Blog Archives
Devilman
Devilman 2004
So the other day I was at my local used DVD store searching through their titles for some superhero movies and among some overpriced “rare” titles like Doc Savage and Remo Williams I found this DVD. I recognized the name from an anime series, though I never actually watched it. The cover looked pretty interesting for a live action anime movie so I picked it up. I should also mention that part of the reason why I’m reviewing this title is that I started putting what I should watch next for this site up for a vote. Every week or so I’ll post three different posters of movies I’m considering reviewing on this site’s Facebook page and you are free to vote for which one you want me to watch next. This movie won the last vote and I will have a new vote up tomorrow so be sure to “like” my Facebook page if you want to help influence which movies show up here.
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Gantz
Gantz 2010
I enjoy watching a lot of anime, or at least I used to. I just realized I haven’t watched a good anime in a long time, but that’s beside the point. One of my favorite types of anime are the ones that are so out there and weird, they are hard to describe. Gantz is one of those anime. And a couple years ago I saw that it had been made into a live action movie, and when I saw the trailer for it, it looked like they did a good job matching the look and style of the anime so I had to watch it, and I wasn’t disappointed. I will do my best to describe the general concept. There is a giant black ball in the middle of a room, it transports people who have died to the room every few nights with little explanations except for a picture of an alien, briefcases with black leather suits and weird high-tech guns. They are given a time limit to kill this alien in reward for points, if they get 100 points they can have their memory erased and put back into the real world, or they can resurrect a fallen teammate. There’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.
All Superheroes Must Die
All Superheroes Must Die 2013
aka Vs
This movie is something that was completely off of my radar aside from the fact that it was on my full list of superhero movies under the title “Vs”, and then a couple weeks ago I saw a review of this movie on Today I Watched a Movie, so when I saw it available at Redbox I picked it up. (And because Redbox asked so nicely, you can also look to see if you can find All Superheroes Must Die at Redbox) It’s an interesting premise: Four superheroes get captured by their archnemesis and placed in a town littered with explosives and hostages where they must play an almost Saw-like game to escape with their lives. It is low budget and it shows, though they do have a clever excuse that the villain suppressed their powers with a serum so they never get a chance to showcase any of their powers, and as a result the movie feels more like a psychological thriller than an actual superhero movie. I think there’s still a lot to like in this movie and was invested from start to finish.
Almost Super: The Matrix
Almost Super: The Matrix 1999
This was a bit of a tough decision on whether or not to tag this movie with my “Almost Super” tag. This is very much like a superhero origin story, Neo has superhuman abilities, even an alter ego, and the visuals are very influenced by comic books in some places. But in the end, the philosophical elements and especially the sci-fi setting to it put this in the realm of a not-quite superhero. I saw this in theaters when it first came out, as well as the two sequels which I don’t think are as bad as everyone makes them out to seem, even though I won’t be continuing on to watch them just now. The movie was one of the biggest surprises to come out that year, it had a great marketing campaign with the question “What is the Matrix?” and it’s pretty much a cultural milestone, noted by the hundreds of bullet time Trinity jump kick parodies over the years. But even with the parodies doing their best to tarnish several of the scenes, the movie still holds up as one of the best movies out there.
Almost Super: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Almost Super: Hansel & Gretel
I was somewhat caught off guard when I saw the trailer just a couple weeks ago. While the Avengers was my favorite superhero movie of all time, Hawkeye was the weakest part of the movie, and I hadn’t heard much good about The Bourne Supremacy, the trailer looked like a lot of fun. In the end, my expectations were mediocre at best. But while there were a few parts of the movie that went a little too far into ridiculous territory, it was generally a lot of mindless fun.
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Constantine
Constantine 2005
Even though I have seen this movie before, about the only thing I remembered about it was that it couldn’t be called Hellblazer because it sounded too similar to Hellraiser. Now, I’m not a very religious person, I was raised Christian and went to church every Sunday, and even as a young adult I would go to a weekly church group, though more for the people than the religious aspect. I think a lot of what the church teaches is total nonsense, but there’s a lot to be learned in other ways. I mention that because this movie has a strong relationship to religion, specifically Catholicism. It also approaches it much more closely to Kevin Smith’s Dogma, with a healthy amount of irreverence, but much less comedy. I enjoyed it quite a bit with all the interesting characters.
The Dark Knight Returns part 2
The Dark Knight Returns part 2 2013
It’s early into the year, and already time for the first superhero movie of the year, and it’s a doozy. I’ve mentioned time and time again how much I enjoy DC’s animated features, and the part 1 was quite good. Part 2 surpasses it in every way and easily overtook Under the Red Hood as my favorite of the bunch, and may even go up a couple notches on my overall top 10. Even though it’s an adaptation of a known comic book story, it’s one I hadn’t read and I was glad I hadn’t because it went to so many places I would have never expected for a Batman story. It’s the bloodiest DC movie I’ve seen aside from Watchmen, but it’s used in all the right ways. If you’re a fan of Batman at all, you must check this movie out, and while part 1 sets things up for what happens in this part, it can easily be watched as a stand alone piece with little confusion.
Watchmen
Watchmen 2009
This is a very close adaptation of one of the most revered and acclaimed comic book that I have never read. For the longest time, it was thought that an adaptation could never do the original source material justice without cutting out a lot of the good stuff, or making compromises to make the film more marketable to the mainstream. I can’t say for certain, but I believe Zack Snyder did neither. And on top of that, he made a damn entertaining movie for those of us who have never read the comics. It is by no means a perfect movie, there are still some flaws to it, but every time I’ve watched this, I’ve remained almost transfixed by the combination of striking visuals, complex characters, and interesting storylines.
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Tales of the Black Freighter/Under the Hood
Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter/Under the Hood 2009
Even though I’ve watched the Watchmen already, I’m not quite done with it enough to write a review of it yet. But since this is presented as somewhat of a stand alone feature, I’m going to go ahead and give it it’s own review. One of the first things I realized after watching this is that even though this is presented as somewhat of a companion piece to the Watchmen, it’s really much more like a bonus disc to the movie that you can buy on its own. If you’re a fan of the movie, it’s worth picking up, but the actual bulk of the movie is extremely short clocking in at just under half an hour. It felt much more like an animated episode of Tales From the Crypt. That said, it also felt like a really good episode of Tales From the Crypt. It’s dark, twisted, and you’re never quite sure where it’s going, although when it gets to the actual twist, its fairly obvious. There are a couple other things on the disc that I didn’t even realize were on there at first. The biggest thing is the not-quite-a-mockumentary “Under the Hood” which takes a look at the autobiography of one of the original Minutemen within the world of the Watchmen, along with brief looks at the other members of the original Minutemen. It’s interesting in that it fills in a lot more information for characters we briefly see in the Watchmen, but I wasn’t overly fond of the overall presentation.
Elf-man
Elf-Man 2012
I have to start off by saying that I’m not very big on the holidays, especially Christmas. I’m not a Grinch or Scrooge by any means, but it just doesn’t get me very excited. I dislike most of the Christmas music I have to hear at work or on the radio, and I’m not a big fan of very many Christmas movies. This year, I watched four. I watched A Christmas Story last week, which is my favorite Christmas movie. And then on Christmas day I watched A Christmas Story 2 which I had to watch just to see if it was as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near the quality of the original, but it was just fairly mediocre. I ended Christmas day with Christmas Vacation which I hadn’t seen in years and loved every minute of. And somewhere in the middle I fit in Elf-Man. It turns out that superheroes and Christmas don’t intersect very often. As far as I can tell there’s only this movie and Batman Returns which takes place during Christmas. If there’s any others, I’m not aware of them. This movie came out just this year and I figured Christmas day was as good a time as any to get it out of the way. Similar to Christmas Story 2, it wasn’t quite bad enough to enjoy it on a whole different level, but it’s also not the next Christmas classic either. For Jena’s part, who I realized I haven’t mentioned much in a long while, she enjoyed it quite a bit and has already mentioned wanting to watch it again.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 