The Punisher
The Punisher 2004
I’ve been a fan of this movie ever since it came out, I’m not sure if I saw it in theaters, but if I didn’t, then I saw it shortly afterwards. I have yet to see the extended edition of this movie but I would really like to sometime. Extended editions aren’t always improvements to the movie, I know several times that I watched the extended edition of a movie without realizing it, and I know in the case of Superman: The Movie, it felt like it was too drawn out and I think I would have preferred watching the theatrical version rather than the extended edition. But other times, movies get cut down for other reasons and the extended edition is actually the preferred version, like in the case of Daredevil. But since I already own the regular version of this DVD, I went ahead and watched it tonight instead of watching The Spirit that we rented last night so I could finish up the non-trilogy of Punisher movies. There were a few scenes that I didn’t care for as much as I did when I first watched the movie, but I still enjoyed it a ton more than either of the other Punisher movies I’ve watched this week.
Guns and Superheroes
For a while I was trying to figure out what movies I wanted to fill out the first half of this month with. The last half of the month I’ll be looking at the cast of the Avengers and all the movies that came out featuring the other members before watching them all together in theaters. For a little while I was considering watching a bunch of the worst movies since I had just made the list of 33 of them. But many of those movies are straight to video or TV movies or in one case completely unreleased and made just to keep the rights to the characters. So after watching a couple of the Punisher movies, I decided to watch some more superheroes that prefer guns over their other powers if they even have any. So I’ll be watching movies like The Spirit, The Shadow, and The Phantom. And for this week’s blog, I thought it would be a good idea to look at how guns affect the superhero dynamic in general.
Punisher
Punisher 1989
It was Sunday morning, and I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep. When I got up I realized that Jena had made her way into our bed at some point during the night. I’m a very heavy sleeper by the way. Considering how little my wife enjoyed Punisher: War Zone, I decided to let her out of watching this movie which by my understanding was just as bad of a movie and just watch it by myself downstairs while they slept. This was on my list of 33 of the worst movies, but when I watched it, it didn’t seem that bad to me. I mean, it wasn’t a great piece of cinema by any means, but it was a solid if fairly generic 80’s action movie. And as I looked through some of the trivia, I was surprised that this has the second highest body count of the three movies at 91 kills, War Zone comes in first at 97, and the Thomas Jane version comes in at a paltry 45. This also has the benefit (or possibly detriment) of having a few brief nude scenes, but then half of them are of Dolph Lundgren.
Punisher: War Zone
Punisher: War Zone 2008
I’d like to take a quick moment before starting this review to talk about video rental stores. Many people say they’re a dying breed, and many big chains have shut their doors for good, but at least here in the midwest, there’s still one chain that seems to be doing just fine. It’s the same one I’ve been going to since I was a kid and I’ve seen it grow and it still appears to be doing well when other stores are closing their gates. I’m not sure what it is they do right, but Family Video is a great place to go. It’s a lot harder for me to browse around on the internet unless I’ve got some inclination of a movie that I want to see, but my favorite section to browse around Family Video is their large 2 for $1 section that features tons of straight to video classics and B movies. That’s where I found this gem of a movie, sadly they didn’t have the Dolph Lundgren version of the Punisher or I would have rented that one there as well. But anyway I watched Punisher: War Zone yesterday evening and I chased it down with a much better movie called The Expendables. They felt surprisingly similar in certain ways, but where War Zone faltered, Expendables flourished.
Superhero Shorts: Batman Dead End
This week I’ll be looking at my first dramatic Superhero Short as suggested by Ryan McNeely over at 5 Word Movie Reviews on my first edition of this series. Batman: Dead End is one of the most recognized superhero fan films, getting praise from the likes of filmmaker Kevin Smith and comic book artist Alex Ross. It was a labor of love from special effects artist turned director Sandy Collora whose goal was to create a Batman film that captured the look of the comic books as closely as possible. But enough of a backstory, let’s take a look at the film. You can view it at Sandy Collora’s website Collora Studios or watch it embedded below.
Sky High
Sky High 2004
I had seen both Sky High and Zoom several years ago and in my memory I had enjoyed Zoom a little bit better. When I watched Zoom again, it still made me laugh just as much as it did the first time, but when I wrote about it I realized a lot of flaws with the plot and the characters. I felt almost the exact opposite about Sky High, it had a much stronger plot and characters, but it just didn’t make me laugh nearly as often. It drew a lot of smiles and a couple chuckles, but no flat out laughter. Jena enjoyed it somewhat, but it couldn’t hold her attention for the entirety of the movie so she tuned out about an hour in. But even without any full fledged laughs out of me, Sky High is a pretty impressive movie for what it is.
Zoom: Academy of Superheroes
Zoom: Academy of Superheroes 2006
I bought this movie a little while ago when I found it on clearance at a half price bookstore for two bucks. When I watched it a few years ago, I saw it right around the same time as I saw Sky High which I will be reviewing on Thursday. Sky High came out a year earlier than this one, but they’re both very similar movies. When I watched them the first time around, I enjoyed this movie better, simply enough, it made me laugh more. And it still makes me laugh just as much. But when I watched it this time, I did notice some pretty glaring problems with the plot, but as long as I was laughing, I didn’t care as much. I rewatched Sky High just a couple days later and it didn’t make me laugh nearly as much, but it did have a much better story, and almost all the characters were more well developed, but I’ll talk about that more in my full review on Thursday. Jena watched this movie with us, but she never really had much to say about it, she stayed with it through the entire movie, but when it was over, she was ready to move on to the next thing.
Superhero Shorts: Wolverine’s Claws Suck
I was very happy with the first article in this Superhero Shorts series and I will definitely be continuing this series every Saturday. I’ve also gotten some good responses from filmmakers talking about their short films. This week I take a look at another comedy video by the YouTube filmmakers Greg and Lou. Wolverine’s Claws Suck is their only superhero themed comedy video made in 2009 with over 2 million views on YouTube. Lou from Greg and Lou graciously answered a few of my questions about their video, but first let’s take a look at it.
Batman: The Movie
Batman: The Movie 1966
I had been considering watching this movie sometime this month because Jena has been very much into Batman more than any other superhero, and while I wanted to save the two Nolan Batman movies for just before the Dark Knight Rises, I figured I could watch the others early. It was Saturday evening and Jena was going on about Batman while we were trying to figure out something to watch, so I looked this movie up. The Batman TV show was a bit before my time, so I had never seen any of it aside from a few YouTube clips, but I was familiar with how campy it would be. It still managed to go above and beyond my expectations and it was hilariously fun to watch.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 