Blog Archives
Lego Justice League: Cosmic Clash
Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash 2016
It’s the second month of the year and that means the second DC movie that includes Batman in it. Not only that, but it’s the second film that includes Batman fighting another hero and the first this year where he is fighting Superman. Aside from that, it’s also the fourth Lego DC movie to be released on home video after the success of DC Heroes Unite, Attack of the Legion of Doom, and Justice League vs. Bizarro League. It actually continues where Bizarro League left off where Cyborg is now a full fledged member of the team and Batman is on board with everyone but is still somewhat on the outskirts of the team. Like all the others, there’s plenty of humor and while most of it is childish, there’s enough referential humor to make things fun for adults as well.
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Up, Up, and Away
Up, Up, and Away 2000
I’m continuing my efforts to watch the last few remaining Black superhero and comic book movies that I haven’t reviewed with this Disney Channel Original Movie. I was never really much of a fan of the DCOMs as some people refer to them, they were always too far on the schmaltzy scale for me as they seemed to be targeted directly towards tweens before the term tween even existed. The ones that I’ve been forced to sit through by my wife and daughter have been the surprisingly abundant girl-focused ones like the Zenon films, the Halloweentowns, and most recently Descendants. None of them would have likely appealed to me when I was younger and they definitely didn’t appeal to me as an adult. So I didn’t have very high hopes for Up, Up, and Away even with the inclusion of Robert Townsend as director and star considering I am a mild fan of his earlier work The Meteor Man. But while I didn’t absolutely fall in love with Up, Up, and Away, it did do a few things that surprised me and it made me laugh more than once.
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Deadpool
Deadpool 2016
The time has finally come, the first theatrical superhero movie of the year and it’s a doozy. As I’m writing this, it’s on the way towards a monster $135 million plus box office holiday weekend, which is around three times greater than what was expected for this R-Rated movie on what could be considered a third tier superhero. In a way, this also seems like what happens when the filmmakers take the essence of what the character is in the comics and translate that as closely as possible to the screen. For many years, liberties have been taken with the origin, the costume, and other aspects of the characters but for fans of Deadpool, this is how they see their character on the page and on the screen and they are ecstatic. Personally, I can’t really call myself a fan of Deadpool in the comics because I’ve never read the comics. Most of my exposure to Deadpool comes from the beginning of X-Men Origins: Wolverine as well as a couple fan films. But this film hit me in all the right places, from the very wrong humor, the pop culture references from the 80’s and 90’s, the meta humor, and the action all wrapped up like a chimichanga of awesome.
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Top 8 Superhero & Comic Book Films of 2015
It’s the New Year and that means that it’s time to look back at the previous year that has passed. And along with most movie sites I’ll be taking a look back at the films that came out this year and sharing my top 8 films. That may sound like an odd number, but there have been only eighteen films by my count released here in the US this year that I would classify as a superhero film or was based on a comic book. In the recent boom of superhero and comic book films, this is actually the smallest number of films released since 2009 as the number has been steadily growing since shortly after 2000. And because of that, I was actually able to watch them all before the end of the year! There were some good films this year, some surprises, and several disappointments. But there are eight films that I wanted to share once again with you as my personal favorites.
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The Subjects
The Subjects 2015
I’ve done it once again, and before the end of the year this time. I have seen every superhero and comic book movie that has come out in 2015 in the US (though I still have to re-watch & review Avengers: Age of Ultron for real). And like last year with Squid Man, I ended with a low budget indie movie that I absolutely fell in love with. This is technically an Australian movie, but it is available through several channels digitally worldwide. The Subjects is funny, it’s tense, and above all it’s surprising. It’s not exactly a superhero movie, but more like the deconstruction of a typical superhero origin story where things don’t go the way that you think they would. It’s more than a little ambiguous at times, but I really fell into the world that director Robert Mond was able to create.
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Avengers Grimm
Avengers Grimm 2015
I’m still currently working on two different-yet-similar goals for this site before the end of the year, and likely just soon afterwards. I’m working on reviewing every 2015 movie that I would cover here as well as working my way towards my 300th review. This movie I had mostly forgotten about for a couple different reasons. For one thing, it’s a mockbuster from Asylum. And somewhat surprisingly, I have yet to watch a film from Asylum before now. They do plenty of horror and sci-fi there, but not a whole lot of superhero movies. Even this movie is barely a superhero movie that combines fairy tale characters with a very loose connection to the Avengers since they give most of the fairy tale characters different super powers and a world-threatening villain that even has a Loki-esque way of mind controlling his minions. But it doesn’t make up for a its lack of story or acting. From what I understand, most if not all of these films are made under a small budget and a very short timeframe. And under those conditions, it’s almost amazing that they were able to come up with something at least this coherent, even if it’s fairly unintelligible.
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Marvel Superhero Adventures: Frost Fight
Marvel Superhero Adventures: Frost Fight 2015
Just when I thought I had watched every Christmas related superhero movie they had to come out with another one. And in typical Marvel fashion, this one flew under my radar until it was actually released even though they did apparently announce the title at NYCC. It was just released digitally earlier last week and like most of Marvel’s recent home video releases it is very family friendly. But they have also switched animation styles yet again, going away from the anime and the cell-shaded CGI in favor of their TV style animation similar to Avengers Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy, though with only a few of the same voice actors. It does a nice job of tying Santa Claus into the Marvel universe, but it’s mainly just a very disjointed series of battles and/or gags with a very common holiday story at the end.
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They Call Me Superseven
They Call Me Superseven 2016
A while back I talked with writer/producer Scott Rhodes about his webseries Superseven and he mentioned his plans to turn several episodes of that webseries into a feature length film. Well, that has happened and not only that but it will be getting some home video and online distribution early next year. I was offered a screener for review and much like the webseries it spawned from I really enjoyed it. If you haven’t heard of it, Superseven is an homage to the superhero slash spy B-movies from the 60’s, most of which I have yet to watch for myself. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it wears its low budget on its sleeve, but is a lot of fun and worth watching when it becomes available.
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Antboy: Revenge of the Red Fury
Antboy: Revenge of the Red Fury 2014
I’m still moving through my Netflix queue of superhero movies I haven’t reviewed yet and I was a little surprised to see this film on the list, especially since it did actually include the original Danish language track on it. I remember the first time I watched the first Antboy, English was the only available option that I could find. I still watched most of it in dubbed English, though I was able to switch partway through when my daughter and wife weren’t interested in watching the film along with me. This sequel picks up more or less where the first film left off, it brings back almost all of the major characters except for Ida’s sister. It also completely eschews adults in favor of the young characters. In fact, the only real adult in this film is the villain the Flea, not even Antboy’s parents get a moment of acknowledgement.
Not Everything with a Tenuous Link to Superheroes is a Superhero Movie
AKA The Adventures of Food Boy is Not a Superhero Movie
It’s been a long while since I’ve written one of these blog posts looking at what does or doesn’t make a superhero movie as a whole. I usually err on the side of acceptance, including movies like the Spongebob Movie that only has the characters turn into superheroes for the last fifteen to twenty minutes at the end, or Birdman where the main character is an actor who used to play a superhero and is having hallucinations of that same hero, or even Electric Man where it’s mainly about comic books and one of the characters merely cosplays as the fictional comic book hero. But I finally found a movie that made me draw the line even though the poster for the film has the titular Food Boy opening his shirt in a clear homage to Superman and one of the alternate titles of the film is High School Super Hero.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 