Guarding the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is awesome. It's fun. It felt like someone had finally managed to create a new Star Wars. The ending was a little cheesy though. That's pretty much it. I had a lot of fun.

I said it before with Captain America, but Marvel are really showing that just because their films have superheroes they don't have to rely on the tired Hollywood formula so many of the opposition's films use. The Winter Soldier was a super spy film just like any Mission Impossible, even though it's predecessor was pulpy-fun. Guardians is a sci-fi action comedy. I forsee Daredevil the TV series something like Law and Order with extra fisticuffs, and Luke Cage is hopefully going to be something akin to The Wire, with extra fisticuffs.

Garfield No More. Who could replace Spider-Man?

With Amazing Spider-Man 2 out of the way now – and see last Friday's blog for my thoughts there – thoughts turn to the future of the franchise. In the build up to the release Sony announced they had plans for not only ASM 3, but 4 as well. This brought comments from Andrew Garfield that he's only contracted for one more, and he's not had any discussions about anything after that. You couldn't help get the distinct impression that he wanted out. We're not going to be getting any Hugh Jackman type love affairs with his character and still playing him fifteen years later.

In another interview Garfield quickly brings up the possibility of relative newcomer to comics Miles Morales taking centre stage of a future movie. It's an interesting idea handing the film franchise over to the Spider-Man who replaced Peter Parker in the Ultimate comics. Garfield is clearly laying the groundwork for him leaving, but is Morales the best idea?

Amazing Spider-Man 2 does whatever a Spider can. But not much else.

The more time there is between now and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, the more I find wrong with it. But nothing more so than Spider-Man 3. For all the minor things the two predecessors got wrong, the third film just went whole hog and fucked up everything, with the minor exception of Sandman. Venom was wasted, and Harry as Goblin was rubbish. Then Sony rebooted the series, and Amazing Spider-Man seemed to be on a much better track. Except we had to watch that bloody spider biting Peter again.

So it's quite shocking that the very next film, Amazing Spider-Man 2, makes a lot of the same mistakes as Spider-Man 3. Oh it doesn't do anything so bad as the dance number, and the one thing Mark Webb's second foray has going for it is that it absolutely nails Peter and Gwen, and is possibly the greatest live-action portrayal of Spider-Man in existence. This little Spider-Fan may have incredibly geeked out at just how Spidey moved during combat and quipped the whole time. But it does get the villains completely wrong again.

X-Men Days of Future Past is hopefully a shade of things to come

No proper X-Men Days of Future Past review from me. I watched it in an extremely tired frame of mind after my flatmate's rather drunken surprise birthday party. However, I'm going old school and just summing up my thoughts instead.

Mainly that Days of Future Past was rather brilliant. I was pretty worried about it because of the number of mutants that were said to be featuring, but Brian Singer does what he did so well back for X1 and 2, and that's keep the story focus very much on the core characters. In fact with only five characters sharing the limelight this feels like one of the tightest X-films ever.

McAvoy was amazing, his first scene was utterly tremendous. I'm glad Apocalypse will be based in the 80s and we get him back for more. So was Quicksilver, I expected him to be the worst, especially with that costume, but the opposite was true. For me, Joss Whedon and Avengers had the upper hand when it came to Pietro Maximoff, but now they have a lot to live up to.

There is one slight problem. The future timeline is made clear to be a result of all the movies we've seen to date, yet the film clearly states that Mystique is captured by the US Government in 1973 moments after killing Trask. So how was Mystique running around in X's 1-3? From the explanation we got of how the Sentinels operate they killed over two decades before? Big plot hole in a very minor line of dialogue. I can only assume that it was a quick change for ease of filming that no one caught the ramifications of.

Also Kitty's ability to project people into the past was never explained, but then that would mean introducing yet another telepath, and since it was Kitty sent backwards in the comics, I can forgive the mistake for homage.

Oh and if the Stryker at the end was Mystique, does that mean new timeline Wolverine is left with bone claws?

Days of Future Past is good. Almost First Class good, but not quite. It's up there, probably above both of Singer's previous two films. It does what Avengers did so well and no one else seems to have nailed, which is use everything before it to feel like a proper universe. Bring on Apocalypse.

The Future of Marvel Movies part 2

About ten minutes after posting my Captain America review and look at Marvel's Cinematic Universe I was struck by a thought as I saw the leaked image of Hawkeye's new coat (comic fans will really get excited about anything). That thought was, are Marvel going to start putting out more Avenger films post Age of Ultron?

Obviously there's going to be more. But I mean Disney cutting down the time between each instalment, and cash-in on the one of the biggest names in Box Office. Step away from the core team of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk. Not in a cranking them out just for the money way. But in a not using all the actors and raising the lesser members to more prominent roles.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - co-starring the Black Widow

This is going to end up part review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and part a look at the state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that we're only one film away from Avengers: Age of Ultron, because to say that Winter Soldier upsets the cart a little is underselling just what the films does. As such I step away from my usual spoiler-free as possible stance, and here I'm incredibly spoiler heavy.

I make no bones about the fact that I loved Captain America: The First Avenger. I felt it pulled the period piece of brilliant. It was as exactly as pulpy as a Cap War film should be. And that's something Marvel have done really well. They don't just make superhero movies, but superheroes in other genres, which most of the best comics do as well. This time Cap was shifting away from pulp to my one of my most favourite genres. That of super spies. This film has a lot to live up to.

Thor: The Dark World review

Thor was probably my least favourite of the Avenger build up films. Not that it was a bad film or anything, but Iron Man was just awesome, and the pulp atmosphere of Captain America was perfect. Maybe it beat Iron Man 2, but not by much. However, one thing that really struck with me was that Chris Hemsworth was ideal for the role.

He still is. Perhaps even more so here. It was only a few months ago I watched Hemsworth in F1 biopic Rush, and looking at him here I can't see anyone but the Norse God of Thunder. However, far more than it's predecessor, this takes the inhabitants of Asgard further away from Godhood and further into kick-ass aliens territory.

The 12A/PG-13 Wolverine

Wolverine should not be a 12A (or PG-13 for the Americans). This is one simple reason, his claws. He has razor sharp claws that extend out of his hand. There is no way to make a character with that being one of his most defining features super kid friendly unless you make some serious short cuts, which is pretty much was Jason Mangold did. Every stab and every slice never draws blood, we only get told he kills someone with them three or four times in the whole film. He stabs someone just off screen so many times it's ridiculous. There's just too many concessions here to make the film suitable for the children.

His claws are also a big bone of contention in the story for me. The Wolverine is a story that finds a way of inhibiting his much vaunted healing factor, something that many writers complain about and is quite a tried and tested trope with the little Canucklehead. And if I'm quite honest, it works pretty well here. Except for one reason. His claws.

The original Star Trek movies

As part of my big Star Trek revival, I've decided to rewatch all of the TOS movies. I've not seen most of them since I was a kid, and knowing the reputation of some of them, I've bad mouthed them quite a bit. But I've realised I can't really remember them. I was probably under fifteen when I last watched them and that was, sadly, a long time ago. It was time I gave them another shot.

Slight giveaway about Star Trek Into Darkness is featured too. You have been warned.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Out of Lens Flare

It's hardly a secret that since Christmas I've dived back into Star Trek, mostly the 24th Century adventures of The Next Generation, New Frontier and Voyager. But like a lot of lapsed fans my return to this franchise was mostly down to JJ Abrams and his reboot in 2009. Now his sequel is out.

Like many a Star Trek before me, and no doubt countless afterwards, I'll say that Into Darkness is a great science fiction action film that just happens to be Star Trek. From this point forward Spoilers Ahoy!

Bourne Legacy. Bourne to be mild

I've been a huge fan of the Bourne series since the first film arrived. When news of a fourth film broke I wasn't too offended, even when they started thinking of using a different agent as Matt Damon wasn't keen on returning. Jeremy Renner's casting was a different story, but that was mostly because he'd also just agreed to do Mission Impossible with the potential of taking that over. Does he really need two spy franchises?

Anyway the first three makes a great trilogy, but I saw no reason why they couldn't keep going with the right story. Bourne Legacy has all the trademarks of being that story, but it doesn't have enough panache to pull it off.

BeefJack: List with a Twist

Three articles in two weekends. This one was a lot of fun to research.

5 80s action movies reimagined as FPS games

No Stallone sort of bugs me, I really wanted to include Cobra but couldn't find it anywhere. Rambo 2 and 3 certainly fit the bill but by the time I'd admitted defeat on Cobra I'd already written the rest. If I'd got chance to do it I'd probably take Dirty Harry out. Not because of its seventies origins, the article's too light hearted to worry about that, but during the research I found out that there was nearly an open-world game based on the first movie. There's currently a Facebook campaign to try and revive it.

Also found out some other crazy facts:
The Russians did a remake of Commando
Steven Seagal started his film career as a martial arts stunt coordinator on Never Say Never Again and A View to a Kill.

Pocahontas in Spaaace

I finally saw Avatar this weekend. Not at the Imax as Smith and I originally intended but we still saw it in Real3D. It’s a shame we didn’t get to live our Imax dream but it would have been another two weeks and I’ve come so close to people nearly ruining it for me that I just couldn’t wait any longer.

The story is good. Nothing amazing, and as many people before have pointed out, highly derivative of other works. It is enjoyable and a thoroughly fun movie though.

The thought and detail that’s gone into the world is incredible. Good sci-fi and fantasy have a good grasp of the cultures of their races. Avatar goes so much further. Not just with the Na’vi where the story dictates that they’re culture is worked out, but the biology of the world.

However, where Avatar really shines is the special effects and the 3D. Not once during the movie did I find myself thinking the CGI was ropey. In fact I didn’t even think about it all and just accepted it. That’s one hell of an achievement. Watching a film that’s something stupid like 90% CGI I accepted Pandora and its creatures just as much as any human character on screen. The 3D was wonderful too, spending the majority of the time just adding depth to the shots and making the world just feel that bit more real and immersive. Only once or twice did they pull “WOW SOMETHING FLYING AT YOU” that the other 3D films ram down your throat, and those were the times that I caught myself rolling my eyes.

That said I loved the film. Not sure how it’s going to stand up on the small screen, even with new fangled Blu-rays. News of 3D TVs may help it but they’re going to be ridiculous prices for a while. I still say that outside of the cinema 3Ds not going to take off in any major way until some genius invents a way of it working without glasses. Then we’ll have holograms and that’s a whole different story.

Sulu, Take Us to Maximum Reboot

Hollywood over the last few years seems to have totally lost any confidence in original thought so is turning to every other media type for tried and tested ones. When that doesn't work they go back and try one of their old ideas. Not that they aren't doing a pretty good job of it most of the time.

So the latest in the reboots has now landed in the shape of Star Trek, and once again its a successful one. I'm tempted to say on of the most successful I've seen to date. What's really interesting is that Abrams has taken the usual course of just ignoring everything that has gone before and instead did it in universe, which admittedly Star Trek is one of the few franchises that's actually possible with. Still its a reboot that manages to leave everything before it intact, makes sure you know that and sets course for a whole new heading.

The actors were fantastic as well. Although to start with some of them don't feel quite right, by the time the credits roll they are Kirk and his command crew, the film doing a great job showing how they grow into the roles they are famous for. When Kirk steps onto his bridge at the end of the movie Chris Pine IS Captain Kirk, even the character who plays Kirk's dad does an absolutely fantastic job of giving off that Kirk aura.

X-Men -1

Also known as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was way better than X-Men 3 though that's not exactly hard to do. Not quite as good as X2 but possibly on par with 1. It didn't even fall into the trap of too many plot lines running at once like Fox's recent Marvel films have done and they seem to have learned lessons from Marvel's Iron Man and Hulk.

Apparently the movie has different Easter Egg endings depending on the cinema, I got one in Japan. Now I'm all for the next Wolverine movie happening in Japan, its a genius idea, but this ending was shit. Apparently the other one is with Deadpool and I feel ripped off.

Speaking of which Ryan Reynolds wasn't in the movie enough. I was loving his Deadpool from his very first scene, if even one thing gets commisioned after this it better be Deadpool.

The random character apperances in this are brilliant, they're very careful to not let Cyclops ever see Wolverine and the little cameo at the end was brilliant and incredibly well kept. Although the CGI for it was rubbish.

Watched X2 straight after it and they did a really good job of making Wolverine a really good prequel to this movie, but then I got annoyed at how how much they fucked up X3 and ruined all the potential that was set up.

Doomsday

There's plenty of topics I should talk about right about now. I've watched quite a few films that I've enjoyed and of course there's Halo 3. However, being English it’s far easy to moan than it is to heap praise. So today I'm talking about the first of DC's Direct to DVD animated movies Superman: Doomsday. Supposedly the last movie to appear in Bruce Timm's style but not connected to the DCAU that he shepherded for over ten years.

Now I've never read the original comics of the Death of Superman but this movie takes the direction of telling the whole death and return. The Return is something I have read and it felt odd that where we had four pretenders running around we now have just one and filling both the roles of the Eradicator and then later Cyborg Superman while having the origin of Superboy. It also had parts from all three storylines that make up the Death and Return and as such certain parts felt under developed. Thankfully that didn't try to shoehorn it all in with things like Mongul attacking Coast City which were just too big to cover if they were determined to fit it all in one movie.

Onto the actual movie and first of all the main characters. Once again Superman and Lex Luthor have both been redesigned. Lex has been made a lot thinner which seemed to suit this version and definitely suited James Marsters voice. Superman on the other hand has had some lines added to his face for some bizarre reason and just ends up making him look weird rather than add any gravity to his presence. Adam Baldwin does a great job as the Big Blue though and that certainly made up for the face lines. Lois looks exactly the same as the old version which makes hearing Ann Heche's voice all the more strange in her first scene, I'm not sure whether it's this shock or not but Ann Heche's voice work isn't up to the standard of her co-stars but as the film gets further along that is noticeable improvement. Doomsday also looked better in his brief JLU appearance than he did in the movie.

Then there's the fight scenes. Seeing these animated was great, they are a lot more brutal than anything we've seen before from DC. They were long, nasty and Superman certainly took the worst beating I've ever seen which is only right for the story telling the Death of Superman. However, compared to the final fight against Darkseid in JLU these just lacked any drama and considering the story that's just not right.

Ghost Rider

I finally got around to watching Ghost Rider tonight and I think I may be the last person to see it. I went in expecting Nic Cage to annoy the crap out of me because when I heard the news he was cast I couldn't believe how miscast the role of Johnny Blaze was. As it turns out his Johnny was the better half of the main character.

While the Ghost Rider may have looked cool, even in a fight, he acted all wrong. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have the Spirit of Vengeance chortling all the way and cracking one liners needs to be shot. I mean here we've got a demon with a flaming skull for a head and we feel the need for him to talk smack to other demons. How about he just smacks the shit out of them and leave it at that?

The whole Police side story was un-needed and unresolved. We could have spent those twenty minutes or more important matters like showing how bad ass the Rider was or even some character development.

The random attempts at humour such as the Gecko being burnt to death felt horribly out of place. The old cheesy western music was atrocious, its like someone put it there as a place holder and they forgot to replace it. Someone needs to take Mark Steven Johnson away from superhero films. That's two he's fucked up.

More Then Meets the Eye

Last night I watched the Transformers, to date this is the biggest franchise of my childhood to be remade by Hollywood and it's unlikely to replaced except for the unlikely event Mask gets remade. The film was quite good, not amazing but certainly not a bad movie either.

It certainly had plenty of fanboy moments to keep me happy. The first meeting between an Autobot and a Decepticon certainly proved to me that Michael Bay got the subject matter and the Rangers were pretty cool, especially when I found out they were based on GI Joe.

However, there were some bad points in the film too, the scene in and around the Witwicky's house seemed very out of place for the movie, one friend described as Transformers meets American Pie which sums things up perfectly in my opinion. The guy from Sector 7 was just plain annoying and as Drew pointed out he seemed like he was from a bad 80s kids film.

I did enjoy the film, and I am looking forward to the sequel, but not too fussed about re-watching this one. Still, for the first time in Transformers, I actually liked Bumblebee.

There Can Be Only Four

On Thursday I finally bought a Highlander DVD. This was quite an event because every time I saw one I kept thinking about it, I lost track of the amount of times I nearly bought Endgame which thankfully I didn't. Anyway, the one I bought was Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, the animated movie made in collaboration between the American company Imagi and the Japanese animation company Madhouse.

The story follows Colin MacLeod and his 2000 year quest for revenge. This now takes the number of the Macleod clan that have been immortals to four, following Connor, Duncan and the previous animated Highlander, Quentin. If you want to live forever, forget the Spring of Eternal Youth find a member of the Macleod clan and sign up. Colin's a bit more bloodthirsty than the other Macleod's before him especially Duncan and Connor both of whom enjoy life and have civilised through the centuries. Colin on the other hand has lived for the death of his enemy Marcus and as such found himself on whatever side is the opposite to Marcus on a battlefield.

Apart from the quick recap of the story I'm not sure what else to say apart from the fact that I really enjoyed this film and would class it as the second best Highlander film, after the original. The action is fantastic and just what you expect from the company that brought us Ninja Scroll and Blood: The Last Vampire while the American script kept out any of the more out there concepts that can crop into Japanese productions that I'm not very fond of.

The Torch and Surfer Show

4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Funny it's called that, because really the Fantastic Four really don't do that much in the film. There's one scene where they actually work as a team, and that falls apart miserably. Really it should have been called The Human Torch meets the Silver Surfer. Apart from those two Sue runs around worrying about her wedding and moaning about their lifestyle not being the right environment to bring up a family and The Thing plays well off of Johnny and is good for a few laughs but really doesn't do much. Admittedly Reed's genius is put to good use in this film and he was much better here than the first film.

As for the actors from the returning cast Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis seem a lot more comfortable in their roles. Jessica Alba on the other hand looked out of place the whole movie, and it was unsettling to see her with totally blonde hair and blue eyes. In the first movie it never bothered me but I'm now convinced she's been miscast in this movie, or at the very least they've tried too hard to make her the traditional Sue Storm instead of just letting her look like herself.

The worst part of the film was Galactus. You see a planet destroyed at the start of the film by something that isn't the Surfer, then he tells Sue that something else is coming with barely anytime left of the film. No real menace was put behind the big G, and for him to then turn up and be a massive cloud was pathetic. I'm entirely aware the regular Marvel Universe version wouldn't work on film, but Ultimate would or even some giant spaceship. Not something that looks like an update of the Planet Eater from Kirk-era Star Trek. The fight between Surfer and Galactus was rather boring to say the least as well.

At least it was better than the first film, and I'm sure with the money we're going to get a sequel and if the rumours are to believed it's going to follow a similar formula and launch the Black Panther. Hopefully there's a bit more teamwork and the end of the film doesn't revolve around the guest star saving the day.