Tag Archives: Superheroes

Movies, Reviews

Super (2010)

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Judges say: meh, it's not that bad. 6.5 for effort.
Judges say: meh, it’s not that bad. 6.5 for effort.

Now we come to Super, written and directed by James Gunn. A “dark comedy” apparently full of stunning, satirical insight. Or so you’d think if you believe what you read. I believe in using past experience as a guide. Some people might consider that an inexcusable bias…but some people need to check the tree in their own eye before they start bitching about the splinters in mine. And experience told me to stay the hell away from James Gunn after 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake, which he wrote. No, I haven’t forgotten. Yes, I’m still holding that against him. Is that fair…? Probably not. But it’s not about what’s fair: it’s about what I want.

I wanted a cast of characters I could give a crap about, but Dawn of the Dead‘s bunch felt more like the subjects of someone’s half-assed social experiment. We were so far removed from them the script had to work overtime to characterize them through clunky, expository dialogue (the laziest kind of characterization around…apart from voice-over narration). So I went into Super with serious trepidation. I don’t watch The Office, so Rainn Wilson held no appeal for me. And sure, Ellen Page was in Inception…but before that, she played Shadowcat in X-Men: The Last Stand. Liv Tyler is…Liv Tyler. And Kevin Bacon is in serious danger of being typecast as The Villain.

Still, the things that annoyed me about Super have proved to be crowd-pleasing. So I once again get to be the asshole in the room who made the mistake of reading comic books back in the 1990s, when Super‘s pet issues were common storytelling currency and everybody took a whack at them (with a pipe wrench) sooner or later. I’ve seen this movie called “perhaps the definitive take on self-reflexive superheroes,” once again revealing film critic’s monumental ignorance of pretty much everything that doesn’t involve a current celebrity. Continue reading Super (2010) →

Movies, Reviews

Defendor (2009)

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"Did I leave the gas on...?"
“Did I leave the gas on…?”

There are a lot of mentally unstable superheros out there. Most realize Batman wouldn’t be half the goddamn Batman he is if he weren’t a little bit (or a lot, depending who’s writing him) crazy. But Bruce Wayne’s only the most famous example, and at least he knows who and what the hell he is (again, depending on the writer). Heroes like Rose/Thorn or Moon Knight, who actually are dealing with multiple personality disorders, have been hanging around since the 70s, never popular enough to attract any real attention.

Looks like Defendor‘s joined their ranks. I only heard about it two weeks ago though the good graces of After Movie Diner host Jon Cross. I guess it fell through the cracks a weak Terminator sequel, weaker Star Trek reboot, and Bayformers 2 left in the floor of 2009. I missed this “sharp suberversion of Nolan’s Batman reboots…” whatever the hell that means. Who said that, anyway…? Now Magazine…? Well, what the fuck do they know? Are they going to namedrop Rose/Thorn? Or Moon Knight? I don’t think so.

Comic book knowledge allows me to go into these DIY superhero movies with the proper air of critical suspicion. Who’s this Peter Stebbings, I thought going into Defendor, playing in our sandbox? What, this is his first time in the director’s chair? Well, at least he wrote the script. What else did he write…a PG-13 Rom Com from 2008? Aww, hell… Continue reading Defendor (2009) →

Movies, Reviews

Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)

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Was a time, in the mid-90s, when I never thought I'd see this image in anything other than trade paperback collections. Progress?
Was a time, in the mid-90s, when I never thought I’d see this image in anything other than trade paperback collections.

Robin, the Boy Wonder, is one of the most controversial characters in superhero comics. First debuting in 1940 as a transparent attempt to (what else?) attract new readers, he immediately became a popular and enduring staple of the Batman mythos despite inspiring decade’s worth of Gay Panic, humorous or otherwise. The general populous conceives Robin as an eternal twelve year-old, jumping around rooftops when he should be doing his homework. But who can concentrate on algebra when Killer Croc’s out killing mobsters in a bid to take over Gotham City’s underworld? What kid wouldn’t want to live over the Batcave?

Thankfully, comic book Robin’s been allowed to grow up. By the late 70s, his civilian identity, Dick Grayson, had graduated high school and moved off to college. As Robin, he’d assumed command of the Justice League’s youth brigade, the Teen Titans, and helped save the world on numerous occasions. By 1983, he’d all but disappeared from Gotham, necessitating a new youngster fill his little green boots.

Enter Jason “Oh my God” Todd. As in “Oh my God, Bruce, I can not believe you took this kid under your wing.” First conceived as a transparent replacement for Dick Grayson (how transparent? Well, Jason was also a second generation circus acrobat whose parents also happened to catch their death from Crime), Jason suffered a lot in the great continuity rewrite of 1986, Crisis on Infinite Earths. When the multiverse finally stabilized, Jason was reborn as a street urchin, orphaned by Crime and taken in by Batman after Bruce caught him trying to steal tires…off the Batmobile…yeah… Continue reading Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) →

Movies, Reviews

All-Star Superman (2011)

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Covershot!
Covershot!

Every once in a not-so-great while, comic book companies decide to annihilate decades of established continuity and set their famous characters back to Year Zero in the name of attracting new readers. Such publicity stunts will inevitably antagonize existing fans whose bad word of mouth will (theoretically) scare away those coveted new readers. So it was that, sometime around 1998, Scottish comics writer Grant Morrison teamed up with other Big Name writers Mark Waid, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer to pitch a complete revamp of Superman.

“We believe that the four of us understand the new face of Superman: a forward-looking, intelligent, enthusiastic hero retooled to address the challenges of the next thousand years.  The ultimate American icon revitalized for the new millennium as an aspirational figure, a role model for 21st Century global humanity.

“The Superman relaunch we’re selling bucks the trend of sweeping aside the work done by those who came immediately before.  Unlike the ‘cosmic reset’ revamps all too prevalent in current comics, our New Superman approach is an honest attempt to synthesize the best of all previous eras.  Our intention is to honor each of Superman’s various interpretations and to use internal story logic as our launching pad for a re-imagined, streamlined 21st century Man of Steel.” Continue reading All-Star Superman (2011) →

Movies, Reviews

The Rocketeer (1991)

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Jingoism-Man!
Jingoism-Man!

Here’s another great example of a good idea handled badly by a major studio more interested in selling toys than selling a movie. Dick Tracy didn’t do as well as Disney’s upper management hoped, at least not on the merchandising front.  Michael Eisner’s mouse house – eager to make that up, and hopefully copy Warner Brothers success with the Batman franchise – bought license rights for this particularly independent comic book property because of its high-concept and oodles of nostalgia.

The Rocketeer is a deliberate homage to movie serials, pulp-novels, and comic books of the early-to-mid 20th century. Its steeped in cameos, in-jokes, and subtle references fans of its source material or time period (or both) will readily appreciate. Interestingly enough, Dick Tracy, which went out of its way to look like a comic book, could help but wind up feeling like a cheap, Disney-fied gangster movie. The Rocketeer, which goes out of its way to look like a big-budget movie (even if the budget wasn’t as big as it needed to be) feels more like a comic book done well.

Problem is, in order for a kid from 1991 to find The Rocketeer anything but slow, kitschy and boring, that kid had to have my parents…or the rough local equivalent. An adult figure kind enough to pass on their appreciation for the Golden Ages of cinema and Sci-Fi literature. You could say I was preconditioned to like this film, but does The Rocketeer hold up today…? Continue reading The Rocketeer (1991) →