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Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight 2018
I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Jack the Ripper, generally the most I know of him are when various TV shows that I watch have the random episode where they go back in time or something along those lines to have a Jack the Ripper episode. Aside from that, there’s also the mediocre comic book movie From Hell. And on top of that, I actually went into this movie knowing nothing about the background of the comic aside from the fact that it’s basically Batman if he existed in the early 1900’s. It is actually the first Elseworlds style story that even pre-dated the Elseworlds title. It basically comes from the question “what if Batman tried to solve the Jack the Ripper case?” only instead of random people asking the question, it’s asked by comic book writer Brian Augustyn and drawn by Mike Mignola. I thought it was pretty entertaining but I wasn’t fond of the final reveal, which I will be discussing so here’s your spoiler warning.
Thor: Ragnarok
Thor: Ragnarok 2017
Surprisingly, as much as I enjoy the MCU, over the past year and a half I hadn’t been keeping up with every release like I might have expected to despite all the rave reviews I had heard for this one as well as Ant-Man and the Wasp. The MCU has always been about making action comedies, though most of them have been heavy on the action and light on the comedy. This time director Taika Waititi turns things on its head and gives practically a full blown comedy with some action elements. It might initially seem like an odd choice for Thor to be the property to transition from a more Shakespearean action/fantasy to an action comedy, but it really works. Especially with Chris Hemsworth’s charisma and the addition of Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster. The more dramatic stuff still works, but through and through it’s a comedy with plenty of laugh out loud moments.
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.
100 Essential Superhero Movies: 2016 Edition
100 Essential Superhero Movies: 2016 Edition
It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated my 100 Essential Superhero Movies. I initially made the list in 2014, and then I updated and ranked them to include the previous year’s movies in 2015 with the intention of updating the list each year; adding the most important and/or best movies of the year and removing some of the movies that only just barely made the list, or ones that have been eclipsed by newer movies for one reason or another. So here I am to update this list of the 100 superhero movies that I think are essential to understanding superhero movie history. These aren’t the 100 best superhero movies, each one is included because it contributes in some way to superhero movie history.
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Ranking every Comic Book Film of 2016
It’s the beginning of a new year and for most movie blogs that means the year-end wrap-up list. And even though it took me a couple extra days, I once again managed to watch every superhero and comic book movie released in the US (that I’m aware of). The only other film that I haven’t watched was the bollywood superhero film A Flying Jatt which I don’t believe ever got a US release where I could watch a subtitled version. And instead of merely going through some number of my favorites, I decided to do something just a little bit different and go ahead and rank every single comic book film of this year from worst to best. And one quick disclaimer, while the title reads “Comic Book Film”, as I always do for this site I include superhero films that were never based on comics as well as comic book adaptations that aren’t about superheroes.
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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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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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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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Spaghettiman
Spaghettiman 2016
You’d think that when I told you that there’s a movie about a guy who develops incredibly weird super powers and is a bit of a schlubby roommate with his overweight friend that it’s also a movie unlike anything else I’ve seen. But when it comes to this site and the amount of indie movies I’ve seen, there are actually quite a few bizarre similarities. This is not the only movie I’ve seen where the hero as a main character has the power to shoot food out of his hands. This also isn’t the only low budget movie involving superheroes where two friends and roommates have a friendly-yet-contentious relationship with each other. This isn’t even the only movie I’ve seen that seems to have chosen a random word out of the dictionary and added “man” to the end. The point is, I’ve seen quite a few of these movies, and I’m not trying to say that any of them are copying off each other, I highly doubt that any two projects had ever even heard of each other. But I have, and when looking at them comparatively, this ends up falling somewhere in the middle of these quirky, low budget, superhero movie concepts.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 