The Justice League movie is looking further and further away with every passing month. Script rewrites, lack of a director and an unmanageable release date seem to be casting a shadow over what I believe is a bad idea anyway. … Continue reading What DC should do instead of a Justice League Movie
3 of the Best vs 3 of the Worst is exactly what it sounds like – 3 of the best examples of either an actor, film series, genre, etc. versus 3 of the worst. It’s also an opportunity for you … Continue reading 3 of the Best vs 3 of the Worst – Superhero Casting
Last summer was arguably the best ever for superhero films. It had one of the biggest movies ever, let alone superhero movie, an almost-perfect end to an almost-perfect trilogy and a very strong reboot of a series that needed it. This year has … Continue reading Iron Man versus Thor versus Superman!
I love superheroes and superhero films but if you had to make any argument against them, there are too many now. We are about to enter another cycle of The Avengers movies. That means each of the Avengers that got a first film are due a sequel (except Hulk) but also we have at least two new superhero film linked to the franchise, Ant Man and The Guardians of the Galaxy. Add that to the Justice League movie which has been announced, Man of Steel which we will see next year, a new X-Men and Wolverine movie, a new take … Continue reading Super (2010) Review
Its strange looking back on these movies after the success that The Avengers movie was. My main complaint with this film and Captain America (more so with Captain America) was that they didn’t really offer anything new or exciting as superhero origin films. They used the same superhero origin movie checklist that most others used; average man becomes hero, fails at first attempt, learns valuable lesson then succeeds now he is a better person. Add a female character in trouble and you have most superhero origin movies, which just doesn’t cut it anymore. Thor is slightly different but not by much. … Continue reading Thor (2011) Re-View
If what I understand about how films are made is correct, then Roger Mussenden deserves a special award for his work on X-Men. Roger was the person that (if my understanding is correct) has some hand in casting Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto and the biggest, and probably most surprising success of all, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. The scenes between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are brilliantly acted and set up the more serious tone for X-Men. This isn’t a goofy, light-hearted superhero film, like Raimi’s Spiderman had been or the attempt at the Fantastic Four film had ended … Continue reading X-Men (2000) Review
Film fans don’t pay enough attention to who devised the initial story or wrote the screenplay. When it comes to films we care more about the director and actors but never really pay attention to who wrote the words and story they are using. Some writers have managed to buck this trend, Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith being some exceptions but we never really pay as much attention to the screenwriter in the way we do for television or comics. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. I can tell you who wrote specific episodes of Doctor … Continue reading Why film fans should pay attention to what Mark Millar is doing
Iron Man had to be amazing. It had so much riding on its shoulders that it had to be both critically approved and audience approved to stand a chance of fulfilling what Marvel was planning. Luckily, it was exactly that. It was a perfect superhero origin film and even though we’ve seen the formula plenty of times before, it felt fresh because Iron Man, to the general public at least, was a relatively unknown character. That’s why DC’s take on Green Lantern was so infuriating because Marvel has shown, three times now, how to present a character that the general … Continue reading Iron Man (2008) Re-View
DC made Green Lantern about six years too late. Rather than make a superhero film at the beginning of the superhero craze, alongside Raimi’s Spiderman, Fantastic Four and even Iron Man, they decided to throw their contribution amongst the others when we were at the height of the genre. The problem with doing this is that if you are going to make a film that belongs to genre that is already highly saturated, you have to do it with something original… and Green Lantern isn’t original! It could have been though. DC have Superman and Batman and with those two characters they … Continue reading Green Lantern (2011) Review
Die Hard, Indiana Jones and Toy Story, three pretty perfect trilogies. In my opinion there isn’t one film in any of these series that has a huge, detrimental effect on the others. This is because every single one of those films is a single story, not trying to carry over any plot-threads, unanswered questions or huge story arcs from any previous film and what’s more, the first film didn’t try to set up the sequels before it had even finished! This has been a ridiculous trend in films that I don’t think ever really works. Recently I watched the worst possible case … Continue reading Don’t use two films to tell a story when one will do!
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