Author Archives: Bubbawheat
8 Man
8 Man: For All Lonely Nights 1992
This movie was chosen in part with the help of my patrons over at Patreon, and you can join in too for just $1 a month to help support me and this site. I have a vague memory of the 8 Man After anime OVA from when I was younger, though I’m not entirely sure if I actually watched it, or if I was just aware of its existence. 8 Man itself is actually an character that was originally created in the 60’s in manga before becoming an anime series and a made for TV film in the late 80’s before this live action movie. It’s also said that Robocop was at least partly inspired by this character, which makes sense as 8 Man was a police officer killed in the line of duty, resurrected as half-man half-machine with his memories of his former life erased. The name itself actually refers to the seven police districts in Tokyo, so 8 Man is basically the entire 8th district all by himself. This version of the story was somewhat interesting as a proof of concept, but aside from a recognizable voice actor in the English dub, it was pretty uninspired from start to finish.
Read the rest of this entry
Steven Universe the Movie
Steven Universe the Movie 2019
I’ve actually been a relatively big Steven Universe fan ever since I first saw a couple clips of the show at work and it was so weird that I had to watch the show to figure out what the heck was going on. As a show, the storytelling of it is that it gives you just a small bit of the show’s overall mythology in each episode so that you have to watch a lot to really understand what’s going on. But once you do watch it as a whole, there’s an extreme depth to the world of this show and a unique take for the entire concept of a hero. The movie extends that concept and creates this excuse to actually age Steven by a couple years, from a young teen to an older teen. It also takes music, which has been a staple of the show, and expands it into a full blown musical movie with many different songs in a relatively short run time. While none of the songs really connected with me, the spirit of the show definitely came through in the movie.
Read the rest of this entry
The Kitchen
The Kitchen 2019
It’s the last month of the year and I was able to catch up with the last major theatrical release of this past year. There are still a few other home video and TV movie releases that I haven’t gotten around to, but I should get pretty close before the end of this month and will have a ranked list next month. As for this specific movie, I didn’t hear very much good about this when it was in theaters and while I strongly considered going out to watch it, I just missed it. I thought it was interesting that it was based on a comic and it was about Hell’s Kitchen which is usually associated with Daredevil, though it has absolutely nothing to do with any superheroes at all. Instead, it’s a period drama about the mob featuring comedic actresses. Unfortunately, the trailer featured pretty much all of the comedic bits in the mostly dramatic movie, none of the characters really had any strong personalities to draw me into their stories and by the time things got interesting in the third act, it wasn’t enough to save the film.
Read the rest of this entry
Higher Power
Higher Power 2018
This was a movie that I just happened to stumble upon while browsing through Hulu. I read the description and it sounded like it qualified for a superhero movie, and while it does skirt the line a little bit here and there, I think there’s enough that it works. There’s super powers, saving the world, a super villain of sorts, and it all takes place in present day. That’s good enough for my book. As far as the movie itself, I got the impression that it was a pretty low budget film, but the special effects and cinematography were well above its pay grade. At least, until they tried to stretch beyond their limitations, then the seams started showing. Unfortunately, the writing also didn’t quite live up to the rest of the movie. It had some really great moments, but it was incredibly uneven and took forever to really get going.
Read the rest of this entry
American Rescue Squad
American Rescue Squad 2015
This review was in part decided on via my Patreon where for just $1 a month you can vote each month on what I watch for this site. This is one of the many indie superhero movies made in the past fifteen or so years but this was much more inspired by the political humor of South Park. It even opens with a dedication to Matt and Trey. Unfortunately, they really miss the mark with incredibly obvious metaphors and an oddly conservative overall outlook so this feels much more like heavy handed propaganda rather than subtle political humor.
Read the rest of this entry
American Hero
American Hero 2015
This post came about in part from my Patreon where each month patrons can vote on a movie (or movies) that I review here each month. This has been sitting on my list for a while, it’s an indie film from 2015 starring Stephen Dorff and Eddie Griffin. It is currently available to watch free with ads on Vudu. There’s a bit of a documentary feel to it, but that mostly feels like an excuse for the overall low budget nature of the film. It reminds me quite a bit of Sleight, though there’s a touch more of a superhero narrative in this film, enough for it to cross the line into actually being a superhero movie. Unfortunately most of the characters aren’t all that likable and they all end the film more or less where they started without much real growth.
Read the rest of this entry
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines 2019
It’s time to check out the latest movie from DC Animation. This one takes a slight curveball as it doesn’t really continue the previous continuity though there’s a couple references so that it could still be a part of the major continuity despite being a stand-alone story. It’s also notable for nearly having the entire voice cast be female characters outside of Steve Trevor and a Minotaur. For the most part it follows pretty well in line with the rest of the DC animated movies. It’s a lot of fun to watch with some good action sequences and some nice character beats mixed in here and there. It’s also worth noting that the DC Showcase short packaged with this home video release: Death, is quite excellent as well.
Read the rest of this entry
Dark Phoenix
Dark Phoenix 2019
This is apparently the swan song for the Fox version of the X-Men that really started the modern era of superhero movies and re-started with 2010’s First Class, and is now lumped into the Disney conglomerate so future cinematic X-Men will likely be tied into the MCU. It’s also one of the few 2019 releases that I wasn’t able to make it out to see in theaters even though this was a generally lighter year for superhero and comic book movies, or at least the year was heavily front loaded with several releases in the early months of the year. In general, I’ve been a fan of nearly all of the X-Men movies aside from the ones everyone hates. But I’ve also generally enjoyed the more recent ones that have been pretty middling to most audiences. I don’t think they handled every character very well, but they did do a few things right in this movie and I enjoyed more than I disliked. And while this is still a relatively new release, I will be discussing the plot in its entirety so there may be spoilers.
Read the rest of this entry
Inspector Gadget
Inspector Gadget 1999
This movie was chosen as part of a monthly poll over on this site’s Patreon. For just $1 a month you can help choose one of the movies I review here as well as early access for certain articles. It helps cover the cost of running this site and will hopefully help expand it in the future. As for the film, I was a fan of the Inspector Gadget cartoon back in the 80’s when I was a kid but by the time the live action film had come around I was pretty much an adult and had outgrown it. Besides the fact that it looked like it barely had anything to do with the cartoon at all and just took the facade and made it into a cookie cutter live action Disney family flick. And that’s pretty much what this is. It has all the bits and pieces of Inspector Gadget aside from completely changing absolutely everything about Dr. Claw, but it barely resembles the whole of the cartoon and was not entertaining or well made at all.
Read the rest of this entry
LEGO DC Batman: Family Matters
LEGO DC Batman: Family Matters 2019
It’s time for yet another LEGO DC animated feature and it pretty much follows the same overall formula with the typical LEGO style humor focused on the different DC characters. This also loosely follows a variation on the Bat family plot involving many different Bat-family characters including three of the four main Robins (Tim Drake always seems to get left in the cold in these animated movies). And for a change of pace it actually takes a bit of a look at not just the exploits of Batman, but also the importance of Bruce Wayne and his position of wealth and power within the context of Gotham City. Not exactly something that you would expect in a LEGO movie though it definitely keeps the irreverence to keep things light and not overly deep.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 