Blog Archives
Ultimate Avengers
Ultimate Avengers 2006
With the popularity of my one-sentence review of Age of Ultron, I decided that I would leave you hanging a bit more and bide my time to give my full thoughts on the latest Avengers movie. Also, since I didn’t cover quite as many animated films last month, I thought I would instead take a look at the other animated Avengers movies that came out before even the first Iron Man movie when Marvel was working with Lion’s Gate to produce a series of animated films which would later tie-in with some of the live action movies. But they actually went the opposite route and began with the big team-up film instead of giving everyone their own separate introduction. It was based on the Ultimates universe and while it does share quite a few things with the Cinematic Universe, there are plenty of departures as well. It has been years since I’ve watched this, and I’m a little sad to say that it doesn’t hold up, especially after seeing them all realized so much better in the flesh, or at least most of them.
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The Condor
The Condor 2007
Even though I watched this film before C2E2, I didn’t get the chance to write about it until now. I really didn’t know much of anything about this film aside from the fact that it was an animated film that came out about the same time as Mosaic based around an original superhero created by Stan Lee, and something about skateboards. It’s even been sitting on my DVD shelf for well over a year along with a dozen other movies that I bought off the clearance shelf specifically for this site that I haven’t gotten around to yet. I didn’t realize until the film started up with a nice little intro from Stan Lee himself that it was essentially based around an even smaller superhero minority than the woman superhero or even the Black superhero, the Latino superhero. As the origin story of the Condor, it basically combines the origins of Iron Man and Daredevil. The tone of the film was also a little off in the same way Mosaic was, where the plot was rather simple as if it was made for a child, but there were scatterings of adult themes tossed around that were a little on the inappropriate side for the younguns. I really wasn’t very fond of this one, it was obvious, dated, and even felt a little on the racist side of things.
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Mosaic
Mosaic 2007
It feels good to finally be getting back into a somewhat regular schedule over here at my home for movies since spending so much time at my second home for television over at Channel: Superhero. I think it helps that I’ve decided to make this month animation month which tend to offer up much shorter movies than the live action versions. I have also been thinking about women led superhero movies so I thought it was a perfect fit to take a look at this film that you wouldn’t even know by looking at the cover art or the title was about a young woman who becomes a superhero. It was one of a brief series of films for original characters including this film, the Condor, and the live-action Lightspeed. Mosaic is about a shapeshifting race of people who evolved from chameleons and have remained hidden within the population, and a teenage girl named Maggie comes in contact with one of their runestones and is imbued with their powers. It generally feels like an 80’s or 90’s style low-to-moderate budget animation with more action than story, but it was a fun little adventure and happens to be free to watch on Hulu, so there’s that.
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Batman vs. Robin
Batman vs. Robin 2015
April has unintentionally become animation month here at Flights, Tights and Movie Nights as I take a look at a couple home video releases as well as catch up with the last couple Marvel animated movies I haven’t gotten around to yet. Batman vs. Robin is the latest DC Animation release that was originally touted as their first original story, though it is apparently partly based on the Court of Owls by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo as well as a sequel to last year’s Son of Batman which was a decent, though fairly mediocre effort from the studio. It has a much stronger underlying theme of what being a father and being a son means, though it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Road to Perdition which I had just recently watched. It was still a mighty fine effort with some nice performances, impressive action sequences, and a few twists and turns along the way. And FYI, Batman vs. Robin is currently available via digital download, and will be released on DVD this Tuesday, April 14th, and as a warning I will be delving into the film in its entirety, including any spoilers.
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TMNT
TMNT 2007
It’s already April of 2015 and I still haven’t followed through with finishing up the 100 Essential Superhero Movies that I finalized back in June of last year. I still have a few more to get to and will also be updating the list for 2015 to include some significant films that came out last year and remove a few that just barely squeezed their way onto the list. This film is often overlooked nowadays as the original 1990 live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the one looked at through nostalgic eyes, and any newer fans of the franchise can look to the current Nickelodeon series or heaven forbid, the Michael Bay produced franchise starter. It was a modest success with a moderate budget but plans for a sequel never materialized. It’s a bit of an oddity in itself, it loosely sequelized the original three live action movies from the 90’s and yet was entirely animated, it also shied away from using the full title and instead opted for just the initials. Something that was akin to the early reports of the Michael Bay version dropping the “mutant” part of the equation and opting for “alien”. And while the story isn’t very deep, it was a lot of fun to revisit these characters an a relatively updated format while still holding true to most of their roots.
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The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 2015
Next up on the kids movies agenda is the second foray into the theatrical realm for a certain animated sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. Similar to last year’s Birdman (and this is one of the only places that will ever compare those two movies) it is a stretch to call this a “superhero movie” as the aquatic tee-am mates only take on their superhero roles for about ten minutes out of the entire movie. I can’t say that I’m a regular watcher of the Spongebob cartoon and haven’t actually watched it in years, but I am a sucker for the psychadelic, pun-filled, non-sequitur show. What other show is going to have a reference to the creepy twins in the Shining during a trip inside Spongebob’s cotton candy and rainbow filled brain? Underneath the trippy animation and occasional bathroom humor lies a smartly written tale featuring a Greek Chorus of seagulls, Antonio Banderas hamming it up as Burger Beard, Bikini Bottom turning into a Mad Max-like post apocalyptic wasteland, a supreme being dolphin named Bubbles, and plenty of laughs throughout.
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Tiger and Bunny: The Rising
Tiger and Bunny: The Rising 2014
Once again finishing up my quest to have watched every single 2014 comic book and superhero movie with this anime film that came out during the early part of this year. It’s a spin-off of the Tiger and Bunny anime TV series which I have yet to watch, though I did watch the first movie, Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning. It came out after the show, but encapsulated the beginning of what happened in the show, as mentioned in the title. This movie takes place after all of the events of the show, but there weren’t too many things that I wasn’t able to follow having not seen anything other than the first film. I would recommend at least watching either “The Beginning” or the first couple episodes of the show to get a better introduction to all of the characters. That said, I really enjoyed getting back into the world of this film where superheroes are both TV stars and methods of advertising, where each hero has their own sponsorship, and usually several. It adds a unique element to the story where we get to see not just the heroes and villains, but the challenge of filming the fights and the people who are watching the events at home. The overall story of the film wasn’t anything special, but it was great to get back to these characters I’m familiar with within this fascinating world. And I did end up watching this in the original Japanese with subtitles.
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Big Hero 6
Big Hero 6 2014
Even though this was the last big superhero movie of 2014 that I had been looking forward to, the biggest reason why I wanted to see this movie in theaters is because of my daughter Jena and her 8th birthday this Saturday, November 8th. So that was the mindset I was in when I made it to the theaters to watch this latest Disney animated movie. In fact, I realized that even though I’ve had a pretty poor theatrical track record for the past several years, I had seen every Disney Animated movie in theaters since Wreck-it Ralph a couple years ago. There has become a finer line between the Disney animation studios, as the quality and subject matter between Disney Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and to a lesser extent the DisneyToon Studios with the likes of Wreck-it Ralph and Frozen being as good or better than Monsters University or Brave. So I was hopeful that the trend would continue with the first animated collaboration between Marvel and Disney. I have seen most of Marvel’s previous animated works and they were nothing special, and even though this movie doesn’t have any connection with the live action Marvel Cinematic Universe, I was still very excited to see it based on the trailers. I was hoping for a lot of laughs, a lot of action, and I had already heard that it had a lot of heart, and that’s exactly what I got from it. It’s true that it was fairly predictable even when it was trying to throw some twists out there, but it was still done well enough that I didn’t much care and just enjoyed the ride. Not only that, but Jena was there and completely on board for the whole ride as well. And as always here, I will be discussing the movie as a whole including any plot twists and reveals, so spoilers have been warned.
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Guest Post: The Best Animated Heroes of 2014
It’s been a while since I’ve had a guest post here but I got a request a while back from someone who wanted to do an article on the best kid’s heroes. At the time, I was in the middle of my 100 Essential Superhero movies project so I declined back then. But with Big Hero 6 coming out this weekend, I thought it was a great time to take a look at some of the best heroes for kids that have come out this year, and so let me introduce you to Catherine Ross. She is a full-time stay-at-home-mum who believes learning should be enjoyable for young minds. An erstwhile elementary school teacher, Catherine loves coming up with creative ways through which kids can grasp the seemingly difficult concepts of learning easily. She believes that a ‘fun factor’ can go a long way in enhancing kids’ understanding and blogs at kidslearninggames.weebly.com/.
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Filmwhys Extra #14 Interview with Garrett Gilchrist
Episode 14 of Filmwhys Extra where my guest is Garrett Gilchrist from Orange Cow Productions, The Thief Archive on YouTube, and many other places. We talk about his She-Hulk fan film that he worked on back in 2007 but mostly talk about Richard Williams’ grand, unfinished animated film the Thief and the Cobbler which has a fascinating history behind it and Garrett’s involvement in restoring the film to as close as Williams’ vision as possible.
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