![]() Wherever you might stand as a DC fan on the current DC Universe, most fans would agree that the 'Dark Knight' trilogy was Batman in his prime. These films were well-cast, well-acted, and provided us with countless hours comedy on YouTube. Christian Bale's Batman was cool but, let's just accept at this point, pretty goofy at the same time. His voice speaks for itself (pun intended). But nevertheless, it never stopped these movies from being one of the most solid trilogies out there. 'The Dark Knight', itself, stands as not only one of the best 'Batman' movies, not only one of the best comic book movies, but one of the best movies out there in general. Winner of two Oscars and a Golden Globe, Rotten Tomato critic and audience ratings of an equal 94%, a Metacritic rating of a must-see 82, and it currently stands at #4 between 'The Gadfather: Part II' and '12 Angry Men' on IMDb's Top 250. So its done pretty damn well for itself over the past 10+ years. 'Batman Begins' is essentially a long, drawn out and really well-made origin story, but 'Dark Knight' is where things take off. Lawyer Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) has recently been elected as Gotham's new District Attorney with a plan to take down the city's organized crime syndicate. However, Batman (Christian Bale) kinda interferes with his plans, taking things into his own hands as the vigilante he is. Along comes the real star of the show, The Joker (Heath Ledger); a criminal mastermind with very little empathy, plotting to take the rug out from under Dent with a series of crimes, using money he has stolen from the mob, who he has under his thumb in no time. These crimes are primarily aimed at both Harvey Dent and Batman to see what kind of people they are, as two head figures of the city - a DA with a plant to clean up the mob for the "good of Gotham", and the masked vigilante who has so recently been dubbed a mysterious "hero". The film works great whether or not your a fan of Batman, as it's a story that leans heavily on human attributes and having to make difficult choices. I feel that the feel of the movie is something relatable to anyone. It gives us both sides of the coin that we crave between Batman and the Joker as well, seeing Batman as a "knight" for good and justice and Joker as the essence of chaos and, pretty much just evil. As mentioned before, the real star of this movie really is Heath Ledger's Joker. At the time, Jack Nicholson simply couldn't be touched for that role, at least as far as movie Jokers went. Along comes the guy we've pretty much only seen in teen movies, the late Heath Ledger, fully delivering on his performance and departing us on the highest of notes. This Joker has that perfectly profound dark sense of humor we wanna see, perhaps the prime example being his "pencil trick", which you may very well know even if you're one of the few people who may not have seen this one. At the same time, however, when he wants to get creepy, he really does manage to get creepy, reminding us full well that he's still a psychopath. He's just a really smart, really charismatic one. I think that in the grand scheme of things, this is perhaps the most recent "part 2" that truly outdoes its predecessor, which is already awesome in its own right. This really is a solid trilogy altogether, and if you're somehow a Batman fan who hasn't gone through it yet, you should fix that. I dunno what else to say about it, it's one of the best comic, crime, action, drama, suspense movies in existence. Even if you can't get past some of the more extreme moments, the story is fantastic, and it remains a personal favorite.
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![]() Before I get into this, the format in which I credit the cast for this film is "voice/guy in suit", as each main character here has one of each, including Tatsu for whatever reason... moving on, however. Going way back to being about 6, I was introduced to these guys through a handful of close friends. For me, it was word of mouth at school. I checked out the cartoon, was instantly hooked, and got quite the haul of Turtle toys over the next few years. It can't be explained, but there was just something about them we all loved. This particular movie is about as close as things get to the original source material. Not the cartoon, I'm talking the old, black and white comic book that made these guys dark, totally badass, and every one of them wore red bandanas, not just Raph. Instead, they were really only distinguishable by their weapons. However by the time this movie came along, the cartoon and the toys were what we were focused on. So the film combined the efforts of the comic book with the cartoon to give us kids everything we deserved. To this day, I still claim this as the end all, be all of 'TMNT' films. Okay, so basic plot - a backstory within the film tells us a brief origin of the characters, and those taking the time to read this probably already know it. Hell, you probably know it from today's material anyway. These guys never really went away or took a break. Basically, lost ooze in sewer = 1 mutant rat named Splinter (Kevin Clash) and 4 mutant turtles named after Renaissance artists, Leonardo (Brian Tochi/David Forman), Michaelangelo (Robbie Rist/Michelan Sisti), Donatello (Corey Feldman/Leif Tilden) and Raphael (Josh Pais). They find themselves up against a gang of ninja thieves known as the Foot Clan, headed by Shredder and his lackey, Tatsu (Michael McConnohie/Toshishiro Obata). These guys are going all around the city of New York, robbing it blind. Their paths cross with news reporter April O'Niel (Judith Hoag) who is doing a story on the whole situation. The turtles get involved when Raph finds her in the subway, having been attacked in an attempt to keep her lips sealed. He takes her back to their lair for recovery, but is unknowingly followed. Shit really hits the fan when their master, Splinter, is soon kidnapped by the Shredder, who holds him captive, trying to get answers from on how the turtles know how to fight like they do. April ends up helping them out, and caught in the middle of it all are one runaway teenager named Danny (Michael Turney), who's caught between helping the turtles and working for the Foot, and Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) who's kind of a random addition to everything, but makes for some decent comedy relief and is a great help in a fight. It might sound crazy, but this is one of those childhood films that I don't only love due to nostalgia, but love because it actually does tell a good story about characters I care about. You can watch this as an adult and see it as a sort of coming of age movie, as the Turtles have to learn to work as a team, have to come into their own to rescue Splinter, and have to take Splinter's teachings seriously in order to do it. While Leo and Don are doing pretty well, we do get that Mike and Raph have a bit of growing to do - Mike with his immaturity and Raph with his temper. I could always find myself empathizing with those two characters the most, especially after the bonfire scene, which I'm not ashamed to admit manages to move me when I see it these days. I mean, while it's a fun movie, one may argue "for kids", it actually does get pretty deep at points. It's not just some action movie where you see these turtles kicking ass and taking names. They take the time to get some messages across subtly, and a big part of it all is how important family is - remembering that family can also mean friends! Anyway, as I mentioned before, the 'Turtles' never really went away or took a break. They simmered down here and there, but have pretty well remained a constant in pop culture. But I can probably say with all sincerity that they were never, ever as big as they were in the late 80's and early 90's. They were everywhere back then! If the cartoon didn't give us enough (which was already an overload), the movie pretty much marked their taking over of the world (at least in my head). So, if you're a fan who hasn't taken a look at this 1990 classic, I strongly urge you to do so. Parts may be a bit dated, but everything that made this movie great is still there, and that includes the master puppetry of Jim Henson's Creature Shop when the man was still alive and kicking! ![]() My final movie for Action Month is, in my humble opinion, one of the best all out action movies of the last decade... and NOBODY went to see it! The idea was to bring back something no one was really asking for in 'Judge Dredd'. The original Stallone film had its fans, but for the most part, it was seen as pretty bad. Therefore, when this was coming up, no one seemed to pay much attention to it. However, once it was released on home video (all too quickly), word got around that this was actually a really cool action flick. This one takes place in a dystopian future where the metropolis' police force have been given the authority to act as judge, jury and executioner due to the massive increases in the cities violence and overall crime. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) has been teamed up with a rookie named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby); a mutant with psychic abilities. Together, they are sent to take down a gang leader and drug lord named "Mama" (Lena Headey). The drug in question is "slo-mo", a narcotic that makes it seem like time slows down to super slow motion, and the effects make everything look sparkly and shiny. It's very often portrayed throughout the film, almost to a fault, unfortunately. But, it's a neat effect when it's all put together. With that said, though, that's pretty much your plot in a nutshell. From there, it acts as another "non-video game movie" (the concept I brought up when talking about 'John Wick' in which a movie feels like it could be based on a video game) It's quite literally an hour and a half of nonstop action, only pausing to fit in the necessary dialogue. And for as quick as it moves, there's actually plenty of character development going on as we go, namely in the character of Anderson. If I was to compare this to anything, I'd probably compare it most closely with something like 'The Raid: Redemption' with hints of 'Die Hard'. It's just one of those movies that brings back the idea of action for the sake of action, but while having a good, simple story going on. It's even complete with one-liners, reminiscent of Schwarzenegger's work... okay, maybe that's a stretch, but still, enjoyably cheesy and bad ass. If you've ever watched 'Judge Dredd' and thought to yourself "hey, this is rated R but feels like PG-13", this is a movie that absolutely lends itself to its R rating. It's brutally violent, often in slow motion, the language is nice and Headey's character can very well be compared to her Cersei Lannister. Mama is a little more quick and to the point though. Either way, I have to hand it to Lena Headey for doing such a good job with her villains. But what about Karl Urban as Judge Dredd? To be frank, it's not like I really know how the character is supposed to be portrayed, but for my money, he does a good job with what he has. It makes me think of Christian Bale's Batman. It's a great series with great storytelling and great characters, but there's still something kinda goofy about the lead character. And that's not necessarily a bad thing in this case, 'cause I think there's a part of this movie that's self-aware. It knows how the last movie did, so it's allowed to be a bit silly here and there. In any case, it's a nice and short, shoot-'em-up good time of a movie. Just bear in mind that the violence can get a little over the top, and to have some patience with the slo-mo scenes. If I have one complaint at all, it's that those went on far too long. But I mean, that's about it. ![]() Hot on the heels of 'X-Men', I think a lot of us can remember seeing the first teaser for an upcoming 'Spider-Man' movie. After 'X-Men', Spidey was probably the next logical step, and this was when the superhero genre was really coming to fruition. Sadly, after this, almost every Marvel film up to 'Iron Man' was pretty mediocre, with the exceptions of a few sequels, which I'll get to another time. Of course, I don't need to get into how Spidey has gone through the motions when it comes to his movies. It's kinda crazy to think that since the release of this, back in 2002, Spidey is already in his third incarnation. But the character has finally seemingly found his footing with Tom Holland in the role. But that's not to say that the older 'Spider-Man' movies should just be ignored, either. In fact, the first two are still among my favorite superhero movies. Being that Tom Holland's Spider-Man skipped over the origin story, which was frankly a great decision on the studios' part, one might be curious as to the most accurate portrayal of his origin in film. Well, 'The Amazing Spider-Man' didn't do a bad job with things, necessarily, but 2002's 'Spider-Man', with Tobey Maguire in the lead, is probably the better option of the two. If for no other reason, he faces the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) right away, who is probably considered his arch nemesis. It depends on what you wanna see, but I also consider this to be closer to giving out the comic book vibe than 'Amazing' did. That said, 'Amazing' has accuracies like his web shooters (they just kinda come from his wrists here), and a much, MUCH more likable love interest in Gwen Stacey, who is useful, as opposed to Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) here, who is pretty much just someone to be saved who screams a lot. Those things aside though, I'd say this is the superior origin film. Now that I'm on my fifth paragraph, maybe I'll get into the actual movie. Well, Peter Parker (Maguire) gets bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip, gains superpowers, and uses them to stop crime after the important lesson his uncle gives him - "with great power, comes great responsibility". Meanwhile, Norman Osbourn (Dafoe) becomes the Green Goblin after rushing a lab experiment and having it go wrong. It kinda brings out the evil within him, makes him stronger, and has him going up against his authorities. The catch - he's Peter's best friend Harry's (James Franco) father. Unfortunately, due to time and changing Spider-Man up twice, this one has started to feel kinda old. Where watching 'X-Men' meant watching the first title of a series that just wrapped up last year, watching 'Spider-Man' was more like a nice piece of nostalgia. The movie's still a lot of fun, but it's kinda just the old version of something now. It doesn't help that Holland has become my definitive Spider-Man, and is in the driver's seat now. But Maguire is at least still in the passenger seat while Andrew Garfield is stuck in the back seat - he's a great Spidey, but a lousy Parker. So, if you're looking to see what many consider the definitive Spider-Man origin story, I'd say go for this one. 'The Amazing Spider-Man' works pretty well too, but as I said, it all depends on what kind of 'Spider-Man' movie you wanna see. Personally, I enjoy this one more, but it IS perfectly debatable. Watch for yourself, and find out what Spidey works for you. ![]() Let's hit that rewind button again, and go back to 2000. Largely, this was an era in which movies were trying to find some footing. This was just coming off that era of disaster movies, and the biggest name in movies was pretty much 'Star Wars Episode I', so... yeah. There were a few gems in between it all, but for the most part, there weren't a lot of great movies during this time. But the superhero era would soon find it's place, following on the heals of R-rated 'Blade', with PG-13-rated and far more popular 'X-Men'. The story here is that mutants are among us, and feared for what they could be capable of. Senator Kelly (Bruce Davidson) tries to pass a "Mutant Registration Act" in congress which would make mutants have to reveal what they can do to the world, taking away their basic freedoms. On one side of the mutant coin is Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a mutant on the side of peace who has the ability to enter, read and manipulate people's minds. He runs a school for mutants who don't fully understand their abilities, and can learn how to use them to their advantage. They can also get their basic education here, and feel safe among others who are much like them. On the other side of that coin is Eric Lensherr/Magneto (Ian McKellen), a mutant who sees a war in the making based on his experiences in Nazi concentration camps as a child. He understands hatred toward race all too well, and is willing to go to extremes to put an end to things. The main plot, however, revolves around Rogue (Anna Paquin), who has an ability she fears as it doesn't allow her to touch anyone without seemingly sucking the life out of them. But of course, she's only half of it. The obviously more important half being Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), who has since been in every single 'X-Men' movie (except technically 'Deadpool'). Xavier promises to help him to understand his foggy past if he helps out. Truth be told, I haven't gone back and rewatched the 'X-Men' films in quite some time, so one might wonder how it all holds up. I think the funny part of it is that the uniforms are the black leather 'cause it looked cooler than "yellow spandex" at the time, which is an actual joke quote from the movie in which Cyclops references Wolverine's comic/cartoon costume. But nowadays, that's what we want to see. We wanna see what we see in the comics brought to life in a much more physical sense. While the 'X-Men' films have grown that way to some degree, they still seem to like slapping that leather on them for some reason, save maybe 'First Class' and the end of 'Apocalypse'. Costume accuracy aside, however, this movie hasn't dated itself really at all. The effects hold up pretty well, and the roles are nearly perfect casting, but besides the basics, it's a great idea to bring to the screen. The 'X-Men' are mostly compared as a metaphor for homosexuality, how things are confusing, few understand what it means to be in those shoes, and yeah, some of the more ignorant people may even fear you. But I tend to consider it more about prejudices of all sorts, and that's what makes the 'X-Men' so incredibly relatable. You can understand what these mutants are going though if you've ever experienced any kind of prejudice first hand, really. In this particular day and age where movies about that sort of thing are praised ('The Shape of Water'), this is a pretty solid title to go back and check out again. ![]() Back in '97, something terrible happened to the superhero movie, and it's name was 'Batman & Robin'. Still considered one of the worst movies of all time, let alone superhero movies, it pretty much killed any further 'Batman' films, and most studios seemed to think the superhero movie couldn't quite be done to full advantage quite yet. So the question was, what now? The answer was to introduce a hero that people may have been familiar with, but they could easily do their own thing with. On top of that, give it an R-rating, because you can get away with more of a dark take on things that way. The final product was 'Blade', and at the time, it blew us all away. Being that it was released in '98, and R-rated, I didn't manage to catch it in theaters, having just turned 16. This was also back when the theater actually cracked down on underage people who sneaked their way in to R-rating. Nowadays, I'm never surprised to see a group of 5-year-olds wandering in. But upon renting it once it came out, I remember loving it, and wishing I had gotten the chance to see it on the big screen. It was dark, action packed, Blade was a badass, and I even considered the special effects good for the time. That said, they are now so painfully dated, it looks cartoonish, but the rest of what I enjoy about it is certainly still there. The film starts with a very brief backstory in which a woman, freshly bitten by a vampire, gives birth to Blade. 30 years later, Blade is known as the "Day Walker", as somehow when the infection carried over to him as a baby, he managed to absorb all of a vampire's strength with none of the weaknesses. However, the blood thirst was one thing that he managed to inherit, which he staves off, using a consistent injection of special syrum. Blade's villain in this is a young, turned vampire (in other words, not pure-blood) named Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) who has big plans for the vampire world, wishing for them to take it over, and essentially wiping out all humans. I like to refer to this as "Magneto Style". Anyway, it's the basic story of the race between hero, who wants to prevent, and villain, who wants to destroy. It's not entirely a new concept. For it's time, 'Blade' was considered something very special, and is often claimed to be the spark of the new superhero movie. For the most part, people seem to give that title to 'X-Men'. Personally, I tend to side with this one a bit more as the "spark", where 'X-Men' more just got the ball rolling. Of course, 'X-Men' also wasn't R-rated, so there were still some limitations with this and a younger audience. Watching it now, there's a lot more one can nitpick about, not the least of which being the laughable CG effects. I'd even say they were actually pretty bad for the time, but that's CG in the late 90s for you - not quite developed to perfection yet. The villain, Deacon Frost also comes across as a little weak. I remembered him being a total badass the first few times I watched this, but nowadays I guess I just see the douchebag shining through a bit more. Other ideas they have here are silly, like the vampires using sunscreen to get around in the sunlight without dying. But I mean, the sun is as strong as it is, so that's just confusing. It's just not quite as great as I remembered it, and by today's standards, there's cheesiness spilling out of it's seriousness. That said, it's still a fun movie, and it marks an R-rated superhero movie that came along, and succeeded, way before 'Deadpool' did it's thing. 'Deadpool' wasn't really a first, it was just resurrecting an idea that studios seemed to forget about - likely because PG and PG-13 offers itself to a wider audience. But isn't it strange that they seemed to have something special here, and never even made a string of R-rated superhero movies? It's not perfect by any means, but it's kind of a gem for it's era. ![]() While everyone in the world was seemingly still preoccupied with the battle of 'Frozen' vs 'Tangled', with 'Frozen' kinda crushing it because of one very annoying song, some of us went the other direction by 2014 and absorbed this movie as our escape from those "Princess Wars". This was just a straight up animated family feature about, for lack of a better term, superheroes. The last time it happened was 'The Incredibles', and we were ready to see what else Disney could pull out of their superhero box. Or at least anything but princesses for once in a few years. The interesting thing about this one was that it was an animated Marvel movie, and thus far the first and only Disney/Marvel animated film to exist on a theatrical scale. That said, this movie is NOT canon in the MCU. The creators have expressed that this is a Disney film over being a Marvel film. 'Big Hero 6' tells the story of a 14-year-old prodigy child named Hiro (Ryan Potter), who's a bit of a genius with technology, and upon seeing his brother, Tadashi's (Daniel Henney) school decides he wishes to go there. When it's discovered that someone has stolen the technology that Hiro uses to wow the school's recruiters, Hiro assembles a team of talented teens to get it back. Joining the cast here are the voice talents of T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr, Genesis Rodriguez, and Scott Adsit as the real star of this movie, Baymax; a medical assistance robot that Tadashi creates with the desire to help people in need. This is just such a great movie, through and through. Without spoiling anything, I can admit that this is one of those titles that manages to engage my every emotion, and it pulled me in very quickly. The truth of the matter was this was only my second viewing of it. I somehow managed to miss this one in theaters, saw it in the summer of 2015 for the first time, and just watched it recently to see if I liked it more or less. The answer is clearly more. Although it may be more effective the first time around considering all that happens, there's something to be said about revisiting it with your love for these characters, particularly Hiro, Baymax and Tadashi. This is a title well-worth checking out without having to be a Disney or even a Marvel buff. It's good fun for the whole family, and even remains a bit tough, focusing on deeper issues to do with separation, friendship and even revenge. I'll have to see about it's watchability over the years, but there's a very solid chance this MIGHT be my all-time favorite Disney animated film... MIGHT be. Either way, it's pretty damn good. |
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