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Doctor Mordrid
Doctor Mordrid 1992
In many ways, the early days of Marvel movies are quite fascinating with all the goings on when they were selling rights to characters to anyone who would give them a chunk of change it would seem. And Doctor Strange happened to be one of those properties. But where other companies would fight the deadline to go into production before losing the rights and win, this film fought the deadline and lost. But instead of scrapping all the work and whatever pre-production they had done, if any, they decided to simply retool a few names and plot elements and continue on with the completely “original” story that became Doctor Mordrid. While I still don’t know all that much about Doctor Strange as a whole, Doctor Mordrid is a very close approximation, in that he’s essentially an arrogant magician fighting demons in modern times with his cape and amulet. As for the quality of the film, it doesn’t rise too much higher than the 70’s TV film which is literally my least favorite Marvel movie, but there is some fun to be had with the performances and all of the glorious 90’s mullets.
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Almost Super: The Demolisher
The Demolisher 2015
I often find it fascinating where my whims take me. Lately, I have been making more of a point to borrow movies from my local library and I’m often surprised by the smaller, independent movies that they have available. During my last trip, I saw a blu-ray on their new release shelf that caught my eye. It was called the Demolisher, the font of the title had a comic book feel to it, and reading the back of the box it looked and sounded like a cross between the Punisher, and possibly Judge Dredd just based on the riot gear outfit. I didn’t pick it up right away, but I did check out the trailer and was impressed enough to check it out the next time I was there. While I ultimately decided that it didn’t quite fit my criteria for a superhero movie: there is a costume, but not really any alter ego, and it’s more about vengeance than vigilantism. But after watching it, I did find the film rather fascinating and well made enough that I wanted to talk about it here on this site. The cinematography is gorgeous in places, and the film doesn’t fall into the low budget trap of too much expository dialogue, instead it allows the scene to play out often silently, or near silently. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but it was quite fascinating.
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FTMN Quickie: Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition
Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition 2016
Once again my movie viewing was decided via a Twitter poll which resulted in the mixed bag of revisiting the epic superhero film of the year made even more epic-er with about 30 minutes of footage so it now clocks in at just over three hours. Now, if you recall my original review for Batman vs Superman, I’m not one of the haters of this film, I thought it was just fine and I have been fully expecting that this extended cut makes some improvements. It’s just so difficult for me to put three hours into a movie, especially when I know that it’s just for one of these two paragraph quickie reviews looking specifically at an alternate cut of a film that I’ve already reviewed. But I did split the viewing up over about three nights and I did still like more than I didn’t like. But boy did those moments I didn’t like stick out like a sore thumb even more this time around. Is the Ultimate Cut really the best way to view this movie? A loose maybe is really the best I can do for that question right now.
Monkeybone
Monkeybone 2001
While I did put up another poll on Twitter for the movie that I should watch & review next, I haven’t had time to fit in the 3 hour cut of Batman v Superman just yet. So in the meantime, I had a little bit of time the other night and decided to toss on this film which is currently streaming on Netflix. It’s a movie that I had watched many years ago because I’m a fan of weird animation and dark fantasy movies. I remember generally liking this film, but never had a real desire to revisit it or own it. Watching it again now, I really appreciate plenty of the visuals and designs on the fantasy world, but the overarching story that drives the plot forward leaves a lot to be desired, especially everything that happens in the real world.
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Robocop 2
Robocop 2 1990
It’s true that I don’t always go with the flow the way it was meant to be, though the last time I really remember doing this in terms of this site was way back during the first year when I watched the three Spider-Man films backwards so I could compare the original Spider-Man right against the reboot Amazing Spider-Man. This time is was mostly a case of laziness considering that I already owned Robocop 3 and it was sitting right in front of me even though I hadn’t seen Robocop 2 before. And I was completely right in thinking that it didn’t matter as the three movies have very little to do with each other in terms of continuity, they merely tell three different stories with several of the same characters. The original is important to have seen to set up the characters, but once you’ve got that, you’re gravy. This is also notable to have been directed by Ivan Kirshner who is most well known as the director of the Empire Strikes Back, widely considered to be the best Star Wars movie. The film itself falls somewhere between the ultra-violence and satire of the original and the pandering-to-the-audience comedy and low budget of the third.
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Surrogates
Surrogates 2009
Without any real clear direction that I wanted to take for the rest of this year, I decided that I would work on clearing out the mini backlog of movies that I’ve purchased over the past several months and even years that I keep putting off for one reason or another. I also put four movies up on a Twitter poll and even though there were only a few votes, this film won. Surrogates was barely a blip on the radar for me, it came out against Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and also when my daughter was 2 and we weren’t going out to the theaters any time soon. It was a moderately high-budgeted movie that flopped here in the US, but ultimately made a small profit when including its worldwide gross. It’s got a fascinating concept and does a lot to build this slightly futuristic world, but then it gets bogged down by the action and falls flat on its face with an oversimplified ending.
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Robocop 3
Robocop 3 1993
I’ve been feeling rather indecisive as to what direction I wanted to take next on this site. I still have a small handful of relatively good, or at least mediocre and well known comic book movies that I still need to get around to and a whole lot of dreck. So I decided to make a little Twitter poll with a couple good movies, a bad movie, and an oddity to see what won out. It shouldn’t have come to much surprise that this is the film that won. And despite the fact that I have yet to see Robocop 2, I was certain that it didn’t matter. It also helped that I had the DVD sitting in front of me from a clearance bin I picked up months ago. I am a big fan of the original Robocop, but I’ve never really given much thought to the sequels. I was a little surprised to see that this was rated PG-13, and even more surprised considering it still had a fair amount of blood and swearing, just toned down from the levels seen in the original. It had a scant few impressive moments, and notably more laughably bad moments. It really just lost sight of what made Robocop an interesting property in the first place in return for a failed attempt at marketing towards a younger audience. But one of the more interesting things about this film, especially coming from this site, is that comic book writer Frank Miller co-wrote this film (as well as the second).
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Crimson
Crimson 2013
I’m always on the lookout for superhero and comic book movies, especially some of the more obscure ones. But it still came as a surprise when I was looking through the DVD section of my library in a relatively small suburb of Chicago when I happened to see a DVD that caught my eye for this film. It surprised me even more when I looked it up on IMDB and saw that it only had 13 user ratings which made me wonder how it ended up in this library in the first place. But less surprisingly was that it was an ultra low budget film along the lines of something like Captain Battle or the Amazing Bulk, only with surprisingly lower production values, acting, or much of anything else.
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Antboy 3
Antboy 3 2016
Continuing on in my catching up of the last few 2016 films that have slipped past me is the latest in the Danish superhero Antboy franchise. I thought the first Antboy was ok, the second one was a lot of fun, so I was excited to finally get the chance to watch the third and supposedly final entry in this series. Not to mention that all three are currently available to stream on Netflix in the US. Since they are still marketed as kids movies, they are dubbed in English, but do yourself a favor and if you’re watching it because you’re a fan of superhero movies, do yourself a favor and watch it in the original Danish audio. Typically I tend to watch dubs over subs, but that’s usually due to one of two reasons: either it’s a cheesy film to begin with and the bad-to-mediocre dubs add to the camp factor, or it’s a newer animated feature and the dub is done in a highly professional manner that’s a similar quality to the original performances. This one falls between the two, what little I listened to of the dub is very mediocre in quality so it really detracts from the overall film. That said, I did think that this was a fitting end to the trilogy and quite possibly the best of the bunch.
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Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange 2016
It’s already come to the last theatrical superhero movie of 2016, there’s still a couple others that I have to get around to, but that will come later. This film is sparked by a seemingly small amount of controversy by most people, and yet it’s just as an important topic to talk about. I will be discussing the controversy, but I will also be looking at the film separate from the lateral diversity in the form of whitewashing. It’s also yet another origin story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while there are plenty of differences to separate it from the rest of the MCU, there are still several of the same typical Marvel notes that we’ve seen across the last dozen or so movies. This is the third time Doctor Strange has graced this site in a solo movie, and almost all of my knowledge of this character comes from those two previous movies. And as always is the case on this site, there may be spoilers so be warned.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 