Category Archives: 10’s movies
Supervized
Supervized 2019
Even though I still have quite a few relatively major movies that I’ve missed out on the majority of the past year, one of the things that I enjoy the most about working on this site is finding these smaller and lower budget superhero and comic book movies. And trying to get back into the reviewing swing of things I didn’t just want to immediately tackle all the bigger releases, I wanted to seek out some of these smaller flicks that I do enjoy watching. This one was on my radar last year though I wasn’t able to get things lined up with a screener or the correct streaming service. But as of this writing it is streaming on Amazon Prime which I do have for the time being so I checked it out. There were actually a surprising number of parallels to Sky High only at the other end of the spectrum as this takes place at an old age home for superheroes rather than a high school for superhero kids. It’s rated R, has several familiar faces, but it still has a low budget feel in terms of the writing and special effects. The comedy is just a notch above fart jokes, the plot gets interesting towards the third act, but it all fizzles out at the end.
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#39: Thor
Or
The Day The Earth Stood A Little Still
This will be a fun one to discuss!
First Impressions
This film was one that I remember not really enjoying that much on the first viewing. I had no real knowledge of pretty much every character and actor/actress in the film and I couldn’t fully embrace the Thor character because I felt he was a little stiff. Have I changed my mind? Let’s find out!
The Characters
- Chris Hemsworth: Thor
As we all know now, Thor becomes one of the best characters in the entire MCU by Endgame. And that’s not an opinion, he’s genuinely one of the best characters with some of the best character arc bits. And knowing that when re-watching this film can give you some real perspective on how naive the character is. I still stand by my initial assessment that the Thor we get in this film is very stiff (calm down ladies and gentlemen!), I can now understand what I wasn’t getting before. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to think of Thor as a character who had actual character depth (even if his character at the time was as shallow as possible). Ah well, now I know! - Natalie Portman: Jane Foster
Um. She’s…. ok? To be honest, I never liked her in this and on rewatching I still don’t really see her as anything to write home about. Or write an article about. Personally I think that Kat Dennings is way more fun to watch as Darcy Lewis, even though she’s relegated to “sidekick” status here. So yeah, kinda dull. - Tom Hiddleston: Loki
There’s not many characters in the MCU who start as they mean to go on. The actors get comfortable in their roles and can make them come alive more. I think that Hiddleston hit the damn nail on the head here and gave us a Loki who we KNOW will go bad and we also know that he actually has good reason to. The fine line of humour, drama and madness is there from the start and only gets better down the line. Well done Hiddles! - Everyone Else: Everyone Else
As you may guess, there’s waaay too many people to list even all the main characters here without taking 90% of the article length. So here’s the ones I found fun:
– Odin: A good character for this film but I’m glad he wasn’t on screen more, if that makes sense.
– Heimdall: Idris Elba. Fun! Next!
– Sif & The Warriors Three: Kinda fun but basically end up being time wasters by the end. Not a huge criticism, given the run time there was no more room, but still valid.
The Setting
This film was our first introduction to Asgard, the realm of Thor and Norse Gods, within the MCU. And they actually did quite well spending time there, given that tradition would dictate that you get an intro, maybe 20 minutes max, before Thor gets stuck on Earth with minimal screen-time for Asgard after that. At least, that’s what most comic book films did back then, because audiences wouldn’t want to see lots of stuff in totally fantasy realms that they can’t relate to. Or so seemingly ever single studio thought. Not Marvel though. We got LOADS of time in Asgard and even a fair share of time in Jotunheim, the realm of the Frost Giants. I really do appreciate how different this film was to others that came before.
Now the flip side is that I actually get kinda bored with the Earth stuff. There’s a fairly boring location, not really much that happens outside of “Hey, I want my hammer back!” and “Hey, they took my research!” until The Destroyer arrives (though surely simply yelling “Klaatu Barada Nikto” would have ended that fight really quickly!). So funnily enough the exact opposite of what most studios had feared occurs where we get bored with the stuff that should make us connect with the characters on a subconscious personal level and we enjoy more the stuff that we cannot begin to connect with in the same way. Who’d have thought it?
Alrighty, we’ve heard a fair bit from me but my partner-in-crime has yet to chime in. Let’s fix that right now! Take it away Bubba!
It’s been a while since I’ve watched this. In fact, I think I watched it once during the first year of this site and I don’t think I’ve re-watched it since. I do enjoy Thor as a character and a setting as I’m a fan of high fantasy and Thor is a mix of high fantasy and superhero, and this first movie has a touch of fish out of water with Thor coming to Earth. It’s interesting to look back at this origin story for Thor considering how much he’s changed over the course of three solo movies and four Avengers movies. It’s a bit of a backlash to see where he started, but it also makes his transformation so interesting. Plus, the chemistry between Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston is evident right here from the beginning. The only downside is that Thor spends half of the movie being the pre-heroic Thor who is a complete arrogant jerk, and director Kenneth Branah has a bit of an overuse of Dutch tilts during most of the scenes on Earth. Otherwise, it’s a fun action origin with a touch of romance.
During the first phase of the MCU, Thor was actually the highest grossing origin behind Iron Man. It was also part of the MCU’s ongoing goal to bring in relatively big named directors not known for doing superhero movies like Kenneth Branagh who was best known for his Shakespearean tendencies. And as of 2020 based on currently announced titles, Thor will be the only Marvel hero to have a fourth solo movie unless Love and Thunder becomes more of an origin story for Jane-as-Thor. As far as the MCU goes, it’s important as the origin for one of the original Avengers though it’s possible that it might be replaced by Ragnarok which was a big turning point for the character to bring him more into the comedy realm. But as for the list as it stands. I’m sticking by this one, especially over the less well received the Dark World.
Danke Mr Wheat. And so, we bring ourselves to the big questions. The questions that we must all ask ourselves from time to time. And those questions are:
- Would I recommend this film to others?
- Does this film deserve to be on the list?
- If so, where does it appear on the list?
Given that I seem to have developed a pattern of following the usual order of numbers, let’s go for #1 first.
1) Yes. I’d even recommend doing as I did, watching the film again after seeing the others. You get the full appreciation of the arc of Thor (and his washboard progression) AND I feel like I understood more of the film once I had more knowledge of the world.
2) Yup. See above & it’s the origin of an amazing Superhero!
3) Let’s see. Carry the 2, cross out the 9 and add Pi. So that puts it….
- Hellboy
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- The Crow
- Men In Black
- Dr Strange
- Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
- Megamind
- Thor
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- Superman 3
- The Wild Wild World Of Batwoman
- The Meteor Man
- Supergirl
- Howard The Duck
- The Fantastic Four (1994)
- The Punisher
- Batman & Robin
- The Amazing Spider-Man
- Batman Forever
- BvS: Dawn Of Justice
Potential Substitutions:
Wonder Woman (replacing The Death Of The Hulk)
X-Men: The Last Stand (replacing Catwoman)
Turbo Kid (replacing The Incredible Hulk)
The Incredibles 2 (replacing Fant4stic)
Maybe a bit of a surprise for you guys there, but I feel that’s about right. And now we must draw this review to a close. As the Bifrost Bridge begins to spin up, I shall bid you Adieu and…………
Oh bugger, it missed me. Ah well, I’ll walk then. Toodles!
I Am Number Four
I Am Number Four 2011
This was a movie that I never really paid much attention to other than I’ve seen it float around occasionally on other people’s superhero movie lists. I always thought it was more of a sci-fi movie based off a YA novel following the Twilight trend. Instead of vampires and werewolves, they used aliens, and for the most part, that’s what this is. Though there is a slight difference with the ending of this as there is an element of saving the world which brings the movie just over the line for me into superhero territory. Especially as they are aliens with super powers. Unfortunately, most of the film doesn’t care about the alien super powers and instead is focused on the ultra generic high school romance complete with the group of football player bullies, the quarterback who used to date the girl the hero likes, and they pick on the UFO obsessed nerd who becomes the hero’s friend. There are a few moments at the end that try to make up for it, but it’s too little too late.
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Valentine: The Dark Avenger
Valentine: The Dark Avenger 2019
I’m down to the last couple indie superhero movies of the year although I’m not sure if I’m going to get around to the last one on my list. This was an Indonesian film that came out a couple years ago in Indonesia, but was released in the US with an English dub from Shout Factory earlier this year. It was based on a comic book superhero from Skylar comics and it has an interesting overall concept that seemed to share a few ideas with Kick-Ass, at least as far as the social media aspect, but brought a lot more martial arts and a lot less blood. It’s not quite as action-y as a martial arts movie and it’s not quite as superhero-y as a superhero movie but it has its moments here and there and was put together pretty well for a lesser known superhero movie.
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BlokeBusting The Essentials #89: Fant4stic
#49: Fant4stic
Or
Something tells me you might know how I feel about this film already. Let’s see…
First Impressions
Ok. I’m going to admit something here that I think you might be a little surprised by. I didn’t hate the 2005 Fantastic Four film. I know it’s not good, but I was alright with it. I went into this film knowing that it had a SOLID cast, a director who had done some good work and a studio with money behind it. So, all things considered, sounds like a great recipe! Then I saw the film in the cinema. And now you get to hear about it.
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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.
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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.
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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 entryBlokeBusting The Essentials #40: Megamind
#40: Megamind
Or
The Battle Of The Egos
This one is actually something that breaks a personal rule that I have. You’ll find out what that is in just a little while…
First Impressions
This film kinda came out of nowhere when it arrived in the cinema (at least in England). Suddenly there was an animated film about superheroes/villains that actually focused on a villain and made you understand a side of the equation that you may have avoided thinking about. And I think I managed to see this without knowing who played Megamind. This is key, and connected to my earlier comment. So, let’s dive right into the cast!
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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.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 