Blog Archives
Assault on Arkham
Batman: Assault on Arkham 2014
There were two straight-to-home-video superhero movies from the two big comic book companies that came out about the same time on streaming services, and depending on how you look at it I chose poorly by watching Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United first, or just saved the best one for last. The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was based on the recent Arkham video game series which I haven’t played. I had no idea that it was more specifically about the Suicide Squad which I had only just heard about earlier this year when they were teased in an episode of Arrow. Many of these DC Animated movies have been getting darker and darker, and while this movie has plenty of moments that border on the “R” side of its “PG-13” rating, they are handled with a lot of fun. It also helps to set the tone right from the beginning with the introduction to the suicide squad themselves that feels like it could have been pulled from a 70’s cop show. I loved this movie from start to finish and it’s another quality title in the series.
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Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United
Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United
It seems like it happens quite often when a straight to home video release catches me unaware until it is actually released as is the case with this movie which is a pseudo-sequel to Iron Man and Hulk: Heroes United from last year. It has the same kinda cell shaded CGI animation style and the same voice actors for Iron Man and Hulk, though it doesn’t quite feel as young skewed as the previous attempt, it’s not too deep either. And similar to Iron Man and Hulk, I didn’t really connect with this movie aside from a couple fights and a couple laughs, it was too simple, too silly, and didn’t really feel connected with anything. Even my daughter Jena didn’t give this one a whole lot of interest. It’s interesting that while Marvel is dominating the box office, and has quite a few TV shows out there, but its home video animated movies are severely lacking.
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Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy 2014
There are a few things that I don’t do lightly, one of them is to go to the movie theater not just on opening weekend, but on opening night. Of course, it does help that these days opening night isn’t the midnight showing, I was able to catch a nice early 8pm showing and it wasn’t even the first one. But the reason why I ventured out to do this is because I was really excited to see this movie and my usual time to go on Saturday morning wasn’t nearly as early as I would have liked. But that’s all beside the point, I’ve been excited to see Guardians of the Galaxy from the first teaser and the fact that it’s directed by James Gunn. While he doesn’t have a perfect track record, I could really get behind what he’s trying to sell here. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Specials, but Tromeo and Juliet was my first Troma film, I enjoyed the live action Scooby-Doo movie for what it was, and I’m a big fan of his Super. It’s still crazy to think how Gunn was chosen for this movie in the first place, but I’m glad he was. The humor hit in all the right places for me, the soundtrack was amazing, and the ecclectic cast somehow managed to mesh in just the right ways. I don’t think it’s the Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Universe as I’ve heard it called, but it’s another well placed entry in the universe.
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Pizza Man
Pizza Man 2011
This is another one of those lesser known, indie superhero movies that flew under the radar for me. And to be honest, I don’t often go digging for these gems, but I always keep an eye out for them to cross my path and this one did through one of my favorite movie sites to read Today I Watched a Movie who picked this up at Wal-Mart and gave it such high praise that I had to check it out, and so I picked it up for myself a few days later and it sat on my DVD shelf for a couple months before my wife finally put it in our DVD player for us to watch. I’m not as fully sold as TIWAM was, but it’s still a solid superhero send-up with a fun plot and quite a few recognizable characters.
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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.
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Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm 1993
This is one of the very few superhero movies left that I had not yet seen before that I really felt like I was missing out on an important and/or great movie. There’s still plenty out there for me to watch, but most of the rest of them are more obscure and/or pretty bad. When I ask the question “What’s your favorite superhero movie?” this movie has come up on more than one occasion so it’s got to be a pretty good movie, and it’s more or less a spin-off of the amazing 90’s Batman: The Animated Series which I watched and loved back when it was coming out with new episodes, and I’ve also seen and enjoyed every one of DC Animation’s home video Batman movies so I was looking forward to finally watching this one and I’m pleased to say that for the most part it didn’t disappoint. My only qualms come from the fact that I did watch this one out of chronological order and so many story elements that were used in this movie were done as well if not better in later movies that I was already familiar with. But aside from that, it was great to finally see this movie and the nostalgia from the animation and music style from the animated series.
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Edge of Tomorrow
Edge of Tomorrow 2014
It may come as no surprise to you that I am a fan of sci-fi movies. Yes, technically most superhero movies can also be lumped into the catch-all science fiction category as the very idea of a person with superhuman abilities whether alien, mutation, or technological is in its very essence science fiction. But I am just as much a fan of the general aliens & technology versions of sci-fi that I don’t nearly as often get to cover on this site. In fact, I didn’t catch any of the sci-fi movies that came out last year even though many were considered to be bad-to-mediocre. But I had heard a lot of great things about Edge of Tomorrow, and I am also a huge fan of the concept of a time loop, so much so that I even wrote a player-created mission for the now defunct City of Heroes MMO based around the time loop concept. And since this was based on an illustrated novel which was also adapted into a manga both under the title All You Need is Kill I thought it was a perfect excuse to actually watch it, albeit quite a bit later than most who actually gave it a chance. And you know what? Everyone was right about this movie. It takes the concept of the time loop and really gets the chance to explore things in a way that it hasn’t exactly been done before, while still covering all the usual bases in an entertaining fashion. It’s an excellent movie and it’s a shame that it didn’t translate as well into box office dollars.
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Filmwhys Extra #11 Superheroes and Our Kids
Episode #11 of Filmwhys Extra where my guest is Julz Hendricks who contributes to many sites including Bleeding Cool, Chickcast, but you can probably best find her on Twitter. Both of us have young children who love superheroes and love to watch them on TV and in movies. But this is a world full of PG-13 superhero movies that often have more death and violence than R-rated movies with only the blood removed. She has a 3 year old and a 9 year old while I have a 7 year old and we discuss what they enjoy and how we decide what’s appropriate for them to watch.
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The Powerpuff Girls Movie
The Powerpuff Girls Movie 2002
As Father’s Day was winding down, I decided that I wanted to watch a movie with my daughter that we could both enjoy. I’m sure most people who grew up in the 90’s remember Cartoon Network’s lineup including Genndy Tartakovsky’s Dexter’s Laboratory and Craig McCracken’s Powerpuff Girls. What you may not know is that in 2002 they went back and created an origin story which they showed in theaters. It’s not too surprising as it came out the same day as Men in Black II and was largely forgotten, though it has often been shown on the channel since then. It’s sugar, spice, and everything nice, with a little dash of Mojo Jojo mixed in for good measure. It’s a lot of fun, and irreverent even though there’s not a whole lot of depth to it.
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The Amazing Cynicalman
The Amazing Cynicalman 2012
One of the joys I’ve come to find in running this site over the years is finding these little known indie superhero movies, whether they are fan films, short films, or a feature length film. So a couple weeks ago I stumbled across a listing for a movie called Cynicalman that I had never heard of and had come out a couple years ago. Looking it up, I found that it was a self-funded movie based around a web comic called Cynicalman, so I took a shot and sent an e-mail requesting a screener for review. Based on the trailer, I thought it looked like an ultra-low budget, cheesy, fun movie with bad acting, but obviously made with a lot of heart, and that’s exactly what I got. There won’t be any awards for acting, directing, cinematography, or sound editing here, but it was definitely made with a lot of heart and has some genuinely funny moments in it, which is helpful because it’s a comedy. If you would like to know more about the movie and pick yourself up a copy, be sure to check out his site for yourself.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 