However it does start exactly like one would expect a lame slasher flick to start; a couple of teens getting it on get slaughtered mysteriously. Here’s the lame thing about that, Man-Thing doesn’t just kill indiscriminately like that. In fact being part of nature you’d think he’d encourage one of the most natural instincts of all living creatures, but whatever.
Oddly though the story is taken from a Man-Thing comic story, where in a rich land developer is trying to buy up all the land of the swamp the Man-Thing protects, killing anyone who gets in his way. Unfortunately this story follows the new sheriff in town, you know, the one from the city who clashes with the locals and their set ways, and we don’t even really see Man-Thing until the end of the movie.
Marvel Movie Score = 0.5
Why That?: Mostly because it’s not as bad as Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four. In fact if it weren’t based on a Marvel Comic, it’d be a decent made for TV movie. Still a bad movie, but decent. Really the only thing this movie has going for it is in the beginning when the two teens are killed, the girl has a great rack. And considering I don’t give a rat’s ass about nudity in film, that’s saying something.
Another history lesson: Man-Thing and Swamp Thing were actually created by two roommates who started down the same path and then each put their own spin on a basic idea. They then amicably took their ideas to the two different big houses of comics, DC and Marvel, and sold them off.
When watching Man-Thing it’s hard to believe that it was ever intended for theatrical release as almost every aspect of it screams, “Made for TV.” While I’m sure they wouldn’t have advertised it as a Marvel film, since the character is fairly obscure, it still doesn’t really work as a horror movie. Most of the plethora of lame PG-13 horror movies to come out in the past few years, are scarier than this. However it does start exactly like one would expect a lame slasher flick to start; a couple of teens getting it on get slaughtered mysteriously. Here’s the lame thing about that, Man-Thing doesn’t just kill indiscriminately like that. In fact being part of nature you’d think he’d encourage one of the most natural instincts of all living creatures, but whatever.
Oddly though the story is taken from a Man-Thing comic story, where in a rich land developer is trying to buy up all the land of the swamp the Man-Thing protects, killing anyone who gets in his way. Unfortunately this story follows the new sheriff in town, you know, the one from the city who clashes with the locals and their set ways, and we don’t even really see Man-Thing until the end of the movie.
Marvel Movie Score = 0.5
Why That?: Mostly because it’s not as bad as Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four. In fact if it weren’t based on a Marvel Comic, it’d be a decent made for TV movie. Still a bad movie, but decent. Really the only thing this movie has going for it is in the beginning when the two teens are killed, the girl has a great rack. And considering I don’t give a rat’s ass about nudity in film, that’s saying something.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Elektra (2005)
And so Mark Steven Johnson (writer/director of Daredevil) is out of this follow up to Daredevil, only to be replaced by Zak Penn, a name that now invokes tremendous rage inside of me. This is Zak’s first Marvel Movie as head writer (he helped a bit on X2). It’s sad because before this he wrote PCU, one of my favorite comedies, of course before that he worked on Last Action Hero, but I digress.
Now you don’t have to have seen Daredevil (to be called DD from here on) to understand what’s going on in Elektra, actually Elektra makes less sense if you have seen DD. In fact this movie feels like it was written without any consideration to Elektra’s already established character, where she was very strong willed but at the same time compassionate. Now she’s a killer with an obsessive compulsive disorder and a somewhat Spock like, emotionless speech pattern. Now this could have been explained easily by saying that her being brought back from the dead left her changed, but instead it’s just how she is. This is also a little odd because DD ends with Matt discovering a necklace left for him by Elektra to let him know that she’s alive, which to me is a sign that she’s still compassionate.
On its own merit Elektra can best be described as weak. It’s not horrible, but everything they try to do to make you either care about someone or to surprise you with some sort of twist just doesn’t work at all. In fact I actually rewatched this with my wife and a couple times she thought she missed something because the reveals had such little impact.
However they did do an excellent job of introducing us to the Hand, a centuries old order of evil mystical ninja (and yes, the Foot from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a spin on the Hand). They also introduce Stick and the Chaste, the good version of the Hand. Stick is portrayed perfectly by Terrence “Kneel before, Zod,” Stamp, as the blind bad-ass leader of the Chaste. They even got his outfit spot on which gave me a much needed smile.
They do fall short on the portrayal of the Hand’s elite soldiers, trying a little too hard to give Elektra overwhelming odds to over come. A major disappointment comes in here as they really waste three characters. They have a large man named Stone who as you can guess is really strong and had solid skin. However this character is actually supposed to be a member of the Chaste. Now while that may seem like nitpicking, Stone was actually a significant character so this isn’t something that would go unnoticed. Then there’s Typhoid who was apparently supposed to be Typhoid Mary, a long standing villain in the Marvel Universe. However this Typhoid character has only one thing in common with the comic version; they’re both women. That is it which is tragic because Typhoid Mary is a really interesting character. And lastly there’s Kinkou who isn’t based on anyone, but all he does is get killed in one of those big reveal moments. Apparently he’s supposed to have incredible speed and agility through perfect balance, but they do absolutely nothing to show this and I had to learn that by looking it up online. There were two other elites but the leader was well developed and the other was a guy named Tattoo who had living tattoos and was used as perfectly as a character like that can be.
Also no thirteen year old is as annoying as the girl in this movie, and yes I have met a lot of thirteen year olds in the past years. The question then is, has Zak Penn? The breaking point for me is when Elektra is trying to teach her how to meditate and immediately all the girl does is fidget and wave her hands in front of Elektra’s closed eyes.
Director’s Cut note: I haven’t seen it but there is one out there. The reason being is I don’t know anyone who owns it and finding rental versions of Director’s Cuts is very uncommon but something tells me that this one is more like the Blade Trinity Extended Version than the Daredevil Director’s Cut.
Marvel Movie Score = 1.5
Why That?: Like I said it’s not a terrible movie, but through out the entire thing I just flat out don’t care about any of the characters or any of the plot points they tried to hammer into me. The fact that they seemed to ignore the character already developed in DD just took me out of the movie a bit as well. Plus the inclusion of the Chaste/Hand stuff in this movie just annoyed me that they weren’t used in DD instead, however this same stuff is the main reason to actually see this movie.
Now you don’t have to have seen Daredevil (to be called DD from here on) to understand what’s going on in Elektra, actually Elektra makes less sense if you have seen DD. In fact this movie feels like it was written without any consideration to Elektra’s already established character, where she was very strong willed but at the same time compassionate. Now she’s a killer with an obsessive compulsive disorder and a somewhat Spock like, emotionless speech pattern. Now this could have been explained easily by saying that her being brought back from the dead left her changed, but instead it’s just how she is. This is also a little odd because DD ends with Matt discovering a necklace left for him by Elektra to let him know that she’s alive, which to me is a sign that she’s still compassionate.
On its own merit Elektra can best be described as weak. It’s not horrible, but everything they try to do to make you either care about someone or to surprise you with some sort of twist just doesn’t work at all. In fact I actually rewatched this with my wife and a couple times she thought she missed something because the reveals had such little impact.
However they did do an excellent job of introducing us to the Hand, a centuries old order of evil mystical ninja (and yes, the Foot from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a spin on the Hand). They also introduce Stick and the Chaste, the good version of the Hand. Stick is portrayed perfectly by Terrence “Kneel before, Zod,” Stamp, as the blind bad-ass leader of the Chaste. They even got his outfit spot on which gave me a much needed smile.
They do fall short on the portrayal of the Hand’s elite soldiers, trying a little too hard to give Elektra overwhelming odds to over come. A major disappointment comes in here as they really waste three characters. They have a large man named Stone who as you can guess is really strong and had solid skin. However this character is actually supposed to be a member of the Chaste. Now while that may seem like nitpicking, Stone was actually a significant character so this isn’t something that would go unnoticed. Then there’s Typhoid who was apparently supposed to be Typhoid Mary, a long standing villain in the Marvel Universe. However this Typhoid character has only one thing in common with the comic version; they’re both women. That is it which is tragic because Typhoid Mary is a really interesting character. And lastly there’s Kinkou who isn’t based on anyone, but all he does is get killed in one of those big reveal moments. Apparently he’s supposed to have incredible speed and agility through perfect balance, but they do absolutely nothing to show this and I had to learn that by looking it up online. There were two other elites but the leader was well developed and the other was a guy named Tattoo who had living tattoos and was used as perfectly as a character like that can be.
Also no thirteen year old is as annoying as the girl in this movie, and yes I have met a lot of thirteen year olds in the past years. The question then is, has Zak Penn? The breaking point for me is when Elektra is trying to teach her how to meditate and immediately all the girl does is fidget and wave her hands in front of Elektra’s closed eyes.
Director’s Cut note: I haven’t seen it but there is one out there. The reason being is I don’t know anyone who owns it and finding rental versions of Director’s Cuts is very uncommon but something tells me that this one is more like the Blade Trinity Extended Version than the Daredevil Director’s Cut.
Marvel Movie Score = 1.5
Why That?: Like I said it’s not a terrible movie, but through out the entire thing I just flat out don’t care about any of the characters or any of the plot points they tried to hammer into me. The fact that they seemed to ignore the character already developed in DD just took me out of the movie a bit as well. Plus the inclusion of the Chaste/Hand stuff in this movie just annoyed me that they weren’t used in DD instead, however this same stuff is the main reason to actually see this movie.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Blade Trinity (2004)
And so the Blade series brings us another first for Marvel movies; the first trilogy entry. Oh yeah, it was also the first trilogy entry to suck horribly on levels that no analogy about sucking can do justice.
Blade Trinity marks David Goyer’s second writer/director film, but it’s his first big budget theatrical one (the first was direct to video, Zig Zag, starting Blade’s Wesley Snipes) and feels like something I would have wrote in high school, and yes I just insulted myself. It has dozens of really unnecessary plot devices and characters, and above all it has my deep hatred for the “what you know about vampires (in this case Dracula specifically) is wrong” plot device, which is a shame because Drake, which is apparently Dracula’s real name, is played by Dominic Purcell who is a fantastic actor.
Also there’s a good amount of unnecessary swearing, a good portion of which just doesn’t make sense. Here’s an example for you, this conversation takes place as HHH (yes the wrestler) introduces a captured Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) to his genetically altered vampire dog:
Hannibal King: Well, that depends who you ask. Because clearly, this dog has a bigger dick than you.
Jarko Grimwood: And when the fuck did you see my dick, fuck-face?
Seriously, no one talks like that, anywhere.
This movie feels like Goyer filled the script with a bunch of ideas that sounded cool to him but no one stopped and said, “David, you know a lot of this really doesn’t make any sense at all.” Here’s a list of such things, created as I realized that my first attempt at this review was getting REALLY long because of all the horrible things I wanted to address:
- The opening line of the movie is this - Hannibal King: In the movies, Dracula wears a cape, and some old English guy always manages to save the day at the last minute with crosses and holy water. But everybody knows the movies are full of shit. The truth is, it started with Blade, and it ended with him. The rest of us were just along for the ride.
Yes it sounds cool, sort of, but it doesn’t make sense.
- Cool equipment like high power hand guns with video cameras in them (and mini DVD burner), bullets with electrical components, and something that looks like a bow but has a high concentrated UV light instead of a string, used to slice up vampires. This UV light is, and I quote directly, “half as hot as the sun.”
- A pissed Abigail (Jessica Biel) readies herself for the final assault by target practicing with her bow and arrow, firing through something that reads speed and power of each arrow. Somehow while using a compound bow, which has a limit on how far back you can pull the string, the speed and force of impact goes up with every shot.
- The Nightstalkers have a biochemist who’s a single mother and blind. This is clearly done to try and make us care about the character, and fails miserably because she has maybe 5 minutes of screen time. However she is played by the bat-shit crazy Natasha Leone; check out the special features on the DVD where she talks about doing research for this role by spending time at a school for the blind even though her character being blind is pretty damn inconsequential plus unrealistic.
- Use silver in a gas form to rescue Hannibal King (it’s pumped into the room he’s being kept in). More specifically it's colloidal silver, which within two seconds of research I discovered is very bad for a human to inhale.
- Abigail likes to listen to her iPod while fighting, with ear buds and all, which would make it ridiculously easy for a vampire to sneak up on her.
I literally could go on and on for several pages, but I think I’ve made my point.
Honestly the only thing that makes this movie remotely tolerable is Ryan Reynolds. While Jessica Biel isn’t terrible, her role is just too bland and not developed enough.
Unrated Version Note: There is honestly nothing worth watching in the unrated version. All of it belonged on the cutting room floor, what incredibly little there was that is.
Marvel Movie Score = 2
Why That?: I had to rewatch this movie since my first viewing was so forgettable, but the entire time my mind couldn’t help but pick every scene in the movie apart. So that 2 is all for Ryan Reynolds keeping me from turning the movie off and giving up.
Blade Trinity marks David Goyer’s second writer/director film, but it’s his first big budget theatrical one (the first was direct to video, Zig Zag, starting Blade’s Wesley Snipes) and feels like something I would have wrote in high school, and yes I just insulted myself. It has dozens of really unnecessary plot devices and characters, and above all it has my deep hatred for the “what you know about vampires (in this case Dracula specifically) is wrong” plot device, which is a shame because Drake, which is apparently Dracula’s real name, is played by Dominic Purcell who is a fantastic actor.
Also there’s a good amount of unnecessary swearing, a good portion of which just doesn’t make sense. Here’s an example for you, this conversation takes place as HHH (yes the wrestler) introduces a captured Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) to his genetically altered vampire dog:
Hannibal King: Well, that depends who you ask. Because clearly, this dog has a bigger dick than you.
Jarko Grimwood: And when the fuck did you see my dick, fuck-face?
Seriously, no one talks like that, anywhere.
This movie feels like Goyer filled the script with a bunch of ideas that sounded cool to him but no one stopped and said, “David, you know a lot of this really doesn’t make any sense at all.” Here’s a list of such things, created as I realized that my first attempt at this review was getting REALLY long because of all the horrible things I wanted to address:
- The opening line of the movie is this - Hannibal King: In the movies, Dracula wears a cape, and some old English guy always manages to save the day at the last minute with crosses and holy water. But everybody knows the movies are full of shit. The truth is, it started with Blade, and it ended with him. The rest of us were just along for the ride.
Yes it sounds cool, sort of, but it doesn’t make sense.
- Cool equipment like high power hand guns with video cameras in them (and mini DVD burner), bullets with electrical components, and something that looks like a bow but has a high concentrated UV light instead of a string, used to slice up vampires. This UV light is, and I quote directly, “half as hot as the sun.”
- A pissed Abigail (Jessica Biel) readies herself for the final assault by target practicing with her bow and arrow, firing through something that reads speed and power of each arrow. Somehow while using a compound bow, which has a limit on how far back you can pull the string, the speed and force of impact goes up with every shot.
- The Nightstalkers have a biochemist who’s a single mother and blind. This is clearly done to try and make us care about the character, and fails miserably because she has maybe 5 minutes of screen time. However she is played by the bat-shit crazy Natasha Leone; check out the special features on the DVD where she talks about doing research for this role by spending time at a school for the blind even though her character being blind is pretty damn inconsequential plus unrealistic.
- Use silver in a gas form to rescue Hannibal King (it’s pumped into the room he’s being kept in). More specifically it's colloidal silver, which within two seconds of research I discovered is very bad for a human to inhale.
- Abigail likes to listen to her iPod while fighting, with ear buds and all, which would make it ridiculously easy for a vampire to sneak up on her.
I literally could go on and on for several pages, but I think I’ve made my point.
Honestly the only thing that makes this movie remotely tolerable is Ryan Reynolds. While Jessica Biel isn’t terrible, her role is just too bland and not developed enough.
Unrated Version Note: There is honestly nothing worth watching in the unrated version. All of it belonged on the cutting room floor, what incredibly little there was that is.
Marvel Movie Score = 2
Why That?: I had to rewatch this movie since my first viewing was so forgettable, but the entire time my mind couldn’t help but pick every scene in the movie apart. So that 2 is all for Ryan Reynolds keeping me from turning the movie off and giving up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)