Category Archives: 00’s movies
Bulletproof Monk
Bulletproof Monk 2003
I believe that this is the last movie on my list of relatively well known comic book movies that I never got around to before now. It’s still relatively obscure enough that it was more or less a bomb with poor reviews, but I had heard of this film before starting this site so that’s saying something. I didn’t really know anything about it except for the two leads. Apparently it’s basically a chosen one story with some wire work martial arts where Chow Yun-Fat teaches Stifler from American Pie to become a mini-Neo. Ultimately it fares quite a bit better than the other martial arts movie with an American Pie alum Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, but the special effects, direction and plot left much to be desired.
Read the rest of this entry
Look, Up in the Sky
Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman 2006
I just recently mentioned that many of these comic book documentaries all felt the same, with plenty of comic book illustrations and talking head interviews with artists and writers. This one is actually quite a notable step up and part of that comes with the pedigree. At least in part, it was created to tie in with Superman Returns, which brought about plenty of Superman nostalgia as it was basically created as a sequel to Superman II. It also helped bring about the Richard Donner cut of that movie, and as a result, this has a lot of star power in terms of its interviews. It also has a large amount of varying media depictions of Superman starting from the early radio programs all the way up through Smallville and Superman Returns. But similar to my recent viewing of the Shazam DC Spotlight, this didn’t feel like it was just a promotional vehicle for Superman Returns, it was a full fledged Superman documentary that gave equal weight to the new movie as it did every other part of Superman’s history. And it did such with a fair amount of interesting and entertaining information.
Read the rest of this entry
Superguy
Superguy: Behind the Cape 2000
This review was partially decided by my fine patrons over at Patreon where each month I post a poll where they decide what movie I review during the latter half of the month. Or in this case, the early part of the next month. If you would like to see more of these, join in for just $1 a month. This movie is one that I found several years ago in a random clearance bin, put it in my DVD collection, and constantly put off watching it until now. Which is honestly a shame because despite the low production value I actually quite enjoyed this mockumentary. The acting and graphics are low budget and the humor is nearly nonexistent, but the world building and discussion surrounding this fictional Superguy was absolutely fascinating to me. It falls somewhere between Superman and Unbreakable with not even one tenth of the budget or talent, but there’s something worthwhile in there.
Read the rest of this entry
Missy and the Maxinator
Missy and the Maxinator: A Hero Will Rise 2009
This is the other movie that I borrowed from my new local library along with Maximum Ride though it’s a complete coincidence that both movies feature a main character with the name Max that’s also a part of the movie’s title. This is an extremely low budget movie that’s filled with what seem to be non-professional teen actors doing a stereotypical teen romance story with some Smallville-esque budding super powers for the main character. The problem is that there’s not much to go on in the story department, the effects are sub-par, and the teen non-actors aren’t up to the challenge of making the story interesting as they deliver their lines in some of the flattest ways possible. I respect the effort, but it was ultimately incredibly dull.
Read the rest of this entry
BlokeBusting The Essentials #44: Hellboy
#45: Hellboy
Or
GDT’s BPRD
This one is going to be quite fun to discuss, so let’s just go for it!
First Impressions
This film was my introduction to GDT. And I think that was a great way to start. I still haven’t seen some of his more “out-there” stuff, but his style fits this film (and material) down to the ground. I recall really enjoying this film when I first saw it and I had no knowledge of (and still don’t really) the comics that it was based on. So what made this film so enticing to me? I think I should go the usual route and get into the nitty gritty.
Read the rest of this entry
The Science of Superman
The Science of Superman 2006
One of the shows that I used to enjoy when I was a kid was the early programming of the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel back before they became the go-to channel for reality TV freak shows. There were plenty of shows on those two channels that were full of cutting edge technology and the like and in a way, this special follows that format. And while it does remind me of the Batman Tech special that I watched on the DC Universe app a couple weeks ago, where that felt very much like the promotional material for the Dark Knight that it was, while this was released in a similar way as Batman Tech, being shown on the National Geographic channel the day after the theatrical release, it really spread out the clips used between all sorts of Superman shows and cartoons alongside a fair amount of Superman Returns clips. It also helps that it was inspired by an actual book of the same name and they included the author alongside several of those interviewed for the special. Overall, it was a pretty good doc with a lot of interesting information and theories backed up by the shows and comic books of Superman that weren’t just Superman Returns.
Batman Tech
Batman Tech 2008
I’ve been trying to go through everything in the DC Universe streaming app and while I’ve already seen all of the traditional movies, there’s another category called “Specials” that include the TV specials like the Aquaman Pilot and the Legends of the Superheroes minseries that I’ve already covered here, but there’s also a handful of what appear to be documentaries. And the first one I decided to check out was this one called Batman Tech. While I initially thought it seemed to be more like a DVD special feature for The Dark Knight, it was actually a promotional doc that aired on the History Channel during the Dark Knight’s opening weekend. But all in all, there was just enough there to review it as a short-but-still-feature-length documentary. And while we didn’t get much cinematic Batman, there’s a lot of info from the comics alongside some geeky real world tech stuff.
Aquaman
Aquaman 2006
As I continue my trial period for DC Universe, I noticed that they had the Aquaman pilot pseudo-spinoff from Smallville available to watch on there. And I also realized that even though it wasn’t a double length pilot movie, it does pass the 40+ minutes for my feature length requirement. And considering I recently watched the new Aquaman, I figured that I’d give it a shot. I was a fan of Smallville and watched it regularly through the first 7 or 8 seasons before dropping off just before the end. I remember hearing about this pilot when it was in the works but I never looked it up until just now. It has a surprisingly good cast in some of the minor roles and it also has someone who seems to be superhero pilot bad luck as Adrianne Palicki was in this failed pilot, the Wonder Woman failed pilot, and the Marvel’s Most Wanted Mockingbird failed pilot spinoff of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. As far as the actual Aquaman pilot goes, it’s a fairly standard origin setup for a monster-of-the-week first season. It doesn’t really do anything special or interesting. It’s just the same old format with an underwater theme to it.
Inspector Gadget 2
Inspector Gadget 2 2003
This is one of those movies that’s been sitting in my Netflix queue for well over a year and I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on it because I knew it was going to be pretty bad. But me being me, I was in the mood for a bad movie so I finally watched this one. Now, I was a big fan of the cartoon series when it was on Nickelodeon, but I never watched the first live action movie because I also suspected that it was kids movie trash. And while I did initially have some slight reservations on whether to actually consider this a superhero movie, I figured that there is a direct line from Cyborg to Robocop to Inspector Gadget. The best argument I heard against is that he is typically more of a spy than a superhero crimefighter, but at least in this movie, he’s a straight up cop. With super powers. So I think he’s just barely over the line. As for the actual quality of the movie? It’s straight to DVD Disney sequel trash that never got a laugh out of me and barely resembled the cartoon it was based on.
Read the rest of this entry
FTMN Quickie/Almost Super: Sexina
Almost Super: Sexina: Pop Star P.I. 2007
A little while ago I was cultivating some lists of movies that I still need to review that are on various streaming services. One of those services is Hoopla which is free through most local libraries. I did a basic search for “Superhero” and this was one of the movies that came up. I ran a poll on Twitter, and this is the movie that won. I knew I was in for a bad movie from the start just based on the description and cover art, but I was in the mood for a bad movie and this scratched that itch perfectly. The only problem was that I didn’t quite read the description carefully enough because I quickly realized that this wasn’t really a superhero movie at all, but a private eye detective style movie. Not only that, but it was also a parody film though the line between the movie trying to parody its subject and the movie just being funny because it’s so bad is a very thin line. Honestly, the film did eventually get some genuine laughs out of me but it was also halfway between laughing with it and laughing at it.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 