The basic plot isn’t much different from a typical Scooby-Doo plot. There’s a mystery with a monstrous villain causing havoc at a comic book convention. Although since it’s Hanna-Barbera and not Marvel/DC (even though it’s produced by Warner Premier who also does the DC animation movies) all of the background characters and cosplay costumes are of classic Hanna-Barbera characters, and it’s so much fun to spot all the lesser known properties like the Impossibles, the Herculoids, and the Wonder Twins alongside mainstays like the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Space Ghost. On top of that, they also homage the Adam West Batman by having the old actor who used to play Blue Falcon be a washed up star making a living selling autographs at these conventions. There’s also a reboot of the property in the works by a flashy female-Michael Bay type director making an edgy and dark version of the character. I also think it’s interesting that the voice actor who plays the new Blue Falcon was Deidrich Bader who did the voice of Batman in one of his several animated shows. I loved a lot of the satire about the Transmogrifier movie titles and the fact that she explains that she was allowed to make a movie where they just blow stuff up without having to worry about a plot.

If you’re a fan of the classic Scooby-Doo mysteries, there’s still plenty of the standard formula here to enjoy. There’s plenty of red herring characters to keep you guessing as to who the real villain is, since nearly everyone has their own possible motivations. There’s also a bit of the classic chase scene, as well as the typical moment where Scooby and Shaggy are trying to avoid waking something up and clumsily toss over a bunch of loose light bulbs which Scooby manages to catch. They also get the chance to play a little bit with the unmasking scene at the beginning of the movie. And of course there’s the scene where Shaggy and Scooby eat an inhuman amount of food. They are all Scooby-Doo mainstays that almost feel like they have to be there for it to be a Scooby movie, though thankfully they don’t linger on any of them.

Just a small sampling of some of the background cosplay characters in this movie.

The animation is pretty standard, it’s pretty comparable to the typical DC animated movies, and of course there’s the absolute ton of background touches. Every scene in the convention has posters and cosplay attendees in the background of nearly every Hanna-Barbera character imaginable. Including the ones I already mentioned, there’s also Atom Ant, Speed Buggy, Frankenstein Jr., Hong Kong Phooey, Harvey Birdman, Josie and the Pussycats, Magilla Gorilla, Top Cat, and several more. The general scenes about the comic book convention were pretty fun as well, with Daphne having an obsession with beanie baby-like collectibles, Fred is excited about the new Blue Falcon movie, and surprisingly enough it’s Velma who’s completely uninterested in the geek-fest.

It feels like it’s been a long while since I’ve seen a Scooby-Doo cartoon, but watching this immediately brought back memories of the classic cartoons, but with a lot more intelligent jokes mixed in with the classic camp. There is a whole lot to like in this movie both for adult fans of the original cartoons as well as kids who are used to a quicker pace and better animation. For her part, Jena really enjoyed the movie and sat through it twice. The first time with just me and her, and the second time because my wife wanted to see it as well. It’s also pretty short running just over an hour long. If you have kids, or are a fan of comic books and classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, it’s worth a watch. It was a total nostalgia fest for me, but it was also an enjoyable little movie on top of all that as well. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

This is the latest in the juggernaut that is Marvel Studios releases, and especially movies with Robert Downey Jr. in a metal suit. The early reviews were mostly blown away by the new sequel and as I had to wait an extra week for it to come out here in the States, I was starting to chomp at the bit to watch the movie. Of course, once it hit theaters around my neck of the woods, there started to be a few more rumblings of failure and a lot more opinion that this actually wasn’t the best of the trilogy. There were plot holes, and weak moments and ill-fated twists, and when I got the chance to watch the movie… I wasn’t quite sure what I really thought about it. It had it’s action moments, and Robert Downey Jr. doing what he does best as he has done in the past three movies including the Avengers, but there were also those plot holes and other things tugging away at the sides of my brain. I decided I couldn’t quite give the movie justice until I gave it a few days thought and watched the movie for a second time. 2D every time all the time for me FYI. I had an article previously where I talked about the Curse of Three, and while the impact has dwindled a bit with the release of The Dark Knight Rises, it hasn’t completely gone away and I still think there are weak elements in this movie that can definitely hinder the watching experience for some and completely ruin it for others. And fair warning, there may be spoilers in this review, I will try to be non-specific where I can, but I’m not going to dance around them if I need to call them out.

Before I get into too many details, I do want to mention that I was on the most recent episode of the Lambcast over at the Lamb where we discussed Iron Man 3 shortly after I had watched it. Check it out right over here. After seeing it again, interestingly one thing that kind of bugged me the most was a continuity/editing error. During the final fight, at one point Tony gets his leg sliced off and you can clearly see that the leg of the suit had been severed, but when he falls, he still has both legs and it is actually one of the suits he is physically in instead of a remote suit. I really wasn’t very much of a fan of all the remote suit stuff as well as the couple times when it was a misdirect for the audience to believe that Tony was in the suit when he actually wasn’t, even if it was then played off as a humorous moment.

One of the things I do respect this movie for is the fact that it really tries to get to the central theme that the metal suit is not Iron Man, Tony Stark himself is Iron Man. He remains out of the suit, or at the very least in his prototype suit which isn’t fully functional, for most of the movie. He is being brought down to the level he was at during the first movie and has to rely much more on his intelligence rather than his technology. But this also creates this effect where not only is he intelligent and resourceful, he can also kick some major ass, and so can Pepper. I can understand that he has to have some fighting skills, because even though being in the suit boosts his strength, he still has to have the agility and reflexes to pull off the basic moves which the suit then enhances. Even though he doesn’t have any extreme martial arts throwdowns, he does have quite a few impressive fighting skills that I felt like it was a bit of a stretch for him to have. Why couldn’t he just rely completely on his intelligence and resourcefulness, does he also have to be able to take people out with relative ease without technological help?

Another piece of the movie that I felt was shoehorned into the plot was the whole Christmas angle. It’s mentioned only three or four times during the movie, and there’s one or two Christmas songs, but I never really got a feeling that the movie takes place during Christmas, and I also never understood how that was relevant to the rest of the plot of the movie. I also wasn’t really fond of the whole narration at the beginning where the movie kind of starts in the climax (at least the first climax) then becomes a flashback to what’s really the start of the movie. Just start the movie already. I will say that one element that I was the most worried about when he showed up turned out to be handled excellently: the kid sidekick. In many movies the kid sidekick can be the kiss of death, Short Round, little Anakin, the kid in Superman III, but little Harley was a great foil for Tony Stark. He really felt a lot like a real kid, one who was quite intelligent for his age and also lives in an insecure home. I absolutely loved two moments out of the kid; the first is when he’s asking a string of questions about the Avengers, and the second was when he’s trying to guilt trip Stark and Tony calls him out on it because “we’re connected”. I also felt that he got just the right amount of screentime. He played a big part during the time he was on screen, but once Tony left Tennessee, we only get a couple brief follow ups which is all we need.

The secondary characters were hit and miss in this movie, I thought both Pepper Potts and Rhodey had a little bit more to do than in previous films, but I still thought both of them got short changed. Rhodey only has a couple brief scenes in the first half of the movie and they are mostly played for comic relief. When he gets a couple chances to really show some action chops, he gets taken out way too easily, and even in the final battle he only gets a couple brief moments to shine. I think Pepper fares better, especially because she gets to don the armor momentarily and it’s an awesome moment where she’s able to save Tony for a change. And especially awesome in that it happens at least twice during the movie. It’s rare these days to see many strong female characters in superhero movies and it’s great that Marvel has two of them right now in Pepper Potts and Black Widow. But at the same time I hate that while she gets to play the strong, capable woman, she’s also relegated to being the damsel in distress as well as the bait. Sometimes in this movie it’s one step forward and two steps back.

I haven’t even gotten to the villains yet. One of the biggest love it or hate it moments in this movie is the Mandarin reveal. Since I don’t follow the comics and my only experience with the Mandarin was in the pretty poor animated Invincible Iron Man I was not at all mad about the bait and switch. I thought it was intelligent, funny, and amazing that it was such a surprise in this day and age. It really helped to quiet down all the early complaints about Ben Kingsley not being Asian. I did have a bit of a problem with the overtaking of the airwaves. With television being available through so many different sources, broadcast, cable, satellite, internet, it’s harder and harder to believe that someone can remotely take over every single station at once, it was especially annoying because it felt like this had been going on for months now and yet it was still a complete and total shock to everyone working at the television station? As for the lava-men-like Extremis projects? I liked the visual representation of how they glowed red, but I thought that the pseudo-science of how they actually worked was too implausible. Instead of nanobots, which is still fairly far fetched, they explained that it was an empty slot in the brain that they replaced with new DNA. The amount of energy needed to repair that level of damage and/or create that much heat needed to melt metal is not only massive, but very hard to imagine as something physically able to do by the human body. On top of that, Guy Pearce’s presence as a villain left something to be desired. I thought he handled the slimy businessman/potential suitor role fairly well, but he just wasn’t menacing enough in the end, and his plan was poorly defined. It is there, and can be explained, but it shouldn’t really have to be explained, it should be fairly simple and obvious.

He’s not the Mandarin that I used to know, even though I never knew any Mandarin.

Iron Man 3 had a lot of action, a lot of humor, and a lot of drama. But I don’t think it got them in quite the right combination. It’s still a pretty impressive Marvel movie with a lot of great moments, and I’ll never get tired of seeing Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark, but at the end of the day there was just a lot to be desired. This movie had a lot to live up to after the massive success of the Avengers and the relative disappointment of Iron Man 2. And while I’m one of the fewer people that thought Iron Man 2 was a great movie, I think Iron Man 3 falls right around the same level if not a little bit lower. I’ll happily watch it again once it hits home video, but for now I’m waiting for Man of Steel. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

I know I watched this movie ages ago when I was younger, but rewatching it today I realized that the only thing I remembered from my first watch of this movie was that the guy had a rocketpack and it took place in the 30′s. When watching it again, I was really impressed with the style and the feeling of the movie. I also recognized so many different actors in this movie that I didn’t realize were in here. Mainly it was Alan Alda who I’ve been seeing in a lot of great roles recently. I did think there were some overly ridiculous plot points towards the end of the movie, but overall I quite enjoyed it. It’s been something pretty different than a lot of the movies that I’ve been watching lately for this site. It does slightly make me want to re-watch Captain America which was done by the same director, Joe Johnston. I don’t think it quite lives up to the quality of Captain America, but it still has quite a few charms to it.

The Rocketeer is set in the late 1930′s right before World War II and the hero of the film is Cliff Secord who’s got a lot of talent, but not quite so much money to go with it. He was played by unknown at the time Billy Campbell. He’s basically a brave over brains kind of guy that always does the right thing no matter the danger. Unfortunately, I never really felt like he had a very interesting personality. He was too much of a boy scout with doe eyes for his gal. And while he did make the occasional wrong turn here or there, it was usually just a moment of slapstick before getting immediately back on track. On top of that, he had his flight jacket which he wore constantly. There’s even a point where he puts on a waiter’s jacket as a disguise, and he puts it on over his flight jacket. I can understand that he’s wearing it every time he flies, but the only time he isn’t wearing it is during a brief date with his gal Jenny early in the movie. And while the outfit and rocketpack both look pretty snazzy, he barely gets to do anything super heroic while being the Rocketeer aside from his first mid-air rescue. Everything else he does as the Rocketeer is just fly around so he can do his fighting or chasing or whatnot firmly on the ground.

Jenny Blake is really a pretty great character in comparison. She’s a strong, independent woman working in Hollywood as an extra, but she doesn’t put up with any of CLiff’s nonsense. She walks out on him when she learns that he was trying to protect her from hearing about his plane crash, she also almost holds her own against the main villain of the movie after she has been captured. She outsmarts him, overpowers him, and even finds his secret plan. Pretty good for a supposed damsel in distress. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s played by Jennifer Connelly. Of course, aside from how much I enjoyed her onscreen, I also never really felt that much chemistry between the two. It doesn’t help that it starts off almost immediately as being antagonistic and in trouble, even though one of the most important things to Cliff is his picture of her that he keeps in his plane. Half of the movie is spent with her being annoyed by him and trying to get together with big time movie star Neville Sinclair played by Timothy Dalton. And that whole relationship is based on him using her to try and get the rocket, which immediately nullifies any possible chemistry between them either. Even when Jenny and Cliff get together in the end, it feels more like that’s what’s expected of them rather than they are genuinely right for each other.

The villains in this movie don’t fare too well either. The main villain at the head of all the other villains is Neville Sinclair. He’s a hot shot actor who *spoiler* turns out to be a German spy, although once it’s revealed that he is a spy he dons a poor German accent that comes and goes at random times throughout the rest of the movie. I thought the whole Nazi angle was a little too far fetched, or at least not well plotted enough. It kind of comes out of nowhere in the third act and from then on takes over the rest of the movie. I also really disliked the very rubber looking makeup of the giant tough guy thug. It also felt like there were way too many villains. There were the gangsters who were being paid to work for Sinclair, there was the giant rubberfaced thug who was Sinclair’s right hand man, there was Sinclair himself, and there was also the random German soldiers, the German guy on the Zeppelin, and even the FBI agents were kind of villains in the sense that they were very antagonistic towards Cliff.

I’ve gone on quite a bit about several of the things that I didn’t like about this movie, but there was still plenty here to enjoy. The movie has a great style to it, from the look of the Rocketeer to the look of everything else around him. Throughout the first part of the movie there’s a real sense of wonder about flying in general as well as technology. The music is a great part of the movie, helping with that sense of wonder and amazement. There’s some fun bits of comedy as well, usually the great little one liners delivered by Alan Arkin as PB, Cliff’s genius tech guy and somewhat of a Doc Brown analogue only less crazy. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s a fun little trip to the retro pulp stories of the 30′s. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

It seems like I keep saying this, but the quality of these short films that keep coming up keeps getting better and better and this is no exception. Jesse V. Johnson, the director has been a stunt coordinator and stuntman for many big movies and the action in this short really exemplifies that. Also, the actress that plays Wonder Woman, Nina Bergman, looks amazing. She’s buff, she can handle the action no problem, and while she may be a little on the thin side, she can kick some major ass and look great at the same time. The outfit looks great as well, it’s not an exact match to any Wonder Woman costume that I’m familiar with, but it immediately evokes the character in a more realistic way. The look and acting from the Nazis played by Peter Stormare and Timothy Murphy are also great. While it can be a bit of an easy pull to go with Nazi’s, in a 2 minute segment it’s really the best way to get your point across quickly and easily. As I mentioned, the fight choreography is amazing, and I thought the Zack Snyder-esque touches of slo-mo worked well in this situation and looked beautiful. The only real complaint that I had was that the CG plane looked a little rushed/a victim of the micro-budget, but considering it’s a very small part of the short, it’s not a big deal. But enough from me, let’s hear what the director, Jesse V. Johnson has to say.

Bubbawheat: There have been a few recent higher profile fan films with notable actors like the Mortal Kombat concept trailer and Thomas Jane’s Punisher short. The Mortal Kombat trailer ended up getting picked up and turned into a webseries. Did you have a specific goal similar to that or greater in mind when you made this short film?

Jesse Johnson: Both of those fan films were enormous inspirations for my WW piece. I loved them, and quite frankly do not love very much in the world of narrative short films anymore – they are usually way too derivative and formulaic feeling, they exude a desperate need to be embraced by the “nerd” culture while ignoring story-telling, shot composition, basic cinematography and most criminally irritating, by not employing actors with any discernible skill, experience or enthusiasm.

My manager, Kailey Marsh had really put the thumbscrews on me to make a short that we could use to introduce potential studio employers to my work. These are folks with heavy schedules, for whom a two minute teaser is more enticing than a 90 minute feature. They are looking for a director with a handle on the zeitgeist more than an ability to cram an action movie into a three week shooting schedule.

It was a difficult pill for me to swallow because I have directed full length films and felt they showed my abilities. She countered that although judged within their budget and genre ranges they were acceptable, they didn’t impress on a studio level. She is quite brutally straight with me, which is why I like her.

The WW trailer has been a phenomenally successful calling card, and has succeeded on every level imaginable, I am thrilled with the attention and amazing reception it has had, that it has also been accepted by the fans of Wonder Woman is just icing on the cake for me.

BW: I find that acting really is one of the biggest downfalls in many fan films, and when they get it right, it becomes pretty amazing. Do you have any theories as to why it’s so hard to find good movies featuring strong, female superheroes? What do you think is the key to get a female lead into a superhero movie that doesn’t suck?

JJ: Your question deserves an answer I haven’t given before, and I have discussed this at some length. My theory is this: you can create a female superhero to appeal to men, or to women, and you have to choose. And when you have chosen you must remain faithful to that initial choice and you will be OK.

If you try to make her appealing to both sexes you will falter – the truth is, I believe, that a strong female, with integrity and physical prowess is going to appeal by default to men as well as women.

But, I feel where creators go wrong, is by trying to please both mindsets. Wonder Woman was created for women, to stir patriotic wartime spirit into them during the second world war, to give them someone to root for, to believe in – it worked.

Women were leaving the kitchen for the workplace, trading oven gloves for rivet guns. WW was a strong heroine ideal for a profound time in our nation’s history. Then in the 70′s we get the TV show, which appealed for vastly different reasons, to a very different audience, high heels and soppy pseudo karate chops – it had very little to do with the original character. Linda Carter did great and brought grace to the role, but it wasn’t an affirming vision of female strength, it was something else, kitsch.

BW: If you were ever given the opportunity to expand this trailer into a full length feature, do you have any story ideas that could be used to expand this idea you created, or were you just focused on something that would work the best in the short form?

JJ: I wrote a treatment for a feature, and laid out the bible with regard to our version of the character. There was a detailed twenty five minute movie there, it was just too expensive for my resources and not a part of the initial plan. But I feel you have to overshoot a trailer and give yourself five moments to choose each one moment you end up with, there should be a process of whittling down, or cutting away the chaff. It was all quite calculated. I am too cheap to spend my own money without having a rock solid plan of attack and delivery.

BW: You were originally trying to create an original hero for this short, how far down that path did you go before deciding to go with Wonder Woman instead?

JJ: I wrote a short film script, its protagonist was a normal gal who was a superhero on-line, a famous gamer really, an incredibly skilled computer game combatant in a modern dystopian future, where the only real emotions a person can feel involve realities created within virtual scenarios.

It was interesting, and we had three different scenarios for her – as the same character. But it was too much and there were too many elements to cover. I wanted to work with Nina, we had written a script together, I enjoyed working with her, and I knew she had an edge of strength that could translate to film.

I found the original fight scene rehearsals that my friend Mike Smith did for the ill fated David E. Kelly TV pilot of WW. They were awesome and very, very well done – it was easy to see that the show had been over cut, over thought and anything good trimmed, tinkered with, and second guessed way too much. I immediately realized that this was a character who needed a clear take, not one that was diluted and softened, tweaked, adjusted, rethought, revamped or reduxed (whatever that means.)

My daughters loved the Wonder Woman comic books, and I started to read them. There was an awesome character there, you just needed to stick to what worked.

This is the Wonder Woman Themyscira needs, and deserves.

BW: Is there any established actress that you think could give this style of Wonder Woman life, or do you think if Wonder Woman made it to the big or small screen that she should be played by an unknown?

JJ: There are so many great actresses out there. Any actress will work out and get ripped – I have great people to do this and they will only take a few months – given the inspiration and motivation.

What I would look for is that slightly crazy, slightly unstable look in her eyes. She’s seen combat, she’s seen the other side of the human animal, she’s seen great loss, hardship, unfairness and cruelty. This scars your soul, leaves it’s mark on your character.
I’d look for that first.

Gina Carano is AWESOME, I had a two hour conversation about this with her, and she is the living embodiment of a beautiful woman who lights up the room but can look at you with a glance, where you know instinctively she just figured out how to brain you and leave you unconscious, even if she didn’t intend for this thought process to take place. She is too programmed and too efficient a killer not to – and all professional fighters are killers, it’s their self discipline that stops them from killing, not their good nature. WW has a burden of responsibility and it weighs on her – but we need to feel for her, she mustn’t simply be a brooding sociopath.

I’d love to take someone people weren’t expecting like a Kristin Stewart or Emma Watson, and come with an out of left field reinvention of them, something that shocked and worked. There are more obvious choices, but I find them less interesting.

BW: Do you wish you would have been able to work in the lasso, or do you think that’s a part of Wonder Woman’s mythos that should be left behind?

JJ: I truly wish we could have achieved what I had planned for the lasso, we shot footage and discussed the CG effect, but I was spread quite thin and the German dive bomber was a very difficult CG effect that took longer than the prep, shoot, and edit of the rest of the trailer, lol.

I had also had some truly disappointing results from a CG metal whip on another movie and didn’t want to spend money to recreate this – I had two minutes, I wanted to show my best work and hide everything else.

BW: And finally a question that I ask everyone that I have on my site, what is your favorite superhero movie?

JJ: I am in the minority I know, but I loved the last Batman, I loved Bane, he walked like an English gangster and talked like one, too. There was so much grand opera to it – absolutely NOTHING in that film is done in moderation, and as another filmmaker I just adore the balls, the audacity to choose to do this, I loved every second of it – if it failed in some purists eyes, it failed on a grand scale a scale mere mortal could only dream of attaining, how delightfully over the top and wonderful, we will see fewer and fewer filmmakers who dare to or are even able to achieve this. I thought it was a sensational film.

Then the Christopher Reeve Superman films were incredibly important to me growing up. The second one where he gives up his powers had me sobbing real tears in the theater, what the Hell, you’re giving it up for a woman??????? It was incomprehensible, but, I had to trust he knew best, I just couldn’t understand it, and it was so upsetting, lol.

______________________

Great choice, many people didn’t think Dark Knight Rises was the best of the trilogy, but there’s still a lot of fans out there for it. And Superman II is another great choice, if you haven’t yet you should check out the Donner cut of the movie, I think it works even better than the original, especially on the Clark Kent/Lois Lane romantic angle. Thank you so much for your time and it would be amazing to see a really great version of Wonder Woman come to pass. There’s always hope at least for the secretive and questionable Amazon over on the CW, but time will tell on that front. At least for now we’ve got an amazing 2 minutes. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

So without further ado, go ahead and give it a listen over at the podomatic page. I would absolutely love to hear feedback, I’m trying to make an enjoyable podcast and there’s always room for improvement. Also, if you listen through to the end, I’ve got a sneak preview of the next episode, feel free to leave your guesses as to which movies will be covered on episode 2. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Filmwhys and Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

This is a home video release by DC Premier and Traveller’s Tales releasing on Bluray and DVD May 21st, and it’s actually rather interesting because most of this movie is drawn from the Lego Batman 2 video game. Many of the scenes may have been reanimated to improve the quality and make minor corrections, and there has also been some new material created for the connective scenes, but aside from that it’s directly taken from the video game. While there have been many movies based on video games, I believe this is the first video game turned directly into a movie. I’ve been a fan of the Lego series of video games ever since the first Lego Star Wars games were released on the Playstation 2, they have a very irreverent sense of humor and a lot of meta jokes based around the fact that they are in a Lego world and Batman is no different.

The basic story of the movie is that Lex Luthor and the Joker team up to take out Batman and Superman and in the process win Lex Luthor’s bid for the Presidential election. Meanwhile Batman and Robin are trying to figure out exactly what they’re up to so they can stop them, preferably alone without resorting to asking for help from the seemingly everpresent Superman. The best part of the movie is the sheer number of references to past Batman projects. The entire opening credits sequence is a Lego version of the 1989 Batman opening, complete with the lucky circumstance that this movie was directed by Jon Burton, they even were able to use both the Danny Elfman Batman score as well as the John Williams Superman score. There’s also references to the 60′s Batman movie and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight.

Aside from the many classic references to previous works, there is also a great number of visual gags based on the fact that the movie exists in a wholly Lego universe. Robin often is rebuilding his vehicles, and the main plot device used by the villains is a deconstructor, which pulls apart anything made of shiny black bricks. When liquid chemicals are spilled onto the floor, they become translucent studs. Money is represented by solid plastic coins and bills, and even a fire is represented by plastic Lego fire. But one of the greatest Lego-centric gags is when two characters are changing clothes in a purely Lego fashion.

The voice acting in the movie is just as stellar, aside from using big name voice talent which they often do in the Warner Premier animated movies they went with actors more well known in the voice acting community since they were originally cast for use in the video game. Clancy Brown reprised his role as Lex Luthor from many of the animated versions of Superman. Christopher Corey Smith does the voice of the Joker in a passable imitation of Mark Hamill’s famous interpretation of the character. Troy Baker does a fine job as Batman, and Travis Willingham hams it up as the shiniest boy scout Superman.

The animation is also very well done as could be expected from a Warner Premier title, but the real focus still goes right back to the humor. And honestly one of the best things about this movie is how kid friendly it is. There are plenty of the references that adults will get, but there are just as many random jokes and slapstick that kids will enjoy. Early on, Two Face uses a random chicken as a weapon, and there’s a recurring theme of Joker creating larger than life self portraits within the chaos he creates. I also think it’s interesting how the character of the Joker is handled overall in this movie. It seems like it’s a pretty decent balance of chaotic lunacy and clown gags alongside an actually quite brilliant master plan that’s still presented in a very Joker-esque fashion. It was a fun movie and it made me laugh countless times during its short duration, it’s a great film to watch for a fan of Batman and especially anyone with kids or anyone who’s just a kid at heart. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

So my question to you is actually twofold. One is the simple title question “Do you enjoy watching bad movies?” and feel free to qualify that any way you want to. Which brings me to my other point. What is the difference between an enjoyably bad movie, and a movie that you just plain don’t enjoy watching? For me, I think the worst sin a bad movie can make is being boring. And while I can’t think of a specific example, I also don’t like being made uncomfortable. And I don’t mean sitting in a hard chair during a long movie type of uncomfortable, I mean the sex talk with your parents type of uncomfortable. Another movie I watched recently was Summer’s Moon (or Summer’s Blood depending on something or other). It’s a weird little horror/thriller starring Ashley Green made around the same time as the first Twilight movie. It starts off as a hostage/torture movie, where Green gets captured by the smooth talking guy at the bar and put in his “garden” in the basement. But there’s also a weird uncomfortable incestuous relationship thread where the guy’s mother starts getting hot and bothered while listening to the guy and Green going at in in his bedroom. And when he finds out that she’s his half-sister, he continues the sexual relationship with her. Combined with the fact that it’s not a great movie at all, just made me wish I wasn’t watching the movie. Oh, and one more quick question to wrap things up, what is your favorite bad movie to watch, and your least favorite bad movie that you never want to see again? Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

I had never heard of this movie before starting this site and accumulating my big list of superhero movies to watch. And on top of that, I only recently found out that it was also an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which I did end up watching shortly after watching this movie proper. It’s a low budget movie produced in Italy about a hero with the blood of the Aztec gods running through his veins. But what it really amounts to is that this giant Aztec man gives him an ugly belt which gives him an ugly costume and the abilities of the Pumaman. This allows him to shred metal with his mighty claws like a puma, see in the dark like a puma, slow his heartbeat to feign death like a puma, fly like a puma, even teleport… like a puma. And there has to be a big bad villain to this whole story, which ends up being this weird bald guy who dresses like he’s in a bad sci-fi movie using an Aztec mask to put people under mind control.

If all that doesn’t sound bad enough, the special effects are atrocious. I mentioned that he flies… like a puma. As a sidenote, I have a vague urge to make a parody music video using clips of this movie and the melody of the Lonely Island’s song Like a Boss, replacing it with Like a Puma. Anyway, the flying effects are awful, where Pumaman is flailing about on a platform while the background footage flies around behind him. The worst part is when he hangs up one of the henchmen on… something, and all the pretenses of making it look like he’s flying go away and he just walks over to hang him on some sort of post and walks off screen. His seeing in the dark, which is only used twice, is done with the exact same look as the old Incredible Hulk television show.

He changes costumes, like a puma!

The two heroes of the movie are Tony Farms, mild mannered scientist working at a natural history museum, and Vadinho, a member of the ancient Aztec aliens or something. Vadinho is a giant guy with a bad haircut who throws Tony out a window to prove that he’s Pumaman, since he survives the three story fall without any injuries. They’ve also set up that several people matching Tony’s exact same upbringing have been thrown out windows to their deaths. Of course, it’s later (kind of) revealed that those killings were done by the villain of the movie Kobras. But Vadinho tells Tony that he’s the Pumaman and he is there to help him learn his abilities, even though he only seems to tell him about them when after he actually needs to use them. Tony spends most of his time badly wisecracking his way through the movie, at least when he’s not whining about something or other. He is one of the most annoying heroes I’ve ever watched. And to top it off, every time he flies, he makes cat claws with his hands which looks absolutely ridiculous even if it’s really the only connection to a puma there is in the entire movie since I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a puma teleport or play dead. Vadinho, for being a giant of a man, ends up being easily subdued and beaten up throughout the course of the movie, excpet of course when the movie needs him to kick some ass. He also has his own somewhat magical powers when he calls on the Aztec gods with his necklace to heal his wounds and eventually leaves with them when they come back in their glowing Death Star replica spaceship.

As for the villain Kobras, which by the way any time someone mentioned his name I thought they were saying Cobra and I half expected Cobra Commander to show up at some point in time. Kobras has a tendency to wear these shiny sci-fi-esque outfits even though the movie is set in modern day England. Which also doesn’t make much sense when there’s only one person in the entire movie who sounds British. He has this ancient Aztec mask, which also has a circuitboard on the back behind a hidden panel, which proves that there was an alien presence in the world for some reason. And when he looks through this mask, he’s able to control the minds of other people, yet I have no idea how he knows that it’s able to do this. And also for some reason, every person that he uses the mask on it also creates a little wax replica of their head for him to put on his shelf so he can mind control them remotely. But even with this remote mind control powers, he still needs to use car phones to talk with his minions. There’s also some sort of plan involving all the world leaders, but none of them look like world leaders or even do anything except sit around at a table for a little while and then leave while Kobras is sitting in the other room looking at them through his mask.

Please tell me that this movie actually took place on Alderaan.

A hero is not a hero unless he’s wearing a costume, and once Tony finally puts on the Pumaman belt, he’s instantly wearing his ridiculous costume, which is just a pair of khaki pants, an ugly gold belt, a shirt with a glittery gold mask on the front of it, and a red cape which is reversible and becomes a dark green poncho so he can go around incognito. Since of course it’s common to see people wearing green ponchos in the middle of England. Kobras practically has better fashion sence than this guy and it seems like he would fit right in with Riff Raff and Magenta at the end of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This movie is just plain bad. The acting is bad, the script is bad, the action is bad, the costumes are bad, the special effects are horrible. This is definitely one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and doesn’t surprise me in the least that it was considered bad enough to make fun of in an episode of MST3K. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Here there be spoilers! I watched this movie the other day, but for various reasons I don’t feel like it’s quite time for me to write a review for it just yet. It’s left me with some questions, and I’m just not entirely sure how I feel about the movie, I think it requires another viewing before I can really get to the heart of the movie for myself. But I wanted to get some of my initial thoughts out there now while everyone else is talking about it. And again, I won’t be treading lightly on the spoilers, so steer clear if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

I’m going to start out with the big twist in the movie that have some people upset, and others relieved. I’m talking about the man behind the curtain of the Mandarin. He’s set up as being the big villain in this movie, that is until it’s revealed that the wool has been pulled over everyone’s eyes and the Mandarin is merely a funny little drug addicted English actor hired by the real villain of the movie Guy Pierce. I recently watched the Invincible Iron Man, the animated origin story released a year before the first Iron Man who had a much closer to the comics version of the Mandarin in it, and I did not like that version at all. I’m glad that’s not the version that we saw here, but I also wasn’t entirely thrilled with the misdirect in this movie. His later scenes after the reveal were funny, but they never really amounted to much. He kind of turned sides, and it was kind of a satirical jab at the media and the war on terrorism where we need to have a face to rally against. But I don’t truly know how I feel about it.

Then there’s the whole Extremis henchmen that can regenerate and turn massively hot to melt metal and other things, but occasionally explode. They seem Terminator 2 unstoppable at some points in the movie, but much more easily dispatched towards the end of the movie. And at one point Guy Ritchie, or Aldritch Killian even shoots molten fire out of his mouth. It feels slightly ridiculous, but it also occasionally looks badass. And then there’s the dozens of unmanned Iron Man suits that seemed to play a big part in the marketing/merchandising campaign, and yet never really got any big play in this movie outside of the final battle. Most of the time is spent with his experimental Mark 42 suit, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Of course. While I do like the fact that he spends a lot of time away from his armor, and much of the time he spends in his armor is this not-quite-finished model, when he does bring in the big guns, it has me wondering why he wasn’t able to bring them out a long time ago.

And finally I have to mention the kid sidekick. Often in a movie like this, the kid sidekick smells of desperation and a cheap attempt at adding something for the kid audiences that are clamoring to see this movie just as much as the adult comic book fans. I will say that this is one of the most enjoyable kid sidekicks that I’ve seen in recent memory. He’s not annoying, he’s actually funny, and Tony Stark treats him just like he would anyone else. He doesn’t put on the kid gloves except for a couple moments, like the part about the bullies, and the billionaire presents at the end.

There’s also the scenes with his PTSD over the events that happened in the Avengers. I felt like it was an excuse to give him some sort of weakness akin to his alcoholism that is very prevalent in the comics, but turned down I believe by Disney. It doesn’t come up in the movie very often, but when it does it’s a major impact on what he’s doing at the moment, but in the end it just kind of goes away in a blink, and never really comes into play in any sort of major way, it just kind of slows the scenes down when it shows up and then goes away until it happens again the next time.

So I think I will hold off a little while longer to write my full review for this movie, but I will say that I enjoyed it, I’m just not entirely sure how much. I don’t think it fell into the Curse of Three that I talked about a while ago, but I don’t quite agree with many people saying that it’s the best of the trilogy.