Film Review - Aqua-Man

If I told you a movie reminded me of a mash up between the original "Clash of the Titans" and "Flash Gordon" , you might assume the movie would be awesome, perhaps even more so if you knew that those were two of my favorite movies as a child. I am sure if I was a child that many things about "Aqua Man" would have worked for me. But I think the stories of Aqua-man that I played out in the bathtub with my action figures as a child made more sense than some of the stabs at bringing the myths of Atlantis to screen. When it comes to DC characters Aqua-man is in my top 10. So it's not that I thinking he is just the guy who talks to fish. While I was not convinced with Jason Momoa's performance in Justice League, I was open to giving him a second chance, and this time around it actually might have been worse.

Momoa has some big guns with tired and true acting chops to work off of namely Nicole Kidman and Willem DaFoe. This did not help, nor can I imagine these actors who had to have spent the bulk of the shoot in front if a green screen could take this seriously. The only thing they had going for them were the costumes which did not rely on cgi as much as some DC movies. Mera might have been the most convincing character, Black Manta cane across stiff and really served little purpose for being in the movie to begin with. Ocean Master was two dimensional at best. With "Guardians of the Galaxy" we were taken into a wildly exaggerated worlds with characters who did not take them selves seriously. Here they did take them selves seriously making the more absurd moment wackier.

The plot was pretty much cut and paste  all 80s fantasy movies. You ruined my family so I am going to go on a quest to redeem both them and my self. The big fight scenes also borrowed from other movies and here is where some of the Flash Gordon memories factored in. The movie went south fast and struggled to bring in even just the kind of comic  book level action that could keep my interest , by time we got to yet another DC climax where the producers one again just wanted to throw the rest of the budget into cgi and give it less heart than the boss battle at the end of a video game. This was also a problem with Wonder Woman. I can say "Wonder Woman "at least just fell apart at the end , but at least made you feel something about the characters. By the time I forced my self to watch the ending of this movie, I could have cared less as the stakes could not have been any lower. DC's next chance of pulling it together on the movie front will most likely be "Shazam".

Film Review : "Justice League"

This Review may contain Spoilers- 

The tone of "Justice League"  matched the tone of D/C's comic output, though this is also the reason that I read Marvel not D/C. That is not to say there are not many D/C characters I like...my favorites being Super-man, Aqua-man, Swamp Thing,Hawk-man and Martian Man Hunter. The problem the comic books have is there is tons of senseless fight with page after page of people piling in with nothing to connect you to the humanity of the character. This is why Bat-man tends to work best on screen as he is just a human not so godlike you can not relate. This movie was not as abysmal as I though it might be going into it, the end befell the same problem Wonder -Woman face where it devolved into a mindless splash of CGI being vomited onto the screen.

The number one problem with the movie seemed to take place in post-production as the timing was off due to terrible editing the part that should have been condensed drug on and the films coolest moments were too short live. The chemistry of the characters forming this team was lacking because the only character who felt comfortable in the role was Henry's Super-man. He has now had three films to grow into it. Hands down the movies best moment was when he kicked the shit out Wonder-woman. The fights with Steppenwolfe who was an awful choice for a villain, all felt the same. You really didn't care about the outcome, they never felt like they were in peril aside from Super-man's outburst. Cy-borg as a character was as flat as it got. The actor who might have been hindered more than helped by the excessive CGI , did very little to compensate for this. Aqua-man might have been the most disappointing, as he was like a dumb bro rather than regal. The Flash was ok but felt like he was trying to hard, with both Bat-man and Wonder-Woman's characters feeling like the took a step backwards in their development. The big crawling Bat-mobile thing had to be one of the film's worst moments.

I am unsure where they added more Wonder-woman and could not really tell where they did the re-shoots, so maybe in doing so they lost the story they were trying to tell. The film might have been better served with the impostor Super-men showing up to take the throne, like Eradicator, though they would have been even more outclassed. I did like the little glimpse of a Green Lantern at the beginning, and wondered why was he omitted. Another female on the team like Hawk-Woman might have made sense . It's not like they were trying to really develop anyone aside from the big three and solo movies from Aqua-man and Cy-borg are bound to be huge flops. Mera's three seconds on screen was cool but pointless. It's clear unless it's Bat-man, Super-man or Wonder-woman, D/C can never touch Marvel on screen. 

Bat-Man vs Superman

Marvel continues to kick D/C's ass when it comes to the big screen. D/C often works better on Television because on a show like Gotham or Smallville, they break things down into smaller bit sized portions to focus on the character's rather than the big picture. When the scope gets too big it's hard for the often more mythic heroes of D/C to be anything more than card board cut outs. Bat-man has worked on screen time and time again because they are able to make a emotional connection with Bruce Wayne while the alien messiah is harder to make down to earth. When this is touched upon in Batman Vs Super-man the film is working best.  So lets look at what makes the movie and then see what breaks it.

Makes the Movie

Affleck is better at being Bat-man than we expected.

Breaks the movie

He is worse at being Bruce Wayne, this gives us more of an emotional connection with Super-man, who comes across as being the mis-understood under dog in all of this.

Makes the Movie

Wonder-man, despite being a little on the scrawny side compared to the iconic Linda Carter, Gadot's Woman is one of the best things this movie has going. Perhaps it's because if we don't count the Lego Movie,  we have been through six Super-Man movies, Smallville and Lois& Clark, along with seven Bat-man movies  and Gotham . So we are hungrier to see Diana on screen. Lets not get into the others as Cyborg might have gotten more screen time than Aqua-Man and the Flash got more than both. As Wonder-woman she does just as the trailer suggests, but we do get to see her bracelets and lasso in action.

Breaks the Movie

The best part was too condensed, they could have given us more and less Lois.

Makes the Movie

The action scenes with Super-man were much better than Man of Steel.  When he lets Bat-man dent his armored fist on him it was great.

Breaks the Movie

The big showdown. Super-man is not dumb. If this is his first encounter with kryptonite, then it's effect might be  a surprise, but after he see what happens when he breathes it in then would he not hold his breath when his super-hearing picks up Bat-man cocking the trigger of the gun? His reflexes make him not only faster than a speeding bullet but fast enough to have the gun up Bat-man's ass before he pulls the trigger. So that did not work for me.

Makes the movie-

I liked the messiah approach to Super-man and Lex Luthor's line about "if God is All-Powerful then he can't be all good, and if he is good than he can't be all-powerful" as well as the line where he says Clark Kent and mentions all the other names of gods .

Breaks the Movie

The worst depiction of Lex Luthor ever, he comes across more like the Joker than it seems Jared Leto's version will. Luthor is a megalomaniac not a maniac. He should come across more like Kevin Spacey's character in "House of Cards" at his most human and be more cold and calculating, but wait in this movie that would blur the lines between Luthor and Bruce Wayne.

I think I fell asleep for a couple minutes building up to the big show down but caught the rest of the movie, was a little confused why Super-man didn't use his hearing to find this mother if he didn't want to fight Bat-man. Bruce Wayne was a jerk so he did need the beating he got. Could have stood for less Bruce Wayne, the scene with Bat-man taking out the Russians was good enough for my Bat-man fix. Once the big throw down with the troll from Lord of the Rings that they decided to make Doomsday took place I thought was funny that Bat-man just got out of the way since there was little he could do. The end was no surprise because you know what is going to happen to Super-man when Doomsday shows up, you can paint him as a messiah figure with out him becoming a martyr.

I didn't like Nolan's too realistic take on the D/C Universe in the movies that followed Bat-man Begins, but this tried to hard to rub a coat of grit on everything and missed what makes the Avengers/ Marvel movies fun as it took itself too seriously. Even though Civil War and Dr. Strange are more than likely going to be the last of the great Marvel movies and bring the curve of the comic genre back down in it's wake, much like the fate of the Universal Monster trend met it's end with the Abott  and Costello films until Hammer breathed new life into the undead, D/C is pretty much still born at this point.

Comics for 6/27/12

Wolverine and the X-men # 12 was a little bit of a diappointment , more Avengers fighting but the typical no clear cut winner aside from Wolverine taking Kid Gladiator out with a pressure point so no big points score for either team but with the Pheonix Force Five...not  the shitty christian nu-metal band, the powered up X-men, there has been no real fighting in a arc that has vs in the title. Makes alot of sense I know. The art in this book is annoying better served for new mutants.

Mighty Thor #16, it's been awhile , maybe even a year since I have read an issue of Thor I have really liked , so it's good to see it moving in a better direction the art is where it need to be , having Thor chanting hail Satan how could I not like that ? He was caught in a dream, the Keep concept seems cool now Thor's awake it didn't take the cover of the next issue to let us know what is going doing , but we want to see Thor hit things witha hammer right, ok if this gets screwed up theres a problem

X-men Legacy # 269  I mean look at that cover alon is worth the price, great book a fight like these fights should go, though Ms  Marvel gets immobilized not knocked out so it's a draw against Rogue, though at her strength level she should be able to break out of ice don't mind going back to re-read why this isn't the case, and Majick is the first of the 5 to go bad ...how far behind can Colossus, Namor and Emma Frost be? Two of those three have been villians before.

X-men # 31 however was a boring disappointment and the under use of a cthulhu thing which just blew up from the jet ? really? the team is a little weak, could do with out pixie and domino,


Amazing Spider-man #688- the classic amping up the villians profile to coincide with the movies release. the writing is not bad just bogged down in some  stylistic choices in the story telling which could have been handled differently. Over all a good book with heavy credit going to the art.

Incredible Hulk # 10 like the previous issue , this one isn't really doing much for me , cyborg bears and they can hurt him how ? he seems to be at likea Mr Fixit strength level in this is drawn rather puny looking , and how is Kraven in the same league as the Hulk, ...um yeah , don't think so

FF #19- This should now stand for Fantastic Family rather than force or foundation, bascially every issue is some sort of feild trip for the Baxter building kinder care, there's potential but currently no action which character are fine and should drive the story but some violent conflic is need , and technically there was a little here but too little to pay three dollars for.



Justice League # 10-Not a bad book most interesting exploring the group dynamic and the writer gets what makes them tick, though wonder woman feels a little flat , howwever this Graves guy I'm not too keen on , maybe it's the abstract nature of of his power set. The art work it great theres a classic one page team shot.

The Flash #10- did nothing for me on any level granted I have been following this books the least nothing about it has any appeal, I think the character is handled in a much better context in Justice League

Teen Titans # 10- this was at first one of my favorite books of the 52 , now closing  in on a year later , not so much though the art work is still the best in the business, the tron like colors are pretty cool as well, Bunker still doesn't do much for me he's like a Lantern of sorts. Nothing really happened in this book,

Super-man #10- turned back the clock all the way to the early 90's all the way to disco mullets that cropped up, in the  the background characters like it was the cast from miami vice. This Anguish character I guees is in some ways like a female version of  a non-anadroid Vision.It ended like one of those hottess commerical foun in the first five pages of comics back in the day . Seems like the next arc might be intresting I'm not sure Clark is really benefitting from the 52 re-imagining as he doesn't seem to have any more of an edge in this book.

Aqua-man # 10- the uh oh Arthur has a dark secret feels forced. The art is great and there is action even if i'm not big on Black Manta, how does he do so well against Aqua -man when he doesnt have any powers?
The book moved alot better than some of the other titles and is this weeks best d/c title.


Comic of the Week - X-men Legacy

march 28th in comics -Assembling your Avengers

All of this weeks Avengers books except for the secret avengers were heavy on the Avengers vs X-men promo AVSX 0...didn't add much to the tale we didn't know from the preview except for Scarlet Witch's un-welcomed home coming which is to say she looks to be written out of the main story there though ,not surprised if she appears as a wild card along side her family. New Avenger's wrapped up the dark avenger thread, Avenger's 24.1 focused on the Vision who goes and confronts Magneto...I would write Vision about as emotional as Dexter Morgan as he is an android, the break down at the end was a little much,Secret Avengers continues on this Apdaptoid war, the art continues to suck like Hulk's has been, Uncanny X-men brings the Avengers in to sort through and unexplained burst of random cartoon villany but it was entertaining and the Emma Frost training sequence was pretty hot , that works lots better as a uniform for her than her Victoria Secrets.
Moon knight-which i read for some reason was entertaining but confusing as to why Madame Masque can kick his ass, the art though is in the gritty pencil stuff i hate on secret avengers and hulk ... in news of good art Avengers art was improved and a skim through the ultimates the art was excellent to bad its being wasted on something non-canon
now onto d/c Aqua-man seven the art is outstanding black manta is back, thought arthur has always deserved a better nemesis but there you go , this introduces the mysterious the others in the soap operatic way geoff johns can get. the art in Teen Titans 7 continues to be incredible but they are kinda losing me with some of the scattered action. Dark knight 7 though was a great read art and story an example to D/C how it should be done .

up to speed

Ok lots of books to catch you up to speed on, though most of you have more than likely read them by now . Last i got the first installment of the Hulk of Arabia, it moved the back story got a little drawn out , i can appreciate this fleshing out Ross out , but lets not take away from the smashing, the lead up to him squaring off against the secret avengers. Then Mighty Thor 6 , which wrapped up the Galactus confrontation, the sliver surfer Thor fight was maybe 4 panels total and Thor really falls for the to me my board , i mean he is trained with weapons that have a mind of their own so he would anticipate that .
Finally got Aqua-man one , the entire issue was lets get all the ways you wanna make fun of Aqus-msn out of the way , the art was great though .
Swamp thing 2 is an homage to the Alan Moore days , i like how Abbie Arcane came back even if you saw it a mile away.
then i got the final two books of the Hulk vs Dracula fight , while the book was pretty close to being entertaining, the drac vs hulk fight was two panels , i mean an amped up Hulk is going to be no contest , the end was a let down , as they used mesmerism or jedi mind tricks on him to turn him to banner , how many variations of we can't resolve this so turn into Banner can we have ?