Okay X-Maniacs, since I've finished up this week's new comics two days early, I get to review something other than new comic books... So what did I choose? How about the Thor movie that came out earlier this year? So for only the third time EVER here on the blog, I'll be reviewing something other than a comic book/trade. As for tomorrow, I have some ideas, and if those ideas come to fruition, I may just be reviewing something other than a comic book or a movie... But that's tomorrow... For now, the coming attractions are almost over, so I'm going to shut my laptop now and watch me some Thor.
Thor (2011):
What Happened: For being arrogant and all around unlikable, as well as directly disobeying his father, Odin, and invading the realm of the Frost Giants, Thor is stripped of his godly powers and banished to Earth. Sure, there was a bit more to Thor's banishment than that, some of it involving Loki, but come on, you can't expect me to review this movie minute by minute, can you? Anyway, after banishing Thor, Odin sends Thor's hammer to Earth as well, but enchants it so that only somebody worthy of wielding it(ie: not Thor at the moment) could lift it. So Thor lands on Earth, bumps into three scientists(Jane Foster, Eric and Darcy) and basically acts like an ass to them. With Thor acting like an ass, and coming across as rather insane, Eric feels the best bet is to get away from him, but alas, Jane is smitten by Thor and wants to help him regain his hammer, which was being watched over by SHIELD. Thor manages to coerce Jane into giving him a ride out to the hammer site, and after fighting his way through some SHIELD agents finds himself unable to lift his hammer, which leads to Thor sadly surrendering to SHIELD. Meanwhile, Loki learns that he's actually a Frost Giant that Odin took in as his own and kind of flips out about that. Odin ends up falling into the Odinsleep at this time, which leaves Loki on the throne of Asgard. Loki sends an image of himself to Thor and tells Thor that Asgard was nearly at war with the Frost Giants, Odin was dead, Thor's mother hated Thor for his role in Odin dying of a broken heart, and oh yeah, that it was all Thor's fault. Thor is devastated, and decides that he'd live out the rest of his life in exile, which is exactly what Loki wanted. Anyway, for some reason, SHIELD lets Thor leave with Eric(who came to bail him out at Jane's request), and the kinder, gentler Thor serves breakfast to his mortal friends and does other nice acts. Back in Asgard, Loki plots with his birth father, Laufey of the Frost Giants, to kill Odin, thus solidifying Loki's grip on the throne. Fearing treachery from Loki, the Warriors Three and Lady Sif head to Earth to retrieve Thor and try to set things right in Asgard. Afraid that Thor's return could screw up all of his plans, Loki sends the Destroyer to Earth to destroy Thor and anything else in it's path. The Warriors Three and Sif tell Thor that Odin wasn't dead, but was actually in the Odinsleep and that most of the things Loki told Thor were untrue, meaning he didn't have to remain exiled. By this time the Destroyer has begun it's approach, so Thor and his three mortal friends evacuate the town while the Warriors Three and Sif try to beat the Destroyer. Sif and the Warriors fail, and Thor, not wanting to see any harm come to his friends, approaches the Destroyer alone and unarmed and begs Loki to simply kill him and leave everybody else alone. Loki bids the Destroyer to do just that, and it pounds Thor, seemingly killing him... But wait! Since Thor was now worthy of the power of his hammer, it flies to him and revives him, granting him his full power again. Thor beats the Destroyer and declares that he'd head to Asgard to settle things with Loki. After getting a kiss from Jane, Thor and his Asgardian allies return to Asgard and Thor heads towards Odin's chambers. Before Thor arrives though, Laufey enters the chambers of the comatose Odin and prepares to kill him... But is stopped and slain by the timely arrival of Loki! Yes Loki. Thor soon enters the room and is blasted out of it by an angry Loki. From there, Loki heads to the Rainbow Bridge and uses some magic to slowly destroy the realm of the Frost Giants, figuring that act, along with saving Odin's life(from an assassination he orchestrated) would bring him the love of the Asgardians and make him Thor's equal in everybody's eyes. Thor confronts Loki and the two battle, since Thor wasn't going to allow Loki to annihilate an entire race(the Frost Giants) simply to gain some love. Ultimately Thor defeats Loki, but can't figure out how to shut down the magic that was destroying the Frost Giant's realm. With no choice, Thor decides to destroy the Rainbow Bridge, which would save the Frost Giants, but separate him from Earth and Jane. Loki tries to stop Thor from ruining his plans, but in the end, Thor succeeds in destroying the Bridge and the two fall towards the abyss, only to be saved by the timely arrival of the recently awakened Odin. Loki tries to explain to Odin that everything he did was to try to gain Odin's favor, but seeing that Odin still favored Thor, Loki lets go of Thor and falls into the abyss, seemingly perishing as a result. From there, Thor is now a more humble hero, Jane is working with SHIELD to try to reach Asgard and Odin is still the lord of Asgard. This one ends(after the credits roll) with Nick Fury bringing Eric to a secret SHIELD base and showing him the Cosmic Cube(which SHIELD collected after the Captain America movie). Fury figures that a scientist of Eric's caliber may be able to figure out how the Cube worked, and we discover that Loki was actually in possession of Eric's body, and is more than happy to take a look at the Cube...
The Good: Basically everything that took place in Asgard or the Frost Giant realm was good. All of the Asgardians were very well portrayed here, from Thor to Odin to Loki. Speaking of Loki, I tip my hat to the actor who played him because he did an exceptional job. Here's hoping Loki is the main threat in the upcoming Avengers movie. The special effects were quite good, from the way Asgard looked to the battle with the Destroyer. I enjoyed the fact that Loki wasn't exactly pure evil here... Everything he did he did to try to prove that he was as good as Thor, and after learning that he was a Frost Giant, his crazy actions made a lot of sense. To Loki, Odin would never see him as Thor's equal, so he had to do things like save Odin's life, eliminate Thor and kill all of the Frost Giants so Odin had no choice but to see Loki as Thor's equal. Naturally I loved the Hawkeye cameo.
The Bad: While I enjoyed all of the Asgardian stuff here, the opposite can be said of Thor's time on Earth... The “comedy” wasn't funny(“Oh look, Thor's been hit by a car... Twice! Now Thor's been tased! Now he's been stuck in the ass with a needle! HAHAHAHA!!!”), and I found Jane, Eric and Darcy to be insanely annoying. It's a little thing, but Earth was never called Midgard... The SHIELD agents simply letting Thor leave, but keeping him under surveillance was bizarre... So he's been trained to be able to out-fight SHIELD's best agents, but we'll let him leave even though we know his cover story was a fake... While I loved seeing Hawkeye in this movie, I hate that he's a SHIELD lackey in the movies... Clint as a renegade? Awesome. Clint as a boot lick? Not as awesome.
The Verdict: Overall, this was a good movie. However, it was really a tale of two movies for me... The Asgardian stuff was great. The Earth stuff was terrible. Yes, I know that we needed to get Thor on Earth so he'd become a more humble hero, but why the hell did everybody on Earth(including Thor) have to be so annoying? Yes, I'll admit that I chuckled at a few of the MANY one-liners and quips, but for the most part the “jokes” made me roll my eyes in embarrassment. Seriously, I was rooting for the Destroyer to kill Thor's mortal cronies... Really, couldn't the Destroyer have at least kill Darcy? Although I'm sure somebody would have made a bad joke about that too... Anyway, I'd recommend this movie simply for the Asgardian parts, and especially the stuff with Loki, which was way deeper than I would have ever imagined. Everything else? Good luck with that. Hopefully you have a better sense of humor than I do...
Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.
Showing posts with label DVD Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DVD Review. Show all posts
Monday, November 14, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
Captain America: The First Avenger DVD
Since I did a review for the Batman: Under The Red Hood DVD, how couldn't I do one for the Cap movie? This was one of the FEW movies I actually wanted to see in the movie theater, but I instead decided to wait for the DVD to get released. Well, the movie is loading in my PS3 and should start up soon, so let's get to it!
Captain America: The First Avenger(2011):
What Happened: Back during World War II, scrawny Steve Rogers from Brooklyn winds up getting a special serum and becomes America's first super-soldier. The creator of the serum, Dr. Erskine, is murdered by agents of the Nazi's special science division, Hydra, which is led by the Red Skull. The Skull knew of Erskine because he himself took a prototype of Erskine's serum which granted him enhanced physical abilities, while leaving him with grotesque red skull-like head. Steve becomes a propaganda tool for the US government to sell war bonds as Captain America, but is more keen on actually fighting in the war, something his commanding officer, Col. Phillips, doesn't want to see since Steve was basically untested on the field. Eventually while entertaining some soldiers in Italy, Cap learns that his childhood friend Bucky Barnes(and most of Bucky's platoon) was captured and/or killed by forces of Hydra. With some help from Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, Cap ends up busting into the Hydra facility on his own and rescuing Bucky and the rest of the captive soldiers while meeting the Skull face-to-face for the first time. With that rousing success, Col. Phillips allows Cap to create a hand selected team to take the fight to Hydra. Cap's squad(basically the Howling Commandos) meets with several successes taking apart Hydra bases, but are racing against the clock as the Red Skull, using an insanely powerful artifact that he felt was left behind by the gods(basically a Cosmic Cube), is busy building a massive airship that was powered by the artifact and was capable of wiping out the entire US eastern coast within an hour's time. Cap and his squad end up capturing the Skull's right hand man, Armin Zola, but at the expense of Bucky, who is killed during the mission. Zola rats out the location of Hydra's main base and Cap and his squad attack, forcing the Skull and his Hydra goons to leap into their aircraft before they are completely prepared to. After getting a kiss from Peggy, Cap alone manages to get aboard the Skull's aircraft before the Skull was able to take flight. After dispatching of the Hydra goons, Cap meets the Skull in the plane's cockpit and the two have their long-awaited showdown. The two adversaries toss each other about the cockpit until they eventually rupture the unit holding the artifact, at which time the Skull grabs the artifact hoping to use it against Cap. Unfortunately for the Skull, the power from the artifact seemingly disintegrates him before the artifact itself burns through the bottom of the plane falling into the ocean below. With the plane's power-source gone, and the controls damaged during the battle, Cap contacts headquarters and tells them that he was going to down the plane in the icy northern Atlantic waters before it reached any populated area. Peggy, who was at headquarters, tries to talk Cap out of his plan, but the two realize that there was no other way and Peggy stays on the radio with Cap until the plane slams into the ice below. Fast forward 70 years and an expedition exploring the northern Atlantic comes across the frozen remains of the airplane, as well as Cap, who ended up in a state of suspended animation. Cap eventually wakes up, freaks out a bit and is met by Nick Fury, ending this one.
The Good: Everybody in the movie did a pretty good job with the roles they were given. I especially enjoyed the Skull, Dr. Erskine and Col. Phillips. The addition of characters like Dum Dum Dugan, Armin Zola, Howard Stark and others was a nice little treat for a Marvel fanatic such as myself. Call me a sap, but I really enjoyed the interaction between Cap and Peggy Carter. The final battle between Cap and the Skull was awesome, mainly because it was two hated enemies beating the hell out of each other. There was nothing fancy about it, it was simply a fight. Even though it was never called as such, I liked that the Skull was using the Cosmic Cube the entire time, since that rung true to the comic books. Speaking of which, the special effects with the Cube and the Skull's appearance were topnotch. Cap bashing people with his shield was as fun on screen as it is in the comics. Cap's “death” scene was a real tearjerker. The beginning and end of this film were really well done.
The Bad: Bucky as Cap's childhood friend as opposed to a younger member of the army that Cap could have found/saved/anything was a bit annoying. Speaking of which, Bucky's death was downright infuriating! He was offed by a random Hydra agent in a scene that was basically throwaway! It had literally NO emotional impact on me whatsoever. Seriously, wouldn't it have made more sense for the Skull to have been the one to kill Bucky since there was no Baron Zemo in this movie? The middle of the movie dragged a bit... The time between when Erskine dies to when Cap rescues Bucky and the rest of the soldiers was completely forgettable. The ending wasn't an ending at all, it was basically the beginning of the Avengers.
The Verdict: This wasn't the best comic book movie I've ever seen(that distinction still goes to X2), but it's definitely one of my favorites. It didn't stray TOO far away from the comic books which is always a good thing, although the Bucky stuff REALLY hurt my enjoyment of this one. I still don't get why Bucky couldn't have been a 16/17 year old soldier that Steve takes under his wing. I'm not saying to make him a 14 year old army camp mascot like in the comics, but Bucky as Steve's childhood friend/protector just didn't add anything for me. Plus his death was just plain bizarre... I mean seriously, he was killed by random Hydra agent #276! Really?! Sure, as the head of Hydra, the Skull kind of/sort of was responsible for killing Bucky, but it would have been way more personal if the Skull had a more active hand in Bucky's death. Besides the Bucky portions, which could/should have been better, this movie was a great way to spend 2 hours. I mean hell, even though I KNEW he wasn't dying, I still got all teary-eyed during Cap's “death”! That tells me that the story had me and had me good. May 2012 can't get here soon enough, bring on the Avengers movie!
Score: 9 out of 10.
Captain America: The First Avenger(2011):
What Happened: Back during World War II, scrawny Steve Rogers from Brooklyn winds up getting a special serum and becomes America's first super-soldier. The creator of the serum, Dr. Erskine, is murdered by agents of the Nazi's special science division, Hydra, which is led by the Red Skull. The Skull knew of Erskine because he himself took a prototype of Erskine's serum which granted him enhanced physical abilities, while leaving him with grotesque red skull-like head. Steve becomes a propaganda tool for the US government to sell war bonds as Captain America, but is more keen on actually fighting in the war, something his commanding officer, Col. Phillips, doesn't want to see since Steve was basically untested on the field. Eventually while entertaining some soldiers in Italy, Cap learns that his childhood friend Bucky Barnes(and most of Bucky's platoon) was captured and/or killed by forces of Hydra. With some help from Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, Cap ends up busting into the Hydra facility on his own and rescuing Bucky and the rest of the captive soldiers while meeting the Skull face-to-face for the first time. With that rousing success, Col. Phillips allows Cap to create a hand selected team to take the fight to Hydra. Cap's squad(basically the Howling Commandos) meets with several successes taking apart Hydra bases, but are racing against the clock as the Red Skull, using an insanely powerful artifact that he felt was left behind by the gods(basically a Cosmic Cube), is busy building a massive airship that was powered by the artifact and was capable of wiping out the entire US eastern coast within an hour's time. Cap and his squad end up capturing the Skull's right hand man, Armin Zola, but at the expense of Bucky, who is killed during the mission. Zola rats out the location of Hydra's main base and Cap and his squad attack, forcing the Skull and his Hydra goons to leap into their aircraft before they are completely prepared to. After getting a kiss from Peggy, Cap alone manages to get aboard the Skull's aircraft before the Skull was able to take flight. After dispatching of the Hydra goons, Cap meets the Skull in the plane's cockpit and the two have their long-awaited showdown. The two adversaries toss each other about the cockpit until they eventually rupture the unit holding the artifact, at which time the Skull grabs the artifact hoping to use it against Cap. Unfortunately for the Skull, the power from the artifact seemingly disintegrates him before the artifact itself burns through the bottom of the plane falling into the ocean below. With the plane's power-source gone, and the controls damaged during the battle, Cap contacts headquarters and tells them that he was going to down the plane in the icy northern Atlantic waters before it reached any populated area. Peggy, who was at headquarters, tries to talk Cap out of his plan, but the two realize that there was no other way and Peggy stays on the radio with Cap until the plane slams into the ice below. Fast forward 70 years and an expedition exploring the northern Atlantic comes across the frozen remains of the airplane, as well as Cap, who ended up in a state of suspended animation. Cap eventually wakes up, freaks out a bit and is met by Nick Fury, ending this one.
The Good: Everybody in the movie did a pretty good job with the roles they were given. I especially enjoyed the Skull, Dr. Erskine and Col. Phillips. The addition of characters like Dum Dum Dugan, Armin Zola, Howard Stark and others was a nice little treat for a Marvel fanatic such as myself. Call me a sap, but I really enjoyed the interaction between Cap and Peggy Carter. The final battle between Cap and the Skull was awesome, mainly because it was two hated enemies beating the hell out of each other. There was nothing fancy about it, it was simply a fight. Even though it was never called as such, I liked that the Skull was using the Cosmic Cube the entire time, since that rung true to the comic books. Speaking of which, the special effects with the Cube and the Skull's appearance were topnotch. Cap bashing people with his shield was as fun on screen as it is in the comics. Cap's “death” scene was a real tearjerker. The beginning and end of this film were really well done.
The Bad: Bucky as Cap's childhood friend as opposed to a younger member of the army that Cap could have found/saved/anything was a bit annoying. Speaking of which, Bucky's death was downright infuriating! He was offed by a random Hydra agent in a scene that was basically throwaway! It had literally NO emotional impact on me whatsoever. Seriously, wouldn't it have made more sense for the Skull to have been the one to kill Bucky since there was no Baron Zemo in this movie? The middle of the movie dragged a bit... The time between when Erskine dies to when Cap rescues Bucky and the rest of the soldiers was completely forgettable. The ending wasn't an ending at all, it was basically the beginning of the Avengers.
The Verdict: This wasn't the best comic book movie I've ever seen(that distinction still goes to X2), but it's definitely one of my favorites. It didn't stray TOO far away from the comic books which is always a good thing, although the Bucky stuff REALLY hurt my enjoyment of this one. I still don't get why Bucky couldn't have been a 16/17 year old soldier that Steve takes under his wing. I'm not saying to make him a 14 year old army camp mascot like in the comics, but Bucky as Steve's childhood friend/protector just didn't add anything for me. Plus his death was just plain bizarre... I mean seriously, he was killed by random Hydra agent #276! Really?! Sure, as the head of Hydra, the Skull kind of/sort of was responsible for killing Bucky, but it would have been way more personal if the Skull had a more active hand in Bucky's death. Besides the Bucky portions, which could/should have been better, this movie was a great way to spend 2 hours. I mean hell, even though I KNEW he wasn't dying, I still got all teary-eyed during Cap's “death”! That tells me that the story had me and had me good. May 2012 can't get here soon enough, bring on the Avengers movie!
Score: 9 out of 10.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Batman: Under The Red Hood DVD
The other day my sister mentioned to me that she had picked up the Captain America DVD. Seeing as that the Cap movie was one of the FEW movies I was actually interested in watching, I was pretty excited. She told me that as soon as she watched it she'd lend it to me to watch. She also told me that she picked up the Batman: Under The Red Hood DVD, which was another movie I'd been dying to watch seeing as that the comic book story is one of my all-time favorites. Since she wanted to watch Cap first, I asked for the Red Hood DVD, and here we are. Before I popped the DVD into my Playstation, I figured I might as well review the DVD just for the hell of it. This movie is the FIRST non-comic book/trade that I've ever reviewed here on the blog(or anywhere else for that matter). I'm going to use the basic format I use when I review a comic book, and we'll see how this turns out. Okay, with that all taken care of, on with the show!
Batman: Under The Red Hood(2010):
What Happened: 5 years ago the Joker manages to blow Robin(Jason Todd) up, killing him, thanks in part to Ra's Al Ghul, who had set Joker against Batman and Robin to distract the Dynamic Duo while he attempted one of his schemes. Guilty over his part in Jason's death, Ra's steals the body and drops it in one of his Lazarus Pits, returning Jason to life but also rendering him temporarily insane. Crazy Jason escapes Ra's headquarters and time moves on. In the present, the Red Hood is beginning to stick his nose into the dealings of Gotham's crime lord, Black Mask. Besides that, Red Hood, after a run-in with Batman, reveals that he knew that the man under the cowl was Bruce Wayne... Black Mask gets more and more pissed as Red Hood costs him more money and guns, and sends assassins after Red Hood, who is assisted by Batman. The two fight side-by-side, and manage to defeat the assassins, with Bats getting a sword with some of Red Hood's blood on it. Bats takes the sword back to the Batcave and yes, it is a perfect match for the blood Bats had on file for Jason. Now desperate to rid himself of the Red Hood, Black Mask engineers Joker's escape from Arkham Asylum and tells Joker to kill Red Hood. Instead, Joker captures a mess of Red Hood's gang members, as well as Black Mask and his assistant and threatens to kill them all. Red Hood arrives on the scene and tells Joker to go and kill them all, since this was always about manipulating Mask into freeing Joker from Arkham since Mask was one of the few people with the power and resources to do so. Red Hood manages to capture Joker, and demands a meeting with Bats. The two meet at the spot Bats first found Jason as a child and they battle, with Bats managing to get the upper-hand... At least until Jason reveals that he had captured Joker. Jason bemoans the fact that Bats never killed Joker after Jason's death, and that if their roles had been reversed, he would have done everything in his power to make sure Joker never killed again. Jason tosses Bats a gun while putting a gun to Joker's head and tells Bats that he was going to shoot Joker in the head, and that the only way Bats could stop Jason was to shoot him in the face. Bats feigns walking away but throws a batarang into Jason's gun, causing it to explode. In return, Jason pushes a detonator and we find that he had stuffed the fireplace with explosives on a 20 second countdown. Joker tries to hold Bats away from the bombs since he liked the idea of dying with Bats, and manages to cost Bats the time he'd have needed to stop the explosives. Bats escapes from Joker's grasp and lunges for Jason just as the building blows. In the aftermath, Bats pushes some rubble off of himself and finds the Joker buried under rubble but still alive. As for Jason, he's nowhere to be seen.
The Good: Most of the voice acting was very well done. I was especially pleased with Batman and Jason's voicing. Black Mask was awesome here, in voice and actions. The final battle in Crime Alley between Bats and Jason was probably the highpoint of the movie for me. The explanation of Jason's return from the dead here was 100,000% better than in the comics, which consisted of, “Superboy Prime punched the air really, really hard...” Jason's plan to get his hands on Joker and his and manipulation of Black Mask was nicely done. Nightwing's appearances, while too short, were appreciated.
The Bad: With the exception of the laugh, I didn't like the voice acting done for Joker. The animation for the flying and driving scenes bugged me. The ending, or lack thereof, was really vexing... I guess Jason escaped thanks to Bats? Probably? For being blown up, Robin/Jason's corpse was in pretty great shape! There was never really any doubt as to the identity of the Red Hood. That's fine for somebody like me who knew this story going in, but they could have tried to hide his identity a bit better for people not as well versed in Bat-history. Jason's escape from Ra's headquarters was pretty lame. The final scene with Jason, Joker and Bats wasn't as powerful here as it was in the comic.
The Verdict: If you could combine certain aspects of this movie(Jason's return from the dead, the building exploding to end the movie) with the comic story(the Jason/Bats battle, the way Bats learned Red Hood was Jason) this would be the perfect story! As it is, I preferred the story in the comics to the story in the movie. The movie never really gave us the same emotional punch that the comic did, with the exception of Bats screaming about how he'd failed Jason every now and then. I would have liked some kind of definitive ending between Bats and Jason here, I mean I understand why that didn't happen in the comic, but there was no reason we could have some sort of closure in this movie. Once the movie ends, the story is over, and as it was, the story here was just left dangling, which always bothers me with movies... In the end, there was more good than bad here, so this was a good way to spend 75 minutes.
Score: 8 out of 10.
Batman: Under The Red Hood(2010):
What Happened: 5 years ago the Joker manages to blow Robin(Jason Todd) up, killing him, thanks in part to Ra's Al Ghul, who had set Joker against Batman and Robin to distract the Dynamic Duo while he attempted one of his schemes. Guilty over his part in Jason's death, Ra's steals the body and drops it in one of his Lazarus Pits, returning Jason to life but also rendering him temporarily insane. Crazy Jason escapes Ra's headquarters and time moves on. In the present, the Red Hood is beginning to stick his nose into the dealings of Gotham's crime lord, Black Mask. Besides that, Red Hood, after a run-in with Batman, reveals that he knew that the man under the cowl was Bruce Wayne... Black Mask gets more and more pissed as Red Hood costs him more money and guns, and sends assassins after Red Hood, who is assisted by Batman. The two fight side-by-side, and manage to defeat the assassins, with Bats getting a sword with some of Red Hood's blood on it. Bats takes the sword back to the Batcave and yes, it is a perfect match for the blood Bats had on file for Jason. Now desperate to rid himself of the Red Hood, Black Mask engineers Joker's escape from Arkham Asylum and tells Joker to kill Red Hood. Instead, Joker captures a mess of Red Hood's gang members, as well as Black Mask and his assistant and threatens to kill them all. Red Hood arrives on the scene and tells Joker to go and kill them all, since this was always about manipulating Mask into freeing Joker from Arkham since Mask was one of the few people with the power and resources to do so. Red Hood manages to capture Joker, and demands a meeting with Bats. The two meet at the spot Bats first found Jason as a child and they battle, with Bats managing to get the upper-hand... At least until Jason reveals that he had captured Joker. Jason bemoans the fact that Bats never killed Joker after Jason's death, and that if their roles had been reversed, he would have done everything in his power to make sure Joker never killed again. Jason tosses Bats a gun while putting a gun to Joker's head and tells Bats that he was going to shoot Joker in the head, and that the only way Bats could stop Jason was to shoot him in the face. Bats feigns walking away but throws a batarang into Jason's gun, causing it to explode. In return, Jason pushes a detonator and we find that he had stuffed the fireplace with explosives on a 20 second countdown. Joker tries to hold Bats away from the bombs since he liked the idea of dying with Bats, and manages to cost Bats the time he'd have needed to stop the explosives. Bats escapes from Joker's grasp and lunges for Jason just as the building blows. In the aftermath, Bats pushes some rubble off of himself and finds the Joker buried under rubble but still alive. As for Jason, he's nowhere to be seen.
The Good: Most of the voice acting was very well done. I was especially pleased with Batman and Jason's voicing. Black Mask was awesome here, in voice and actions. The final battle in Crime Alley between Bats and Jason was probably the highpoint of the movie for me. The explanation of Jason's return from the dead here was 100,000% better than in the comics, which consisted of, “Superboy Prime punched the air really, really hard...” Jason's plan to get his hands on Joker and his and manipulation of Black Mask was nicely done. Nightwing's appearances, while too short, were appreciated.
The Bad: With the exception of the laugh, I didn't like the voice acting done for Joker. The animation for the flying and driving scenes bugged me. The ending, or lack thereof, was really vexing... I guess Jason escaped thanks to Bats? Probably? For being blown up, Robin/Jason's corpse was in pretty great shape! There was never really any doubt as to the identity of the Red Hood. That's fine for somebody like me who knew this story going in, but they could have tried to hide his identity a bit better for people not as well versed in Bat-history. Jason's escape from Ra's headquarters was pretty lame. The final scene with Jason, Joker and Bats wasn't as powerful here as it was in the comic.
The Verdict: If you could combine certain aspects of this movie(Jason's return from the dead, the building exploding to end the movie) with the comic story(the Jason/Bats battle, the way Bats learned Red Hood was Jason) this would be the perfect story! As it is, I preferred the story in the comics to the story in the movie. The movie never really gave us the same emotional punch that the comic did, with the exception of Bats screaming about how he'd failed Jason every now and then. I would have liked some kind of definitive ending between Bats and Jason here, I mean I understand why that didn't happen in the comic, but there was no reason we could have some sort of closure in this movie. Once the movie ends, the story is over, and as it was, the story here was just left dangling, which always bothers me with movies... In the end, there was more good than bad here, so this was a good way to spend 75 minutes.
Score: 8 out of 10.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)