Release Date: August 4th, 2020 Directed by: Sung Jin Ahn Written by: J.M. DeMatteis Based on:Deathstroke by Marv Wolfman, George Perez Music by: Kevin Riepl Cast: Michael Chiklis, Chris Jai Alex, Sasha Alexander
Berlanti Productions, Blue Ribbon Content, DC Entertainment, 87 Minutes
Review:
I was a bit stoked when I saw that there was an animated Deathstroke film on HBO Max. It came out a year ago and I’m assuming it was initially on DC Universe before that got swallowed up and absorbed by the newly launched HBO Max, which is sort of a central hub of all the content Warner Bros. associated streaming services hosted before converging into one thing.
Anyway, I was pretty underwhelmed by this. That’s not surprising, as DC animated features are a mixed bag. Some are really meh but some are very, very good. Most of them meet somewhere in the middle but this one does fall closer to the meh side of that pendulum.
While I liked that Michael Chiklis voiced Slade Wilson a.k.a. Deathstroke, the film was kind of a bore. It featured a couple C-list villains for Deathstroke to tie-up with but it also leaned into his personal life and his family, which I feel like has been explored to death in comics and other mediums already.
Frankly, I just kind of wanted Deathstroke in his anti-hero role, going up against impossible odds to take down a serious baddie. I wanted some dark, black-ops shit. While I guess this does send him on shadow missions of some degree, it just never really grabbed me.
There’s a television series of Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons, so I’m not sure if this is a sequel to it or a prequel. Maybe this is just a condensed version of a larger story. Either way, it’s kind of sloppy and boring.
Release Date: October 23rd, 1998 Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson Written by: David Webb Peoples Music by: Joel McNeely Cast: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Sean Pertwee, Connie Nielsen, Michael Chiklis, Gary Busey, Jason Issacs, Paul Dillon, Wyatt Russell
Jerry Weintraub Productions, Morgan Creek Entertainment, Warner Bros., 99 Minutes, 91 Minutes (edited)
Review:
“Brave. It means that even when you’re scared you control your emotions. You make the fear be really small and tiny.” – Sandra
I have to thank this film’s existence and Kurt Russell’s part in it for giving us Event Horizon, a far superior film and one of the greatest sci-fi/horror movies ever made. The reason being, this was supposed to be made earlier but Russell requested and extra year to get super diesel. To kill that time, Paul W.S. Anderson went off and directed the best film he’s ever made.
Plus, we still got this, which I also like quite a bit and it shares a couple of actors with 1997’s Event Horizon, the always awesome and underappreciated Sean Pertwee and Jason Issacs, who has a hell of a presence in every film he finds himself in.
In this, we also get Gary f’n Busey and Jason Scott Lee, who is the other super soldier that Kurt Russell ultimately has to face off with. Lee was also jacked as fuck in this and their big battle at the film’s climax is like swimming in Niagara Falls if the water was liquid testosterone.
Strangely, and something I didn’t know until reading up on this film before revisiting it, Soldier is an unofficial, spiritual sequel to Blade Runner. In fact, there are some Easter eggs sprinkled throughout that I didn’t catch the first time I saw this in the theater back in ’98.
The reason for this is that this film’s writer, David Webb Peoples, was one of the writers on Blade Runner, so he sprinkled some things in to tie it back to that legendary movie (and the original Philip K. Dick story). I guess I’ll always think of it as Blade Runner 1.5 from now on.
Anyway, the story sees an old super soldier get dumped like trash on a trash planet. He soon discovers a discarded civilization there and has to fight to protect them, as the government that threw him away brings war to their doorstep. With that, they bring their updated, newer super soldier model, which Kurt Russell has to face, testing his mettle and proving that sometimes newer isn’t better.
While this film has some apparent budgetary limitations, everything still looks pretty damn good for the time. I also really like the story and think it’s something that’s relatable to most people. Especially those of us that have lived a little while and may feel like changing times and younger blood may try and push us out of our spots, specifically in a professional setting.
Soldier is just a good, balls to the wall, popcorn movie. It’s the type of great manly man film that we’re not allowed to have anymore. Sure, it’s far from perfect and there are many movies that hit similar notes and do it better but this is still an awesome way to spend ninety-nine minutes.
Rating: 6.75/10 Pairs well with: other sci-fi action films of the ’80s and ’90s like Enemy Mine, Stargate, Escape From L.A., Event Horizon, etc.
Also known as: Fantastic Four 2, Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four: The Next Chapter (working titles) Release Date: June 12th, 2007 (London premiere) Directed by: Tim Story Written by: Don Payne, Mark Frost, John Turman Based on:Fantastic Four by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby Music by: John Ottman Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Doug Jones, Beau Garrett, Laurence Fishburne (voice), Brian Posehn
Marvel Entertainment, Constantin Film, 1492 Pictures, Dune Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, 92 Minutes
Review:
“…I stayed in and studied like a good little nerd. And fifteen years later, I’m one of the greatest minds of the 21st century. I’m engaged to the hottest girl on the planet. And the big jock who played football in high school, he’s standing right in front of me asking me for my help, and I say he’s not going to get a damn thing, unless he does exactly what I say and starts treating me and my friends with some respect.” – Reed Richards
After revisiting the first film in this duology, which was really just an unfinished trilogy, I thought that I’d watch this one again too. Granted, I didn’t expect to be wowed by it, as I wasn’t wowed in the first place when it came out 11 years ago. But I’ve been slowly working my way through the Marvel films that existed before the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off with Iron Man in 2008.
I thought that I preferred this one to its predecessor from what I remembered. However, having watched them again, this is the shitty one of the two films. Both are really shitty, mind you.
There is so much wrong with this film that it’s hard to pick where to start but I guess a lot of it can be lumped into one thing: tone. The tone just doesn’t work and this picture doesn’t seem to know what it’s trying to be. This is a mish mash of extreme cheese, rom com cringe, buddy movie antics, sci-fi thriller elements, terrible villains and a pail full of wet turds.
The extreme cheese portion of the movie is the type of stuff that will make you puke in your mouth while experiencing uncontrollable shivers. If you don’t believe me, just watch the Reed Richards dance scene. Ioan Gruffudd is probably a nice enough guy but this whole sequence makes me hate him, the director and the special effects team. And ultimately, I cried inside because Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis had to be a part of it.
The rom com cringe comes from all the Reed Richards and Susan Storm marriage bullshit. There’s this ongoing joke throughout the movie about how their wedding keeps getting interrupted, it’s played up for comedy when it’s really not that funny and always takes a turn towards a serious attempt at stopping a threat which is poorly executed each time and falls victim to the extreme cheese residue that seems to be smeared over the celluloid that this was filmed on. Plus, this is one of the most unconvincing romantic relationships I have ever seen on screen.
When it comes to the buddy movie antics, the first film handled this stuff much better. I actually loved the relationship between Johnny and Ben in the first chapter. It carries over into this one but this story is more about how much of a fuck up Johnny is and it’s just not as funny. And since he becomes a responsible grown up by the end of the picture, it probably would’ve been worse in the third picture that didn’t get made. But where they try to push the buddy comedy shtick here, it just feels like a soulless copy of what’s already been done.
Then the film also tries to get serious and be a real science fiction thriller. The problem is that you are so bogged down by the cheesy bullshit that it doesn’t fit. I guess the best way to describe the confusing tone is to imagine taking a movie like Step Brothers and then trying to edit it together into one film with Terminator 2. The shit just doesn’t work and it’s weird.
Plus, Jessica Alba’s Sue Storm looks even more unbelievably bizarre in this film than the previous one. She’s a beautiful woman but the blonde hair and blue eyes are so exaggerated here that she looks like an alien in some scenes. I mean, it’s really fucking distracting. But in some scenes she looks fine too. Really, her whole look throughout the film is grossly inconsistent and when she does look weird, it’s super weird because 30 seconds earlier she probably looked okay.
I have to discuss the villain problem as well.
For one, I hated Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom in the first movie and he’s just so much worse in this one. The dude does everything he can to not wear the Doom mask, which is the main thing that makes the villain visually terrifying. But then when he does wear it, his dubbing is fucking deplorable. He doesn’t sound like a mad scientist in a cool mask, he sounds like a male dance choreographer trying to berate six year-old ballet students that don’t have the attention span to commit to his community theater production.
Then there is Galactus. Or isn’t there? One of the most powerful villains in the entire history of Marvel Comics is simply a cloud in this film. A fucking cloud. I don’t think I need to say anymore about that.
Also, the plot makes no sense by the time you get to the end. The Silver Surfer is helping Galactus eat planets because if he doesn’t, Galactus will eat his homeworld. But then in the end, Susan Storm convinces the Silver Surfer to stop him. So how does he do it? The Surfer flies into the cloud, tells the cloud he isn’t his servant anymore and then the cloud blows up and goes away. Couldn’t the Silver Surfer have just done this like fifty planets ago? Hell, couldn’t have just gotten Galactus’ power and then instantly turned on him without actually leaving his own planet and not only saving it but also all the worlds he prepared for his master like duck confit with a side of foie gras and truffle risotto?
Fuck, this movie is so stupid.
So I must put this movie through the Cinespiria Shitometer. The results read, “Type 1 Stool: Separate hard lumps, like nuts (hard to pass).”
Rating: 3.5/10 Pairs well with: 2005’s Fantastic Four and the 2015 reboot. And I can’t forget 1994’s unreleased Fantastic Four film, which can be tracked down and seen nowadays. However, all these movies are terrible.
Release Date: June 29th, 2005 (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago) Directed by: Tim Story Written by: Michael France, Mark Frost Based on:Fantastic Four by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby Music by: John Ottman Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Laurie Holden, Maria Menounos, Hugh Jackman (cameo in extended cut)
Marvel Entertainment, Constantin Film, 1492 Pictures, 20th Century Fox, 106 Minutes
Review:
“Typical of Victor Von Doom to build a 30 foot statue of himself.” – Ben Grimm
I bought this on DVD in 2005. I’m not sure why, as I was not a fan of it in the theater. And frankly, this was still in shrink wrap until I opened it recently to rewatch the film for review purposes, as I am working my way through all of the early comic book movies before the Marvel Cinematic Universe came into existence.
I think that my opinion of the film is actually worse than it was back then. Maybe my palate is more refined and I’m less likely to accept sub par comic book movies in a day and age where we sometimes get to experience great ones. When this came out, I didn’t care that most of these films sucked, I was just glad that comic book motion pictures were being made.
But man, oh man… this is one atrocious turd pie.
If the film’s poster isn’t enough to tell you that this is some sort of shit festival, then you probably deserve to be kicked in the eye by a pissed off mule. Because let’s be honest, your eyes don’t work anyway.
Let me point out the only two highlights of the film so I can get them out of the way and get back to trashing this movie with fury and gusto.
The two highlights are Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans. I liked these two guys as their characters and I thought their camaraderie was perfect. But they’re also the most talented people in this film by a wide margin and I almost feel bad for them being subjected to this picture and its 2007 sequel.
Now back to the negatives!
All of the actors apart from the two I just mentioned were terrible. Jessica Alba is never really good but her line delivery in this film is probably her worst of all-time. She doesn’t feel like Sue Storm, doesn’t act like Sue Storm and frankly, just shouldn’t have been cast as Sue Storm. Her blonde hair and blue eyes just looked really bizarre and were kind of a distraction.
Ioan Gruffudd also didn’t feel like Reed Richards. He was just a total fucking dork and I get that Richards is a brainy guy but that doesn’t mean that he’s some sort of socially inept doofus. He was like a caricature from The Big Bang Theory if you were to strip away any attempts at making bad jokes.
Julian McMahon just didn’t work as Doctor Doom either. His character was just weird and he never had the presence or the weight that Doom should have. When we do finally reach the finale of the film, I like his look but by that point it’s too late and his dubbed lines, once the mask is on, just feel out of place and strange.
Fantastic Four also suffers from having a shitty script, bad direction by Tim Story and atrocious special effects.
But still, the Chiklis and Evans scenes do effectively reel me back in and keep this movie from being a total pile of shit, even though I hate the Thing’s rubber suit. In 2005, he didn’t need to look like a villain from a 1967 episode of Ultraman.
I think it is safe to assume that I will probably never watch this movie again. But I do have the tough task of having to watch its sequel once more, as I keep working through the pre-MCU comic book films for review purposes and because I like torturing myself with horrible films.
But seriously, this was like chugging diarrhea.
And because of that gross analogy (and my low rating), I do have to run this through the Cinespiria Shitometer. The results read, “Type 6 Stool: Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool.”
Rating: 4/10 Pairs well with: Its sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and the reboot, 2015’s Fantastic Four. And I can’t forget 1994’s unreleased Fantastic Four film, which can be tracked down and seen nowadays. However, all these movies are terrible.
Original Run: October 5th, 2011 – current Created by: Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk Directed by: various Written by: various Music by: Cesar Davila-Irizarry, Charlie Clouser, James S. Levine, Mac Quayle Cast: Evan Peters, Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, Taissa Farmiga, Denis O’Hare, Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Joseph Fiennes, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, Lizzie Brocheré, James Cromwell, Frances Conroy, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates, Michael Chiklis, Finn Wittrock, Angela Bassett, Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Chloë Sevigny, Cheyenne Jackson, Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding Jr., André Holland, Billie Lourd, Alison Pill, Alexandra Daddario, Grace Gummer, Lance Reddick, Alexandra Breckenridge
Ryan Murphy Productions, Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, 20th Century Fox, 78 Episodes (so far), 37-73 Minutes (per episode)
Review:
*written in 2015.
I just binge watched the first three seasons of American Horror Story, as I was running out of things to watch on Netflix and this was in my queue for a few years. I have yet to see season 4, as it isn’t available yet.
I have a few friends who obsess over this show, which is probably why I put it off for so long. Usually, when a bunch of people build something up really high, I am left disappointed. I think the only time I wasn’t was when I finally sat down to watch Breaking Bad.
I wouldn’t call American Horror Story a disappointment though. It was pretty enjoyable and I’ll watch future seasons, albeit at my own leisure. But I wouldn’t call the show special or hype it up to everyone I know.
The premise of the show is horror, which is obvious by the title, but other than tapping into supernatural elements and showing something scary every now and then, it plays more like a teen drama. But that is the way of Hollywood these days. Sure, most of the characters are older than teens but this is definitely a show written for them.
The show just isn’t scary and that is why I have reservations about horror being used in a television format. Sure, you can churn up a few frights and provide creepy visuals and a dark tone but over the course of a 13 episode season, the monsters you are selling get less and less scary. When the reveals have to happen early because modern audiences can’t tolerate suspense, there is nowhere else to go other than adding in more teen drama and stretching out a resolution.
I guess the one thing that irks me about the show, is how the payoffs seem rushed, the resolution happens almost too early and the final few episodes of each season play like an epilogue that is too fleshed out. The grand evil each season is conquered around episode 11. So what you get is two more episodes that really aren’t necessary. I don’t care about any of these characters that much. It’s like the ending to the extended edition of The Return of the King – you just want it to be over.
Highlights of the show include the acting talents of Jessica Lange and Evan Peters (who was Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past). The rest of the cast, at least the actors who appear over multiple seasons are all pretty good. Although, Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau was horrible. I don’t blame her, as the character of Laveau was horribly written. The writers really tarnished the well respected legacy of the New Orleans Voodoo Queen and turned her into an evil vengeful idiot. Kathy Bates was fantastic though, I do want to point that out.
I like the show more than I dislike it but it hasn’t solidified me as a fan and it is a moderately enjoyable way to waste a weekend.
Update:
After the third season, I watched two more. Each year gets worse and worse, to the point that I’ve completely stopped caring about the show. The last season I watched was Hotel and I have no more interest in the future of this anthology franchise. I think there are two more seasons after Hotel with the possibility of this going on forever… but I’m done.
Original Run: September 22nd, 2014 – current Created by: Bruno Heller, Danny Cannon Directed by: various Written by: various Music by: Graeme Revell Cast: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, David Mazouz, Zabryna Guevara, Sean Pertwee, Robin Lord Taylor, Erin Richards, Camren Bicondova, Cory Michael Smith, Victoria Cartagena, Andrew Stewart-Jones, Anthony Carrigan, John Doman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Morena Baccarin, BD Wong, James Frain, Jessica Lucas, Chris Chalk, Drew Powell, Nicholas D’Agosto, Michael Chiklis, Maggie Geha, Benedict Samuel, David Zayas, Cameron Monaghan, Richard Kind, Natalie Alyn Lind, Peyton List, Crystal Reed, Alexander Siddig
Primrose Hill Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, 66 Episodes (thus far), 42 Minutes (per episode)
Review:
*originally written in 2015, near the end of season 1, plus additional updates written later.
I was going to wait until the end of the first season before reviewing this show, as I do with most new shows. I just can’t get that far and don’t think that waiting till the season ends will change my assessment. I’ve tried desperately to get this to work for me. I’ve tried a hell of a lot harder than most of my friends and Batman fans, who all gave up on this a long time ago. I saw some promise here and there but this show fails in just about every way. In short: it is pretty goddamned awful (*note: I no longer feel this way as revealed in the final update).
There are actually only a few things that this show has going for it but I’ll get to those shortly.
If you barely know anything about the Batman mythos and you find pleasure in watching mediocre cookie cutter detective shows, I can see where you might find this watchable. However, if you are a Batman fan and love and respect the franchise, this is a very painful experience.
On one hand, the producers are trying to spoon feed the audience with fan service in every episode but it is forced, poorly executed and unnecessary. In fact, it feels as if the producers read a couple Wikipedia articles about Batman and thought they had an intimate grasp. And the way they handle certain characters, goes to show that they don’t understand them at all. At times it just feels like a cruel joke and it is Fox trolling the shit out of their audience.
For instance, Edward Nygma doesn’t need to speak in riddles every scene, Harvey Dent doesn’t need to display a split personality every other appearance, you don’t need to have constant Joker teases across multiple unrelated scenarios, you don’t need to show a little ginger girl playing with plants every time she’s on screen and Selina Kyle doesn’t need to parkour off of every object whenever she makes an entrance. I also don’t need to be reminded every five minutes about how Jim Gordon is a good cop and every other cop on the force is tainted by something. It is fucking overkill.
The acting is questionable, the writing is more often than not atrocious and despite the over abundance of horribly executed fan service, the show is just plain stupid on its own. It is an obvious attempt at being a cash cow and a ratings grabber and somehow it has worked in that regard, as it is coming back for a second season.
The whole premise of the show makes it a failure from the get-go.
To start, the worst part about most live-action superhero adaptations is the origin. The audience usually finds themselves roughing it through the early bits in an effort to get to the comic book action. Also, how many times has Batman’s origin been told? Now we are given a show that is an overly extended version of the lamest part of Batman’s tale. Who knows how long this could stretch: ten seasons, maybe? Hell, one has been enough.
The other main part of the show, is Jim Gordon trying to “save the city” and destroy corruption. Well, he’s doomed to fail because if he were to succeed, why would Gotham City need the Batman?
As far as characters, Bruce Wayne is okay and I like him being a little shit challenging authority and taking on the evil adults of his world but it isn’t enough to anchor a need for him on this show. Selina Kyle is awful and pretty much a caricature that just happens to look like a young Michelle Pfeiffer. The Poison Ivy character is unimportant and so far useless. All the villains who show up are poorly done and easily defeated. Barbara Kean is the worst character on television. Where did Renee Montoya go? Fish Mooney is sometimes great but mostly terrible. However, I don’t blame these actors, I blame the atrocious writing.
When it comes to positives, Robin Lord Taylor is amazing as the Penguin. In fact, at first, I hated that he was way too skinny to be the Penguin but he’s so good in the role that I don’t care. He is by far, the most interesting part of the show. Almost as good as Taylor is Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock. Then again, when isn’t Logue anything short of great? Ben McKenzie does a solid job as Jim Gordon and I do like Cory Michael Smith as Nygma, the man who will become the Riddler – even though the writers force riddles into every situation he finds himself in. Lastly, Sean Pertwee makes a fine Alfred Pennyworth and is my favorite live action incarnation of the character. Pertwee also looks a lot like his father in his older age and seeing him in action reminds me of the Third Doctor from the classic Doctor Who series.
The show is often times too distracted by its own mess and diverts away from characters with potential to focus on too many small parts in a machine that is too large for its own good. When the show is at its strongest is when the Penguin is on screen, Alfred is kicking ass or when it focuses more heavily on the crime families of Gotham City. The episodes pitting Sal Maroni against Carmine Falcone with a little Fish Mooney and the Penguin mixed in are the best that this series has offered up so far.
I still watch this show because I want to buy into it, I just can’t. The good parts keep me engaged but they are too far and few between. I don’t believe that the show will get better but there is enough good stuff to expand on and save it from being the generally uninteresting mess it is currently. But I probably won’t watch the second season on a weekly basis, as I do now. I’ll wait a year for it to be over with and then binge watch it over a weekend. If it picks up steam and corrects itself, consider me reinvested. If not, I’ll find better ways to spend my time.
Update:
Season 2 of Gotham has been infinitely better than the first. The shows is finding its footing and it now knows what it is trying to be. I like that it is creating its own world and veering away from being trapped by the expectations from an already established Batman mythos. The show is doing its own thing and honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce Wayne is killed off before even becoming Batman.
Update 2:
At the end of Season 3, the show has corrected a lot of its early mistakes.
Cameron Monaghan, who plays Jerome Valeska, who may or may not be the Joker but is probably the Joker, is the best version of Batman’s greatest villain I have ever seen in a live-action story. The kid is magnificent and really captures the magic of the comic book version of the legendary character better than anyone I have ever seen. Yes, he’s better than Heath Ledger and he has the same spirit as Mark Hamill who has voiced the character for decades.
Additionally, the show just becomes more interesting as it rolls on, even though it has some dumb plot threads. But when you don’t take this show seriously and just embrace its insanity, it works.
Most of the villains have evolved solidly, especially the Penguin and the Riddler. I also really liked the Mad Hatter story, as well as the plots that focus on Hugo Strange.
Gotham is far from a perfect show but it bounced back, in my opinion. It also works if you just take it for what it is and don’t try to force it into the box that is the already established comic book mythos. I see it now as an Elseworlds Tale, which is a title DC Comics gives to their stories that take place in different realities.
I’m glad I stuck with it as long as I did. For others who have, their dedication has paid off.
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Talking Pulp 
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