Blog Archives
Zack Snyder’s Justice League
Zack Snyder’s Justice League 2021
I’m back with another superhero movie review and even though this movie is only a couple months old, I feel like I’ve been waiting for this one for ages. With some movies that have regular and director’s cuts I will do a “quickie” review that mostly covers the differences between the two versions that are often 80 to 90% the same movie so I just cover the differences. This is a different case and one much closer to the Donner Cut of Superman II where much of the story beats are different and the overall tone is way different. In fact, this is probably the instance where the vast majority of the film is different between the two versions. My guess is that there is only about 5-10% of the footage used in both films, and that’s 5% of the theatrical version which is half as long. For my part, I liked the theatrical cut well enough but there were plenty of glaring issues with it. This version almost feels more like a miniseries which it almost was and could still be watched that way, but that actually solves one of the issues where this team film came too quickly without introducing the rest of the team beforehand. Having this amount of length really helps to build each individual character before bringing them together as a team. And as this is still a new release, there will be spoilers in the review so be warned.
Read the rest of this entry
Justice League
Justice League 2017
I’m not entirely sure what bug got into me, but I’ve been full speed ahead trying to catch up on the year (more or less) that I’ve missed writing on this site. This is one of the biggest films that I missed from last year and while it made a decent amount of money, it was a pretty big disappointment for what a Justice League movie could have made. Out of the major superhero movie releases of the year, it was the second lowest grossing film just above Logan which was R-rated and it was the lowest grossing film of the entire DCEU. It was plagued by some behind the scenes nightmares like the tragic loss of Zack Snyder’s daughter midway through filming so that the film was finished by Joss Whedon. There was also the well documented issue with Henry Cavill being unable to shave his mustache for reshoots while filming the latest Mission Impossible which created some unnerving scenes of CGI hair-removal. The resulting chaos resulted in a rather chaotic movie that shifted in tone from the more serious and dramatic Zack Snyder films that came before it, and the more irreverent humor associated with Joss Whedon with a lack of overall cohesion. Some moments worked, but the team never quite came together as a whole.
Vixen: The Movie
Vixen: The Movie 2017
One of the last shows that I actively covered over on my sister site Channel: Superhero was the first season of an animated series set in the Arrowverse and airing on the CW app/website CW Seed. One of my biggest issues in the webseries is that it felt more like a movie/full episode that was chopped up into episodes rather than an actual webseries. And while I didn’t continue in on watching the second season, they were cut together with a few extra scenes into this animated movie that falls right alongside the typical DC Animated movies. I do find that it’s somewhat appropriate that I’ve waited this long to review this film as it is Black History Month and in general, that’s where I’ve reviewed most Black superhero movies. I will also be updating my top Black superhero movies of all time list once I’ve watched Black Panther in just a couple week’s time. But as for the actual quality of this movie, it falls somewhere in the midrange of the average DC Animated movie. Vixen is an interesting character, but the movie itself doesn’t really do anything to make itself stand out as anything other than just another superhero origin story, just with a little African folklore flair to it.
Read the rest of this entry
This Week in Superhero TV 11/23 – 11/28
It’s been a busy week. I’ve gotten the chance to take the week off of work, stay home, relax, watch a bunch of movies and it’s been good. There’s also been a bit of news in the realm of superhero TV though I won’t cover all of it here. The thing that impacts this site the most is that Constantine now has the sword of Damocles hanging over its head. It’s currently the lowest rated comic book related show out there and hasn’t held on to Grimm’s ratings very well. It had a nice bump last week, but before those numbers came out the order was given that NBC will not give it a full season run. Instead Constantine will only get 13 episodes which makes getting a second season much more unlikely. Which is disappointing, even though it’s still early in its run, I have liked it better than Gotham. But it hasn’t done a whole lot to wow me aside from the Feast of Souls episode. Also, if you haven’t heard yet, I am planning on expanding this feature into a full fledged site and am looking for contributors so please check it out! And as always, I would like to thank Rachel Thuro for tackling this week’s The Walking Dead.
Read the rest of this entry
This Week in Superhero TV 10/27 – 10/31
Finally it’s time to have a full week’s worth of superhero shows to cover, from Gotham through Supernatural minus Arrow.
This Week In Superhero TV: 10/20 – 10/21
Another short week before Constantine’s pilot comes out at the end of this week and I have no idea when I’m going to get around to watching it. I am also running behind on watching Tales From the Crypt season 3 so it won’t be up tomorrow, though I hope I will be able to finish it by the end of Saturday. Anyway on to the actual television episodes that I will be talking about here. After a good showing by Gotham last week, it’s back down into the dumps again, but Flash and S.H.I.E.L.D. are both going very strong. Flash is really starting to remind me of a more superheroic version of Buffy which is funny because S.H.I.E.L.D. is the one that’s helmed by Buffy alums, or at least Whedon team members. Still, overall it was a good week and I’m interested in seeing what Constantine has to offer tomorrow and if I can keep up with watching four shows a week and still have time to watch movies. Here goes!
Read the rest of this entry
TV Nights: This Week in Superhero TV 10/13 – 10/14
Yes, I know it’s a short week based on the title of this article but I’m technically only covering the shows that came out on Monday and Tuesday as I haven’t caught up with Arrow and Constantine doesn’t start until next week. Instead of cluttering my site with all of these shorter articles covering the superhero TV shows that are coming out this year, I decided to put my thoughts on all of them in a single post. Though Constantine’s pilot will get its own post next week. It’s been a good week with all the shows firing on all cylinders for the most part, either continuing their high standards, or in the case of Gotham showing some improvement. It’s a close call as to which show I like the most as both the Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are really nailing what it means to be a superhero television show.
Read the rest of this entry
TV Nights: The Flash #1
The Flash Week 1
Episode: Pilot
Original Airdate: 10-7-14
Even though I haven’t been watching Arrow, this was the show that I’ve been most excited for this season. I’m a big fan of the Flash and everything I’ve heard about this show before now has been pretty positive. They want to take it in a more sci-fi direction, they have John Wesley Shipp as an homage to the 90’s short lived Flash series which I’m glad I caught up with a few months back, and they have Danielle Panabaker who I remember from when she was in Sky High. It has a lot more of what’s missing from the rest of the superhero TV shows this season: fun. Yes, there are some serious moments, but there is a lot more fun in this show than Gotham, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or even Arrow from what I gather. Those other shows do have their fun moments, and Flash has a serious side too, but this is the right way to do a superhero on TV right now. It’s the closest thing to a Marvel movie brought to the small screen, which is funny because it is a DC property.
Read the rest of this entry
TV Nights: The Flash Series
With the new Flash TV show on the horizon I thought it would be a good idea to do something that I’ve wanted to do for a while here but never really had the time for it, watch a TV season to review here. If you’re a regular visitor and noticed a lack of regular posts lately, this is why. Instead of watching a 75-120+ minute movie to review, I bunkered in for the long haul to watch 22 episodes of the Flash, and did make a little time for a movie here and there between episodes. I watched a lot of television when I was younger and I’m certain that I watched the entire run of the Flash back in 1990 when I would have been the ripe age of 10 years old. Twenty four years later and the only thing that had stuck with me was a scene involving Barry alphabetizing books on a shelf as a test for his powers which ended up being in one of the last two episodes. Exciting, I know. But looking back on the show, it’s definitely dated and covers a lot of the typical sci-fi/superhero cliched storylines in it, but aside from that it was quite an enjoyable watch and it’s disappointing that it didn’t find an audience back in 1990. I can only hope that the new series lives up to the standard that this episode has set for it in my eyes.
Read the rest of this entry
Superhero Shorts: What if Ingmar Bergman Directed the Flash?
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of the creator. This time around I have Patrick Willems who has been making YouTube shorts for quite a while now, including many superhero themed videos like the one that recently spread across the internet and caught my attention. While many sites don’t mention it, this is actually part of an ongoing series taking a look at what a superhero film might look like if it was directed by a well known director who is unlikely to ever attempt a superhero film for various reasons. This time around he wondered What if Ingmar Bergman Directed the Flash? As usual, you can watch below or you can visit Patrick’s YouTube channel where you can see all of his videos, including the series that this video is a part of, Comic Book Movies That Will Never Happen.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 