Blog Archives
Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom
Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom 2017
Last year I decided to take a chance on the first Howard Lovecraft movie. At the time, I thought it was just a low budget knock off film that somehow was trying to trade in on the HP Lovecraft lore and was also based on an indie comic. This year I did a little bit more digging and discovered Arcana Studio spun off of Arcana Comics. They do seem to be a low budget animation studio, but the majority of their films are adaptations of their comics which I think is a great concept. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first Howard Lovecraft film, it seemed like a fascinating world, but there wasn’t much of a character arc and the tone seemed like a weird childish goth with mediocre voice actors except a couple token cameos. The sequel works much better with an overall darker tone with less kid-centric humor, bigger roles for the notable voice actors, and more of a character arc for Howard himself. I actually quite enjoyed this one and am curious to see where things end up in the third movie coming out in a couple weeks.
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.
Batman vs Two-Face
Batman vs Two-Face 2017
One of the most difficult things about falling behind over the past year is the continued break-neck pace that DC puts out their animated direct-to-home-video movies. There’s 3-4 in their regular animated line, 2-3 Lego versions, a couple Superhero Girl movies, and occasionally a few others like this one. This is the sequel to the previous year’s Return of the Caped Crusaders, an animated continuation of the Adam West Batman series from the 60’s with Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar returning to voice their characters. This time around they also add William Shatner as the voice of Two-Face and the Batman movie’s Catwoman Lee Meriwether. This also happens to the be the last film of Adam West before he passed away. Similar to the previous film, this was a lot of fun. It also took a slightly different direction to not overly homage previous incarnations and simply tell a new story in a similarly comedic fashion to the 60’s series with a more modern sensibility.
I Kill Giants
I Kill Giants 2018
It’s been a long while since I’ve sat down and written a movie review. This past year I’ve tried and gotten through the opening paragraph twice, but haven’t been able to finish one out just yet. But I’m trying to revitalize my interest in this site. Or let me rephrase that, my interest has not gone away for this site, just the ability to give it the time that I want to. But things are starting to change and as I’ve started to prepare for the new year, I’ve been getting a jump start by trying to catch up on what I’ve missed. The first one that I decided to grab was something that I always enjoy doing for this site, a lesser known comic book movie that’s not really about superheroes at all. This is a family fantasy drama adapted from the Image comic by Joe Kelly and Ken Niimura released in 2008 about a young girl who appropriately kills giants. It comes close to being a cliched version of the outcast/weird girl living in her own fantasy world to escape reality, but there’s enough different about this to make it stand out.
Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel
Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel 2018
An interesting thing happened the other day, I had a Facebook memory reminding me that a year ago I was contacted by an indie filmmaker who discovered my site and reached out to me to request a review for their movie. And that actually happened yet again this year. Justin Cook sent me a screener of his superhero spoof sequel, though I originally thought that the whole “Revenge of the Sequel” was part of the whole spoof concept. It also boasts being the first out gay superhero. On top of that, it’s filled with literally dozens of cameoes from superhero and sci-fi history including plenty of Star Trek actors. Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but even though most of the cameoes felt like they were pulled from various convention circuits, it was still a treat for someone like me who recognized plenty of stars from films like the 70’s motorcycle riding Captain America or the unreleased Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four. It felt like a cheesy road trip movie with a gay superhero twist that had some fun moments here and there.
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Atomic Blonde
Atomic Blonde 2017
Still trying to catch up on some of last year’s superhero and comic book movie offerings I managed to get around to one that I didn’t know much about but I had heard good things. Even when I checked it out from the library, the librarian recommended it as a good movie. I’m a fan of Charlize Theron in general as well as action movies with female leads as there are so few of them, and this movie delivered pretty much everything that I could have expected. Especially considering that the director’s previous effort was John Wick which I have heard nothing but good things about. And in case you didn’t know, this film was based on the graphic novel The Coldest City. The film has a lot of rawness, sex, great action scenes, bright colors, and a decent 80’s vibe but while it was a fun watch, there was just something missing so that it didn’t quite become an absolute favorite of mine immediately.
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Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming 2017
Still finding it difficult to get back into the swing of watching superhero movies and writing on this site, but this past weekend I managed to watch one of the MCU movies that I missed last year even though it took me nearly a week having it from the library before actually watching it. Which is a little odd since I’ve heard almost nothing but good things about the latest Spider-Man even though it’s been such a quick reboot since the last iteration. I did quite enjoy Tom Holland’s full-fledged entry into the MCU but there were a couple things that I noticed while watching the film. First is how often the film side-steps many of the traditional superhero movie tropes. But on the other side of things, while it isn’t an origin story, it actually still manages to hit a lot of the origin story beats that we’re used to, just with a slight adjustment to them.
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Black Panther
Black Panther 2018
I’m still working on getting back into the swing of things here but I did manage to get out to the theaters to see the latest Marvel movie even though I missed the last two. Luckily, this falls in line with the end of the previous phase where Ant-Man came out just before Avengers: Age of Ultron and also had little to do with the overall phase’s arc, instead it’s a mostly stand-alone film with just a few ties to the rest of the movies. Notably Civil War where T’Challa made his debut. Honestly, the movie this reminds me the most of is Wonder Woman as it is very important for its cultural impact in the realm of superhero movies as this does for the Black community what Wonder Woman did for women. The main difference is that where Wonder Woman was weakest in the third act, Black Panther’s weakness lies in its overall lack of strong action set pieces. But what it lacks in action, it more than makes up for with strong characters, themes, and gorgeous visuals. And just for full disclosure, I am a middle aged white guy from the suburbs and I will get into spoilers.
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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.
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Robocop Prime Directives: Dark Justice
Robocop Prime Directives: Dark Justice 2001
While the two Robocop sequels aren’t that well known at this point, they did at least get a theatrical release. What’s even lesser known is this Canadian miniseries that takes place ten years after the events of the first movie and moves things away from Detroit to Delta City, and yet continues to have multiple flashbacks from Murphy’s time as a police officer in Detroit. This is the first of those movies and while it’s not quite the TV series or cartoon which made Robocop much more family friendly, this returns to the violent and satiric tone of the first film, although with much less talent behind the writing, acting, and special effects. It’s an interesting concept, but very little was done with it to make things more interesting than a low budget, TV movie.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 