Film Review : "Birds of Prey"

"Birds of Prey" opened and it was crickets on Facebook. There were no updates about how great it was . Just awkward silence even with the 80 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating paid for by Warner Brothers, a great many people are not surprised this movie bombed. The studios obviously not being counted among them as they think high lighting Harley in the title will help. Maybe a focus group told them this. This is a shock to Warner Bros as I am sure they thought anything connected to Bat-man is bullet proof after Joker.  When I walked out of  the theater after seeing "Suicide Squad" I remember saying "Well that was for kids who go to Hot Topic" . This movie is not that cool. This movie is for little girl's feeling edgy at Claires. My ten year old daughter will like this movie. She has been Harley for two halloween breaking the streak last year with Wednesday Addams . My daughter also watches Youtube channels of kids making slime and doing silly dares. "Birds of Prey" has about that much depth. There are no surprises, they do not even attempt any. Margot Robbie has settled into the role. Too bad it will likely be her last as I do not see them lining up a sequel in this lifetime after the bomb it dropped/

Roise Perez has aged well. Her character felt forced in the story line there was little justification for her teaming up with them.  Black Canary even more forced and Huntress was not that great either. This is not the best argument for female super heroes. Black Canary could have pushed the sex appeal more. Lets face it the way they went with the character that is really all she would have had to offer,. It feels weird not having her around Green Arrow. For the minute she was in costume it worked for me. Huntress however was horrible and too much of a tom boy. That is not how the character should roll. This is a shame as I am a fan of female super heroes,these characters have been pretty hot in the comics. Why could Huntress no be hot and tough.? Speaking of tough the fight scenes were terrible. Why must every female character do a flying head scissors . In a real fight that is the last thing they would want to attempt. , 

Mcgregor was entertaining in his role though lost more menace as the movie progress,. The end was anti climatic and all of which you could seen coming from a mile away. This would have been better if they had nto tried to sell this to kids and gone with a rate R version, but you get what you get. Unless it is hyper realistic it looks like D/C movies will continue to be duds, it held itself together better in the end than say "Shazam" and looked better than Aquaman, but those a very low bars.  It made as much as "Jonah Hex' and I would have to say I liked "Jonah Hex" er.

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".

Wondering on Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman has been out for three weekends. By now most of you who would click on an article like this have probably seen it.I waited to review it after I had a week to think about it. It's easy to get swept up in the hype and have it's momentum to blur objective thinking. I saw on Facebook some one making their views about the movie known and saying not o say anything negative about it. This is dangerous because it means you can't hear other peoples views as it threatens how you feel about your own.  I get it Wonder -Woman was the movie you had been waiting for. Lets face it if Wonder- Woman had flopped it would have seal to coffin on the sub-genre of female fronted super-hero films .But Wonder Woman is  not a scared cow. To say Wonder Woman is one of the best  D/C movies is not really saying much. It's true it is better than Super-man vs Bat-man, Cat-Woman,Green Lantern and Bat-man Forever. Those movies are all also awful. super hero movies in a long time is just untrue- It's not better than Dr. Strange or Civil War.

The first Captain America movie is a good one to compare this to, It has a retro feel. It even has the displaced born in the wrong time element. Here is the push and pull of the origin story. I am so sick of them and then it was un-needed as we were already introduced to her in Batman vs Super-man. There might have been a better way to take us to Paradise Island and give us a little background into how she is being defined here. It could have been told in five mins over a campfire when they are in Germany. The movie's strengths are when it played to her connection to Humanity. Much like Captain America she was a person from another time trying to find her way back into the world of man. The humor was well balanced. Gal Gadot captured Diana's personality, though is still a little scrawny to be an Amazon, Her picking up a tank just seemed laughable with those arms.  The suspension of disbelief laid solely on her acting. The action sequences up until the climax which turned into a huge cgi throw down. It was like the producers called up asked how much of the budget was left and then told them to throw that into effects . This is a problem with many comic book movies. I think Dr.Strange, the first Cap and Iron-man not as much. So Wonder-woman only suffered where many others do. But if they wanted to make this stand out they could have chosen differently. I think that's why the Netflix shows like Daredevil do more with less.

So while Wonder-woman rose to the occasion, especially on a box -office level and with the re-shoots of Justice League taking place cements her as the center-piece of the D/C verse til another solo Bat-man movie comes out, what does it mean for other female super-heroes? We know Joss Whedon is doing a Bat-girl movie, but Capt Marvel could be the next big flop on the heels of a bigger flop in Black Panther, whose trailer looks like the Jungle Book meets Fast and Furious. It could mean D/C movies on the up swing, until they get to Cyborg, which will get pushed back as other properties with more potential bump it out of the way. I'll agree Wonder-woman was the best D/C film that's not Bat-man Begins or the Original Super-men, but trails behind others. If you are afraid to take off the blinders and see the reality of that then you deserve the Cyborg movie.