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Justice League Dark
Justice League Dark 2017
While this isn’t the first comic book movie to be released in 2017, this is the first 2017 comic book movie that I’ve gotten around to watching. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of DC’s animated movies and especially those directed by Jay Oliva. There’s just something about his action and style that gets to me every time. This is also the next in the continuing series of movies loosely connected continuity surrounding the expanding Justice League. And this had the right amount of action, humor, and drama to keep me hooked from beginning to end. Even though I was only vaguely familiar with many of the characters in this film, I connected with them and enjoyed this from beginning to end. Especially with its connection to the unfairly cancelled NBC series Constantine. My only real gripe with this film is that once again it pushed Batman front and center when he had no real reason to be included in this story other than the fact that he is DC’s cash cow and has to be included in every possible thing they do.
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Blue is the Warmest Color
Blue is the Warmest Color 2013
As of this moment, this is what I will refer to as the final “major” superhero or comic book film that I had yet to watch and review since starting this site. It’s one that I’ve put off for a variety of reasons. One of which is the multiple, extended, and explicit sex scenes over the course of this three hour movie. Now, I’m not generally one to shy away from sex and nudity, but when you’re the father of a 10 year old girl who has a very bad habit of staying up much later than she should, you tend to be very careful about what you watch in the living room. But once I got past that hurdle albeit in shorter chunks over the course of four evenings, I did enjoy the extended and raw tale of a young woman finding herself through school, romance, and sexuality. And while I myself am not a teenager, a woman, or gay, there was still plenty about Adele’s journey that I strongly related to throughout the course of this film.
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Red 2
Red 2 2013
I’ve almost completed my recent goal of watching and reviewing the last few major comic book films I have yet to cover here. This film came out during the second year of this site and it was the first summer where I started to realize how many comic book films were actually coming out and how difficult it was for me to keep up with all of them. And since this was a sequel to a film that I had yet to see, it was one of those that fell through the cracks until now. I hadn’t really heard much about this film, and what little I did hear was generally mixed. But since I did enjoy the first one so much, I though I would enjoy this one as well. There is definitely a different tone to this film, and while the plot still isn’t much to speak of, I did laugh more often and harder than I did in the first film, so it’s got that going for it at least.
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RED
RED 2010
I’ve almost completed another one of my mini-goals to have watched every “major” comic book movie ever made. This was another film that came out during a time when I wasn’t watching many movies, and especially not many R rated movies. I’ve just come off of a review where I completely fell in love with the Losers and I’m not entirely sure that I would have loved that film quite as much had I seen this one first. It follows a somewhat similar set up, only instead of a disgraced and left-for-dead team of CIA operatives who at one point break into the CIA with plenty of comedy, this is a group of retired CIA operatives who at one point break into the CIA with plenty of comedy. While the caliber of acting in the Losers was decent, with Chris Evans, Idris Elba, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, this cast is a significantly higher caliber with Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and plenty more. While I do still love the Losers, I think RED beats it out in almost every possible way, aside from having a character with multiple awesome t-shirts.
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The Losers
The Losers 2010
I’m continuing my journey to watch the last of the most major comic book films that I’ve missed these past five years and it’s almost astonishing that I’ve put this film off for so long. While it wasn’t a big hit in 2010 when it was released, it is one of the many comic book films featuring Chris Evans in a major role. It’s somewhat surprising that it has such a low rating, and I’m curious if any of it has to do with the marketing or just the time it was released as I watched this film with little to no expectations and absolutely loved the hell out of it. It reminded me a little bit of a combination between Tropic Thunder with less comedy and Two Guns with more coherence.
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Push
Push 2009
I’m continuing on my quest to finish off the last few popular superhero and comic book movies that I haven’t gotten around to yet, going by a reasonable metric of 50,000 IMDB user ratings I should have them covered by the end of this month at the rate I’m going. And somewhat surprisingly two of these films have Chris Evans in them. Push was one of those films that went past me in theaters. Honestly, there was a big gap in my theater movie watching from 2007 to about 2010 as when my daughter was born at the end of 2006, we stopped going to the theater until she was about 4 or 5. Judging by the trailers, it looked like a generic action movie about pared down X-Men and as little as I had paid attention to it, I always assumed it was Selma Blair in the Camilla Belle role. But when I actually sat down and watched it, it was like a pared down version of X-Men that focused on the characters and had a fascinating plot device that it was built around. By the time it was over, I really enjoyed this film and I’m disappointed that it seems to have faded into relative obscurity with only a small cult of fans who really enjoy it.
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Max Steel
Max Steel 2016
I’m a few days behind, but after watching this, I have covered every single comic book and superhero movie released in the US in 2016. I missed it in theaters because everyone else did. It was only in my area for one week and I was busy that week, but it’s out on home video now so I reluctantly caught up with it. I knew nothing at all about Max Steel the toys, or the cartoon, but based on the trailer it looked like a lesser version of Power Rangers without the giant robots and only one teen. And that’s pretty much what I got out of it. This is really the definition of standard teen superhero origin story that hits all the markers and never really makes a name for itself to stand out in the crowd. It’s not an awful movie, but it’s so mediocre and unoriginal in nearly everything it does that it’s a complete bore. And even though it’s unlikely that it matters, since this is a relatively new movie, here’s your warning that I will be discussing the movie in full, including potential spoilers.
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Art School Confidential
Art School Confidential 2006
2016 is almost over and I’ve come down to my last movie review of the year. I didn’t quite achieve any of my movie related goals that I had set for myself at the beginning of the year. I’ve only seen 9 movies in the theaters, one short of my goal. I haven’t watched every 2016 release, though Max Steel will follow shortly thereafter, and I didn’t get too far on my goal to watch every movie on my list from 2010 and later. But I have watched a large number of superhero and comic book movies. This one is one of those movies that I realized I knew nothing at all about. I knew it was about art school and it was based on a comic by the same author as Ghost World, even the same director. Somehow, I had the impression that it was a generally well-liked film, though when I looked up the various metrics, it actually has a mediocre to below-average consensus. And like several other movies that I’ve watched in the past couple months, it started out with an intriguing premise, but then faltered by the time it came to its conclusion. I tend to be a fan of coming of age movies, and I honestly saw quite a bit of myself in the main character, and then it went into a bizarre downward spiral that just didn’t make any sense any more. It made me laugh, but not enough to recommend it as a comedy.
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Silver Hawk
Silver Hawk 2004
I took a bit of an unexpected break over the holidays, but the other day I decided to pop in another movie that’s been sitting in my DVD collection for a while just waiting to be reviewed. I hadn’t heard much about this movie aside from the fact that it has Michael Jai White in a villain role and Michelle Yeoh in the lead. I also had a feeling that it was a bit of a cheesy action movie. I didn’t quite expect the level of humor that was present throughout most of the film, but especially in the latter half. There were some good elements, some familiar elements, but it could have been improved quite a bit with some better cinematography as much of the fighting was marred by poor camera work and odd moments of slow motion. It wasn’t quite the camp level of Batman 66, but there was some fun to be had here.
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Jumper
Jumper 2008
Every once in a while I still come across a movie that I have to make a decision on whether or not it falls into my criteria of a superhero movie. Sometimes, like with the film the Destructor, it falls just outside of that criteria for one reason or another. Other times, like in this case, it falls just inside. This is a film about kids with super powers, set in the real world in the current era, and it’s hard to think of another actor that could be a more theatrical villain than Samuel L. Jackson with stark white hair leading a group called “paladins”. There aren’t any costumes or alter egos, and it was based on a novel rather than a comic book, but I think there’s enough here for me to go on. Replace jumping with telekinesis and you’ve got Chronicle which very few people argue against it being a superhero movie. But as for the actual quality of the film itself, it stars a post-Episode III Hayden Christensen as a rather bland character, but at least the film does have quite a bit of fun with the teleportation concept.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 