In the spirit of the spooky day…

Happy Haloween

The only fault I found with Dark Knight was the a bit over the top Clint Eastwood style gruff whisper that Christian Bale uses for Batman’s speaking voice. Seems I wasn’t alone.

via Newsarama

With an opening weekend box office of $158.3 million, The Dark Knight is already well on the way to surpassing the entire gross of Batman Begins (the Christopher Nolan relaunch of the franchise only grossed $205m domestically). I’m not one to buy the hype hook line and batarang, but in this case I must admit I was REALLY psyched to see this movie. And I want to see it again.

The Dark Knight transcends being a “Comic Book Movie” and draws the viewer into a psychological battle for nothing less than the very soul of Gotham City. (I’m keeping it cryptic so as not to spoil anything.)

Christian Bale returns to bring deeper pathos to the early years of Batman’s fight illuminate the dark streets of Gotham city. I love his Bruce Wayne and his presence as Batman, but his over the top billy goat gruff Bats voice bugs me a bit - that is my only criticism of anything in the movie. Well that and that I think the GCPD would do a better job recognizing and avoiding being corralled by Joker.

Heath Leger’s deeply disturbed Joker is an amazing update of Jack Nicholson’s 1990 far more manic interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime. I knew from the previews that I approved of the direction the movie was going in, but I have to admit I was surprised at just how good Heath was at being bad. My heart goes out to his family, friends and costars who see this performance in a very melancholy light - I’m sure they expected to see it with him by their side. His Joker is far from your ordinary madman. In addition to being a vicious and completely demented homicidal maniac, he’s a brilliant strategist with a taste for the perversely unexpected.

Aaron Eckhart’s performance as Gotham’s tragic white knight, District Attorney Harvey Dent is as compelling as his later visage is frightening. With only 1/2 a face, Eckhart powerfully expresses the anger and hatred that birthed Two-Face.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is lovely as Rachel Dawes. Screw all the mean spirited alpha bloggers who need to make themselves feel superior by slamming anyone who isn’t a Barbie doll poster girl for plastic surgery. Maggie is a charming actress and a beautiful woman. And for all those who keep asking why Katie Holmes didn’t play her. Katie has been married to/ leased to a religious zealot who probably didn’t want her kissing anyone onscreen who might remind her what a man kisses like.

Veteran actors Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman’s portrayals of Alfred Pennyworth, Lt. James Gordon and Lucius Fox respectively are as every bit as brilliant as you would expect from consummate professionals of their caliber. Caine brings power and emotion to the smallest gestures. With the fate of one small envelope, Alfred shows just how much he cares.

See it today dammit!

via Newsarama

Fun action, but I had to drop it down a whole gem due to the lame loom of fate lynchpin the whole plot revolved around.

I can see why there are often two sets of reviews for this film. One for those who read WANTED, the original six issue mini series it was based on, and one for those who didn’t. I’ll try to combine them. Long story short, I liked it as a summer popcorn movie but was severely disappointed in it as a castrated adaption of one of the most original comic concepts I’ve seen in my 24 years of comic reading. The story had balls and the movie cut them off.

I’m not guaranteeing no spoilers, but I’ll try to keep a lid on the big twists.

WANTED is a fast paced summer blockbuster with special effects, stunts, eye popping action and a great cast. Its the story of a 1000 year old league of assassins that choose their targets based on binary codes from a loom. I actually find this LESS plausible than the story of the original… a world where super villains killed all the superheros, made the world forget them and rule unopposed to do what they will… murdering, raping, robbing whoever they want. If you are a member of the Fraternity, the cops can’t and won’t touch you (basically owning the authorities and being in control was one element they SHOULD have kept - and still would have worked with the story as reimagined).

The only elements the film and the series REALLY have in common are… Number 1: the characters: James McAvoy is Wesley Gibson - the beat down loser son of the wold’s greatest hired gun, Angelina Jolie bounces back and forth between creepy killer and vampy vixen as an ultra sexy female assassin - The Fox (in the book lover to both Wesley AND his father - and was hinted to have been a Catwoman” type that was seduced away from a “Batman” type when the Villains won), and Wesley’s apparently now dead but long absent father - the best assassin in the world. Number 2: a few scenarios - Fox and Wesley meet in a drugstore, there is still a twist to Wesley’s fathers death (not the same twist though), there is a rogue element within the Fraternity, and finally this IS still very much the story of Wesley’s journey and evolution as he finds himself. But the journey in the book is the villain’s journey and the journey in the movie is the heroes journey. the big bad of the original story was Mr. Rictus and he is just seen as an early casualty of the internal struggle within The Fraternity.

As I see it, the FUNDAMENTAL changes that were made to this amazing story were made for 2 reasons.

1. Cost must have been a significant factor. It would have been incredibly expensive to create the story as told with its cast of dozens of costumed characters, their amazing powers and high tech sets. The special effects alone would have at least doubled or tripled production costs if not increased it tenfold.

2. Morality. Even though we Americans love our media violence, we like it with consequences. The bad guy has to get it in the end, and if we are supposed to root for the bad guy, he needs to be an anti-hero. As written in the original story, Wesley Gibson’s Evolution into “The Killer” is truly a villain’s journey: Wesley exchanges post coital musings with Fox about how “this being evil all the time crap is starting to feel a little forced” after he slaughtered a Police Station FULL of officers. ALOT more innocents got cut down in the comic. The shoot out in the drugstore when Fox finds him was just her blowing away patrons to prove she wasn’t afraid of security camera or the cops.

Without giving everything away, the ending of the movie definitely shows consequences for most of the characters.

Here is a review posted by GayComicGeek about Hancock. He seemed to like it OK as a popcorn movie and didn’t mention Hancock’s “homo, homo in red, Norwegian homo” comment while looking at costume designs that GLAAD is up in arms about.

A gay friend of mine saw the movie and thought that the moment was funny… i’m waiting until I see how gay the costumes look before I decide if its funny or offensive.

I’ll admit I wasn’t going in with the highest of expectations, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Incredible Hulk. The 2003 angsty Ang Lee debacle officially NEVER happened. Iron Man seems to have heralded a new and welcome trend as comic Book Movies seem to be stepping up their casting to the A-List level. Ed Norton is great as the slender gamma-challenged molecular research scientist with big anger management issues. William Hurt is General Thunderbolt Ross and Liv Tyler is beautiful Betty Ross to Norton’s beastly Hulk. Scroll down for thoughts on the first movie and why this was so much better.

The problems i had with the 2003 movie were apparent from the trailer which looked so bad that even i a die-hard comic book fan OPTED TO SKIP IT. I didn’t like the look of the hulk or how he moved or sounded, he had no rage weight or fury. Well THAT was more than taken care of in this version. First and foremost, this Hulk has POWER. I want to jump out of the way as he throws forklifts and can feel the wind created by his roar. Excellently rendered realistic CG and inspired fight choreography make the action sequences a treat to watch, and the acting from the main 3 does a good job of carrying us through the slower parts.

Also a hand to hand combat sequence between an enhanced but not yet abominable Emil Blonsky shows that the moves necessary for a Captain America movie are VERY possible.

Now I DO have to admit that Iron Man was still the superior film (Tony Stark has a cameo), but Incredible Hulk is a great popcorn movie and another step towards a quality Avengers movie.

There were some spots that felt like holes where scenes had been cut out. The fact that Betty’s boyfriend was psychiatrist Dr. Sampson (first name Leonard?), led me to believe he had more screen time originally - plus there was that psychoanalysis bit from the first trailer that I didn’t see in the movie.

I did have an issue with one of their best fanboy moments. I think they dropped the ball on the Stan Lee cameo. Stan is seen as an old man who drinks a beverage that has been tainted with Bruce Banner’s gamma charged blood and (we assume) hulks out. I say we assume, because they don’t show it. How cool would a CG hulked out Stan Lee have been???? I suppose they couldn’t justify the creating, rigging and animating another 3D model for 5-10 seconds of cameo - but it would have rocked.

Six out of Six gems on the Infinity Scale. If this movie was any better I’d have to hunt down the mysterious 7th gem, Ego to make it 7 out of 7)

Marvel has done it again. And even better this time. I’ll admit I’m not as up on the minutia of the Iron Man mythos as I am on X-Men and Avengers, but I know more than enough to say that the writers and director have gone out of their way to make the fanboys happy.

I loved the X-Men and the Fantastic Four movies, but had problems with them taking out essential parts of the story (Shiar, Hellfire Club, Phoenix as the Black Queen, a billion Asparagus people biting the dust, and Galactus as a cosmic cloud? C’Mon!

I had none of those problems with Iron Man (but if you are an Iron Man freak and saw a billion discrepancies I want to hear them all!). I was completely entranced as it unfolded before my eyes and kicked with glee more than once at especially cool geektastic moments. Gwyneth was perfect as Pepper. I give it my highest rating.

THERE IS A DENUMONT AFTER THE CREDITS!!!!!!! Do not leave until after the last credits roll!!!!! I mean it!