Awesome Comic Tuesday: Spiderman: Master of Distractions

To be totally fair, I would probably look too.

Superhero movies: Effects vs. Story

I won't say there's no end in sight for the superhero movie trend. Now that the Batman trilogy is over and done with, DC has got to be banking on the success of Batman vs. Superman to even stay in the game. Marvel is still going strong, with Thor: The Dark World receiving decent praise at the box office, as well as by critics, but the somewhat lackluster third installment of the Iron Man trilogy made me wonder if they may finally be running out of steam.

That all said, however, we can still look back at the early 2000's and marvel at just how far the superhero movie has come since the days of the first X-Men movie. Sure, technology has improved, and film rights to certain characters have been hashed out, but I think there is an additional factor we can consider: finding the balance between special effects and a good story. The first X-Men movie, for example, seemed to be more of an exercise in seeing what cool powers could be brought to life, with considerably less emphasis on having a story, or character development, or avoiding terrible dialogue.

What happens when a toad gets hit by lightning? Terrible writing, that's what.

As a kid, I was super (haha, puns) impressed by the special effects. As I got older, however, I came to realize that they did not make a movie good, just sparkly, like an arts and crafts project made of a cloud of glitter with no paper to be glued down to. X-Men 2 and 3 were, admittedly, better about it, exploring the homophobia allegory that's always been a staple of the comic, but they never really “wowed” me.

Then came “X-Men: First Class”. Unlike its bad to just unimpressive predecessors, I think First Class is a great movie, easily one of the best in its genre. The characters are no longer just walking special effects, they're people. Mystique is interesting, Beast is interesting, Magneto is incredibly deep for a comic book character, and although you know he's technically the “villain”, you can see that he as a very valid point. Sure, ultimately they're foiling the plan of a super villain, and Emma Frost reaches Kristen Stewart levels of bland, but there are other stories and character developments happening at the same time. The powers are what they should be: elements of the story, rather than the primary focus.

“But Mike,” some of you are saying, “aren't the superpowers the reason we come to superhero movies in the first place?” That's a valid point. After all, you didn't pay $10 to see “Captain Explosion 2: Return of the Mega-Pecs” to see all quiet, talky scenes with a lot of character development.

For a moment though, let's consider “That 70's Show”.

...explain?

Bear with me. What did people like about “That 70's Show”? Easy, Kelso was the loveable idiot, Fez was awkward an naïve, Jackie and Red were hilarious (though vastly different) jerks, and Eric and Donna were, more often than not, the straight foils to the antics of the others. Know what's missing from that list, though? The fact that the show was in the 70's. At the end of the day, the premise and even title of the show had nothing to do with why we liked the final product. We usually like stories because we like the characters. They're the ones we're supposed to want to see win, who we feel bad to see fail. When a character is just walking laser vision, like Cyclops in the first two X-Men movies, then we really can't care about what happens to him.

However, I wouldn't go so far as to say remove the powers entirely. After all, the biggest complaint about the Iron Man movies is that there was very little actual Iron Man, especially in the third flick. Character building and getting us invested are important, to be sure, but if if the amount of payoff is disproportionate to how long we've waited, then we feel like we've had our time wasted. The Avengers did this as close to perfectly as I think any movie has. You knew every quiet talky scene was building up to another explosive fight scene, and it always delivered. Avengers are being gathered? Let's have them fight Loki. Now there's a lot of talking and arguing? Uh-oh, Banner's Hulked out. Post-shock depressing scenes after the battle on the Helicarrier? Well, that's okay. We know the climactic final fight is on the way.

While I think the superhero movie as a trend will go away, I seriously doubt the genre will ever really die out. Let's face it, if the Phantom, Tank Girl and Steel didn't kill it back in the 90's I doubt there's much that will. Plus, I think we'll come out of this fad with a better understanding of how superhero movies can continue to get better for the future, even if they aren't as frequent.

Of course, Xavier went from being “the guy with mind powers” to “the guy who the 70's vomited on”, but we'll see where that goes.

Batman vs. Superman (My) Final Word (probably)

Super Smash Bros 4

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “nerdgasm” is a phenomenon in which the sight of something closely linked to something a person is very passionate about lights up so many positive emotion neurons that it evokes a sensation not dissimilar to nirvana with lightsabers.

Example: You're a huge comic fan, and in the post-credit scene of Iron Man 1, you see Nick Fury give the first plug that there's going to be an Avengers move. The reaction you had to that was probably a nerdgasm.

With that in mind, the next Super Smash Bros.

Despite the fact that I own neither a 3DS or a WII-U (a fact which may change around the release of Pokemon X and Y) I experienced a nerdgasm seeing this trailer. This is largely due to the fact that Super Smash Bros has been hands-down, no-contest my favorite multiplayer game in the history of anything ever. Its a simple concept that you can pick up in about no time: almost every button does damage, do damage to your opponents. Stay on the platform. But there's a technique and finesse to it that takes a lot of practice to master, such as sidestepping, the Zelda boot and my personal favorite: the spike, in which you throw an opponent off the edge, the jump out and do a downward smash to slam them off the screen.

Magical.

Now to be fair, this new trailer doesn't show us a whole lot about the new game, save a few new maps and characters, but that's really all that's ever new. The biggest change that came from brawl was the addition of the smash balls, and I've met people who love and people who hate that.

I did not recognize the new locations, and they probably will make very little difference to someone who prefers to just play on Final Destination, so I have little to say about that. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I've also never played Animal Crossing, so when the trailer looked like it was about over, I was left feeling kind of disappointed.

Then, he arrived.

I have been questioning the absence of MegaMan since Melee. Surely you could get the iconic character that nintendo is actually known for before you put in, oh I don't know, Solid Snake? Sonic? And now, finally, MegaMan has come to join the party.

I don't have much more to say about this game, due to the amount of information that hasn't been released, but I'm always psyched for a new Smash Bros game, and I hope many of you are too.

Just so long as they haven't added more Starfox characters, because seriously, screw those guys.

Trailer Trashing: White House Down

Trailer Trashing: Epic

What can I say about Epic? When the first trailer came out, I'll admit that I was kind of intrigued. It look very mystical, very heavy on the atmosphere and letting the beauty of the natural imagery do the brunt of the storytelling.
Then we learned more about this flick.
With every new trailer that came out, every voice actor that was announced, my expectations for this film sunk lower and lower, hitting its lowest point when I saw this trailer. Mostly this is because of the slug character. I mean this guy looks painful to watch. He looks like some executive sent a note down to the studio demanding that there be a "hip" and "cool" character who spouted comic relief and catch-phrases. I'm calling it right now: this is the Jar-Jar Binks of the summer movie block.
That's not to say that my problems with this preview are limited to the slug though. It seems like virtually every character uses a lot of modern slang. The leaf people, the villain, everybody has a very modern-day way of talking that is not going to age well. Not only that, but it just really does not fit in to the world that they're trying to create. For something that looks so mystical and one with nature, this kind of talk really pulls us out of the movie.
Finally, and arguably most importantly, this movie has been done to death. Oh, its someone being shrunk down and experiencing a smaller world. Oh, its the destruction of the forest by some big evil force.
This movie looks like Ferngully meets The Spiderwick Chronicles, minus anything that made the former two good.

Trailer Trashing: Oz, Great and Powerful

I'm question the underlying thesis of this movie.

So the wizard wants to be a “great man” (would've gone with lumberjack myself) and presumably is going to go on this grand adventure to defeat the witch and achieve that goal. I feel confident saying this because this is a Disney piece. Something big needs to happen during the course of this movie, right at the very end if need be, to turn this wizard from the hero of this story to the kind of pathetic fraud we see in the classical “Wizard of Oz,” and frankly, I don't see Disney having the brass to go there.

But as for the trailer itself, I have to saw that this piece looks very visually similar to “Alice in Wonderland”. Hopefully they create a more simplified landscape, because Alice simply had way too much colorful, quirky stuff crammed into every shot. I would not recommend this one on 3-D. I think that would be overwhelming. But in 2-D, and if they tone the sheer amount of stuff down, this could be a very visually striking and memorable piece in that respect.

As for the characters so far, what is there to say? You know nothing about the wizard from this, you only get flashes of everyone else. Is the lady in red supposed to be a witch, or just some random woman that just exists in Oz? I didn't think regular people lived there.

All in all, I'll have to reserve judgement on this one. There is simply too little to go on in this trailer. Keep your eyes open, but be careful, because I think this is going to be one that tries so hard to blow you away with striking visuals that it may just be a mess of color and quirk with a lack of real substance.

Trailer Trashing: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters describes itself as a “dark twist on the fairy tale which...”

And I can just stop right there. There is really no reason to keep going. We have all seen the “dark twist on a fairy tale” a million times, we've seen monsters hunters done to absolute death these days, and I guarantee at least half the people who saw this trailer thought “Constantine meets Brothers Grimm.”

I liked Constantine. I...didn't hate Brothers Grimm. I guess. It was just kind of bland and ill-paced, but it had some strengths. This? I don't even know what to make of this.

First of all, where on earth does this take place? Hansel and Gretel clearly sound American, the old guys she headbutts for some reason starts off sounding German, but by the end of his sentence sounds Scottish, the teenager sounds like he's from Iowa, but the whole thing looks like an old time German village.

I also have no idea when this is supposed to take place. There are straw-thatched roofs but also machine guns? Firearms are present, but they still use crossbows?

And then we have the witches. Oh God, these witches. I said in the video that I missed the time when we didn't just lump all mythological creatures into one, gray skinned, super strong entity that had to be killed via decapitation. Witches aren't really strong like the one they're fighting early on. They can't splinter trees or tackle Hawkeye thirty feet back. Also, if witches are so terrifyingly deadly, how do Hansel and Gretel kill one as children, ostensibly just by whacking it with a stick?

But none of that matters, because apparently “we aren't hunting witches.”Okay? Why not? Why set up this elaborate scenario where the primary job skill of your protagonists is killing witches, show us that witches are apparently a big problem, and then throw in this twist that “ermegerd, it's not witches anymore!” It never WAS witches to us. The idea of there just being witches is new to the audience. If it was a sequel to a Hansel and Gretel movie, where they fought witches in the first movie, then it would have some merit, but here, it's just unneeded drama on top of an already confusing premise.

All in all, this trailer is just a mess. The vast majority of it is just posing, and one liners, and explosions. Yes, I know that's the general action movie advertisement, but when they just say “you've gotta be kidding me” with no context, I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel about it.

I don't think there are going to be any surprises with this one. I'm calling another forgettable shoot 'em up here.

Trailer Trashing: The Lone Ranger

I'm going to be honest: I'm not all that up on my Lone Ranger mythos. I know that he's kind of a superhero, sort of a Batman or Green Hornet (the Adam West era versions) of the wild west, I know his horse is named silver, and I know that there is a good chance that this movie will become Johnny Depp is a Native American: the movie.

Man, just look at me be eccentric.

Now I don't know a lot about the Lone Ranger, but I know a lot about what happens when Johnny Depp is given a role that is supposed to be a supporting one: it becomes the Johnny Depp Show. Remember the newest Alice in Wonderland and how that movie is, shockingly enough, supposed to be a bout the titular “Alice”? Yeah, I defy you to tell me that movie wasn't way to much about Depp's Mad Hatter. I mean, seriously, the dance he does at the end? Why? What was the point outside of having him to something quirky? Same goes for his Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That movie was not about Charlie, it was about Willy, and I think the movie was weaker for it.

Note who is in the center here, aka NOT ALICE

That's not an attack against Johnny Depp. I'm sure he's a great guy, and for the charmingly eccentric niche that he fills, he's probably the best that there is. This is kind of an attack on the marketing and editing departments of the projects that he's attached. I'm sure everyone in the production was given memos about making sure they got everything out of Depp that was humanly possible so they could go to town with the marketing later.

Which brings me back to The Lone Ranger. As someone who is not really steeped in the story of the character, my primary fear is that this movie is not going to be about the Lone Ranger, but about Tonto, or rather, it's going to try to be about the Lone Ranger, but all the good lines/scenes and memorable moments are going to be given to Tonto to remind us all “hey, there's Johnny Depp.”

Breaking away from Depp, my next biggest issue going from the trailer is the lack of practical effects. Like I say when the train piece flies off, it comes off as gimmicky. Essentially everything that's over the top, with the train scene bearing special mention, is quite obviously CGI, and it kind of pulls me out of it. I had the same reaction to the Goblin King in “The Hobbit” (see GotRT podcast #3).

Looking at some of the marketing for the game, a predominant thing that comes up is the Lego Lone Ranger line, with a few 3D models that bear a resemblance to the Lego video game franchises. If they're already considering a game, it concerns me on the one hand that this may just be a reboot they made just in the hopes of a cash cow (though really, is there any other kind?) but on the other, maybe if they're going this deep into marketing and products, then they've put a lot into the movie as well.

Hi-Ho...plastic? Away?

So sign me on as pessimistic, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to being wrong. 

 

Pokemon X and Y Announced!

So the impression I may have given in my rant against PETA is that I'm a fan of Pokemon. In reality...yes, I'm a big fan of pokemon. I won't get into details, because I already did in that post, but let's just say I've been playing them since the first games.

Nintendo has just recently released information regarding their newest addition to the pokemon franchise: Pokemon X and Pokemon Y, scheduled to be launched this October for the 3DS. So as a lifelong fan of the series, how do I feel about these games? Well, I have to remind myself that I don't own a 3DS, and probably won't own one by October, so this one may not effect me for a long, long time.

That doesn't mean I can't comment on the trailer that was just released, however.

The first thing to hit the eye is, of course, the updated graphics. My big problem with Black/White and their immediate sequels was that while they sort of went to a 3D world, it seemed to be caught in a sort of awkward halfway point that only sometimes looked like real 3D, and sometimes just looked like a really awkward 2D. That is not the case if this footage is anything to go by.

Graphics here aren't quite the dream game that fans have been clamoring for since the early days, but it's certainly a step in the right direction, so long as the graphical improvements aren't just in the trailer video and nowhere else.

The other bit of information we get here is the three new starters, and I'm far more optimistic about these than I was with the gen 5 versions. The grass type is probably my least favorite. He just looks so happy and cartoon-y, which I know is a staple of the series, but that goofy grin just kind of looks, well, goofy. Also, I'm having trouble understanding what about his design alludes to being a grass type.

I'm stoked about this fire starter (pun totally intended), simply due to the probability that this one might not be fire/fighting, which is a type set that I think is largely over saturated. Arcanine is one of my favorites in the whole series, and I'm hoping this fox/dog design will produce something similar in its evolved forms.

Finally, we have the water type. The biggest surprise here is that they took this long to make a water starter based on a frog. I thought after turtles it would be the most obvious thing, but apparently alligators, otters, penguins (though that was awesome) and whatever mudkip was supposed to be came first.

There wasn't a ton of information in the trailer, and I'm hoping to update the watch on this game as information becomes available, but those are my initial thoughts on seeing the new trailer.

Trailer Trasher: The Croods

Is this caveman adventure story going to be a family classic, or will it be dead as the neanderthals?

Trailer Trashing: Man of Steel

So the last Superman movie  (Superman Returns) was not the comeback DC wanted for the Man of Steel. Sure, it didn't bomb like, oh, I don't know, movies about an anti-heroine with a penchant for feline emulation, but it just wasn't what the company needed to bring the Superman movies back. I think a lot of this came down to the story. Brandon Routh was a decent last son of Krypton as far as his acting, though I think people were bothered by how skinny he was.

Jeez, someone get Superman a sandwich.

But the story is what just killed this movie. It wasn't bad, per-say, it was just bland. Lex Luthor has an evil plot to get rich, Lois Lane is kidnapped and a call is sent to Superman, who Luthor repels with kryptonite but ends up saving the day anyway.

There were NO surprises in this movie, except maybe that Superman had a son with Lois Lane who kind of has super powers. Even that little twist works against it, however, as Superman doesn't actually take any responsibility for the boy in the end. Defender of truth and justice indeed, though I must admit, I enjoyed how everyone but Lois Lane at one point or another suspects that Kent is Superman. I don't know, I was amused.

Whoa, whoa. Kent might be Superman?!

That wasn't enough to save the movie, however, and the rebooted Superman movie franchise died as quickly as it had come.

But now with the monumental success of “The Dark Knight” trilogy, DC is ready to try again with another Nolan piece, “Man of Steel.” There's only one trailer out for the movie at the time I'm writing this, and it's...well, interesting is certainly a word that would fit.

So, is “Man of Steel” some kind of metaphor for a “Deadliest Catch” movie? That's Henry Cavill as Superman, who you should recognize as Theseus from “Immortals” or as Albert Mondego from “The Count of Monte Cristo.” But how convincing will he look in the blue tights?

Well, if nothing else, Cavill has sheer size on Routh. Looking at the two, who would you think of more as a super strong, invincible hero? Yeah, Cavill wins that hands down. Going back to the trailer, what is with them being on a boat, or with Superman just wandering down the street? Why is the music painfully clearly form Lord of the Rings?

Here are my theories: in this movie, Nolan isn't going to focus on the powers, but how a supernaturally powered alien would feel, well, alienated from his surroundings. It's the kind of realist approach that made the Batman movies so great, after all. This Kent may well be on the boat and the street because it lets him keep his distance from the rest of the world, which could be supported by the speech from who I'm guessing is either Pa Kent or Jor-El. In it, he's urging Clark/Kal to use his abilities to make an impact on humanity, be it for better or worse. I think Superman's real journey is going to be coming to terms with his status as an alien while still working for the benefit, and possibly acceptance of his adopted world.

But why is he in handcuffs in the picture above, surrounded by soldiers? I think he's trying to show the world he's not a threat by willingly going into government custody. If you look at him, he's not beat up, he doesn't look like he was hit with kryptonite, those are ordinary handcuffs, and hell, his HAIR isn't even out of place. To me, this all points to him stating “I'm not here to hurt anyone, see? I'm going quietly, though I could clearly escape if I wanted and there is jack-point-nothing you could do about it if I did.”

The villain of this film is going to be General Zod, who I think is perfect for the kind of movie I've predicted above. Zod is Clark's philosophic opposite, believing that his inhuman powers give him authority to rule over humans rather than the responsibility to defend them from their midst. He doesn't have any cronies that I see in the IMDB cast list, which gives him alone more freedom to be a foil to Superman.

Honestly, my hopes are really high for this movie. We're not given a lot of what it's about from the promotional material, as is the way with Nolan, but I'm excited about what we are getting to see.

As for the Lord of the Rings music...er...put it in the same category as the giant rabbit from Iron Man 3.

Iron Man 3: The Trailer

So if we make it past Dec. 21, then we'll probably be around for the third installment of the Iron Man series with Robert Downy Jr.

Man, that trailer is dark, isn't it? The hero getting the snot kicked out of him, a real feeling that maybe this one won't have a happy ending, that maybe these odds are truly insurmountable?

Does anyone else just think “Dark Knight Rises” from that description? I mean, okay, it's obviously got some differences, being Iron Man and all, but my first impression of the trailer was that it was trying to look like the end of the Nolan trilogy.

Except for that bunny. The hell was with that?

So let's get down to the brass tax with this trailer. Going on with the tradition of each movie having a new suit that improves on the last on, Tony Stark's new armor can fly through the air to him piece by piece, obviously an upgraded version of his armor at the “Avenger's” climax which could automatically deploy, but was a little slow in getting on him. Also, the star-spangled armor is obviously War Machine.

But then we have this bizarre moment where Tony is in bed with Pepper, and she is grabbed. It's really quick, but we see the Iron Man armor standing over them. My prediction? That's just a dream, as he mentions he's having nightmares.

Obviously the villain is the Mandarin in this one. The rings are just a dead giveaway. It looks to me like they're going to go the Joker route with his character: not really a front-line guy, but a planner with frankly ridiculous resources. The “the thing about heroes” lines really sounded like something the Joker would have said in that interrogation scene.

AND he has a viking beard? Can he be stopped!?

So what about the armors exploding? What about Pepper with that other guy? Or Tony on the surgical table? I don't think the armors getting destroyed is part of the missiles from the helicopter, but that the trailer wants us to think that they were. I wouldn't be surprised if this went the Spider Man 2 route, where Tony Stark tries to give up being Iron Man and destroys his suits. Maybe he thinks War Machine has it handled, or that the world doesn't need him anymore. Maybe he just wants to escape the nightmares.

Of course, if this is the case, the villain will show up, he'll be forced out of retirement, and he'll find that the world will always need him.

Now I'm not saying this is definitely how the movie will go, but it's the impression I get with the trailer. It looks like the Dark Knight Rises trailer, advertising for a Spider Man 2-like plot. I think it will be a lot more light-hearted than the trailer is letting on, but will hopefully be a more solid picture than Iron Man 2.

Although seriously, what the hell was with that bunny?

I mean...really.

The Iron Man Cartoon

Mike goes back in time to see if this old favorite holds up today.