Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues
Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues 2016
There’s a few reasons why I haven’t covered any motion comics on this site before now. The biggest reason is that every motion comic that I’ve looked into is presented more like a TV season, with each issue of the comic that it’s adapting is its own episode and there tends to be a half dozen to a dozen episodes. Queen of Plagues is presented as a single movie that runs just over an hour, but the animation style is still much more like the typical motion comic style where the comic book art is translated almost exactly to screen with only minor changes to remove text boxes and animation based on moving and stretching the original art elements. While the voice work and animation – specifically the lip synch – fall in line with my limited experience with motion comics, it is much better than some of the lower budget ones that I’ve heard about with only a single voice actor and no lip synch animation at all. The film itself was a nice story even though it took a little while to get going.
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Darkman 3: Die Darkman Die
Darkman 3: Die Darkman Die 1996
After watching the second Darkman movie, I didn’t exactly have high hopes for the third entry in the franchise and while most of it faced the same mediocrity as the second movie, it went a few places in the second half that I didn’t quite expect and surprisingly enjoyed. What helped the most was that this film didn’t try and just re-do what the first film did with a slightly different premise, but it actually took the character in a new-but-believable direction. There are still plenty of mistakes along the way, but it was a worthy attempt.
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Darkman 2: The Return of Durant
Darkman 2: The Return of Durant 1995
Darkman is a movie that I’ve actually seen a surprising number of times considering that I’m someone who rarely re-watches movies unless it’s for a reason. In the past five years writing for this site, I’ve watched it four times. Once for the initial review, once for an episode of Filmwhys, once because someone was doing a group livetweet of it, and I rewatched it again because I borrowed the entire Darkman trilogy from the library so why not? I never knew much about the sequels other than they are obviously not as good as the Raimi original and they brought in Arnold Vosloo to replace Liam Neeson. The first sequel was ok, but nothing really stood out to keep my attention. Just a lackluster pseudo-revenge tale where the revenge wasn’t even that important and had a hard time keeping my interest.
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Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract 2017
It actually feels like a fairly light year for DC animated movies when compared to last year when there were quite a few movies from various different DC properties while this is only the fourth animated movie counting the theatrical Lego Batman movie and the latest DC Superhero Girls movie. Even so, I feel like I’ve fallen behind on these as this came out a couple months ago and I’m only just now getting around to watching and reviewing it. I did quite enjoy Teen Titans vs the Justice League and this movie does feel like a step up from that one. This also seems to do a good job of including more social relationships within the story instead of just focusing on the plot and action which helps differentiate itself from other superhero stories to a certain extent. There were a few too many attempts at maturing the story by including sex jokes, but overall this was an enjoyable continuation of the animated Teen Titans storyline. And as usual with all my reviews and especially recent releases, I will be discussing the movie in full including any potential plot spoilers.
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Gantz: O
Gantz: O 2016
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to keep up with anime. There was a time when I was a big fan and would keep track of every new release and would follow certain series releases on DVD. Nowadays, there’s too many for me to keep track of, but every once in a while something comes my way that piques my interest. Gantz was one of those series that I followed on DVD. It’s a bizarre series about people who have died and are then resurrected by a giant black orb and sent out on missions slash games to kill aliens with high tech weaponry where they will most likely die. After the anime series came a few live action movies, and this most recent film is a CGI rendered anime that follows likely a few months to a year after the series left off. It’s been a while since I’ve watched the original anime and even a while since I watched the first live action movie (and haven’t gotten around to the live actions sequels), but while this was so different that it barely felt like it was still Gantz, it’s still a bizarrely enjoyable ride.
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Krrish 3
Krrish 3 2013
It should be little surprise that after watching Koi… Mil Gaya and Krrish that I would finish up the trilogy by watching Krrish 3 as the final movie in this trilogy. That is, until a potential fourth movie is made. It still baffles me as to why they went against a traditional numbering system as Krrish is only a character in the second two movies but the decision was made to give this film the number three instead of the number 2 or even just a different subtitle all together. And while this is really the first film in the series to start things off and spend almost the entire run time as a superhero movie, that doesn’t make it a stronger movie. It borrows heavily from X-Men and Spider-Man and only has a handful of moments where it really makes a name for itself as a unique superhero movie. It’s still decent fun, but it didn’t live up to the playfulness of Krrish and the overly CGI action was a step down from the mostly wire work action of the previous film.
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Krrish
Krrish 2006
Continuing on after watching Koi… Mil Gaya I finally watched the first actual superhero part of this Bollywood trilogy. But even then the film surprised me to a certain extent as it is still mostly a romantic comedy with a supernatural angle to it where the actual superheroics don’t come into play until around the two hour mark of a three hour film. But where Koi… Mil Gaya had some problematic elements with its romance, there was none of that here and while it also fell into a few sitcom-esque cliches, it was a whole lot more fun to watch. It ultimately turned into an odd combination of Tarzan, Superman, and Spider-Man but it all somehow worked well together. Even the musical numbers were less distracting and felt fewer and further between as well.
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Almost Super: Koi… Mil Gaya
Almost Super: Koi… Mil Gaya 2003
This was one of the first foreign titles that I had heard of to add to my big superhero movie list as it is the first movie in the Bollywood Krrish trilogy where Krrish and Krrish 3 are both clearly superhero movies, but even early on I had heard that this had very little to do with superheroes at all. But over at Cinefessions they are holding an annual Summer Screams Challenge that I decided to join in this year, and as part of that challenge there are weekly themes. The theme this week happens to be foreign sci-fi & horror films with a bonus if you watch an entire trilogy. So I thought this would be the perfect time to finally watch and review this Krrish trilogy. I’m not entirely well versed in Bollywood films, but I have seen a couple so I knew roughly what to expect: long run times and random musical interludes. I wasn’t entirely expecting the whole Flowers for Algernon subplot that took up the entire first third of an almost three hour movie. But even with that in mind, this was still a generally enjoyable film that fell into a few cliched traps along the way.
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Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman 2017
I have to say that it’s a great year for superhero cinema so far. We got an amazing send-off for Wolverine, a hilariously fun follow up to the Lego Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy, and now we get not only our first female-led superhero film in over 12 years, but the first truly great one. Not only that, but it feels like it’s been a long time to get a hero from DC that feels so positive, hopeful, and truly heroic rather than someone overburdened by their responsibilities/failures. Director Patty Jenkins delivered a hero that stood out among her peers in every aspect, from the action to the drama and while the romance may have been slightly lacking, it’s not like it has much competition. And as with every review, but especially new releases, I may be discussing story elements that would be considered spoilers, so you have been warned.
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FTMN Quickie: Suicide Squad Extended Cut
It’s time for yet another FTMN Quickie as I finally got around to watching the extended edition of Suicide Squad that I bought on sale at Target for $10 back shortly after it was first released on home video. I hadn’t seen it since it first came out in theaters and if you recall my review, I was generally positive on the film with the exception of the villain and the overall arc of the plot. Watching it again had me noticing the flaws in the film much more, but when the characters are good, they are fantastic, and that’s enough to keep me engaged without rolling my eyes too hard every time Enchantress comes on screen.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 