4 posts tagged “comics”
usually if you say happy April Fool's day to me or play any sort of insipid prank or, you know, enjoy this day at all, i maim you. but this is actually pretty freaking funny.
unfortunately, i haven't had time to watch anything good (last month's Knight Rider remake does NOT count as good). so instead of ranting and raving and cursing about movies, i will rant and rave and curse about comic books. in my quest to read all things Deadpool, i've gotten up to #11 in his series and almost choked to death laughing while i read it.
basically, Wade and Blind Al get thrown back in time because Doorman (from the Great Lakes Avengers) activates his teleporter at the same time Deadpool does, both of them trying to save Blind Al. DP and Al are sent to the early days of Spiderman (circa 1967) and have a grand ole time futzing with the space/time continuum. Wade uses his image inducer to pose as Peter and makes up Al to look like Aunt May after they knock her unconscious and he sends Spidey on a wild goose chase in Jersey. In the present, Weasel works with the GLA to get them both back. hilarity ensues.
it's hysterical how they poke fun at the GLA and all of the Spidey cast. here. look. at. the. funny. fergit that. i know i'm not supposed to do this, but there are just too many funny pages. here's the whole thing. knock yourselves out.
see how i like to pretend someone is reading this. ha ha hardy har.
the whole family went to see Spiderman 3 today. it was as good as the first and second. the action sequences and effects should win awards, holy shit. the sandman and venom cgi are phenomenal. but you leave the film feeling depressed and like you just got your ass kicked. it's a really dark film. like 8mm or butterfly effect type of dark. nothing good happens in this movie. one good thing starts to happen and it's squashed after five minutes.
for me, i walked out of the theater thinking peter parker got what he deserved because they paint him as a serious prick in this sequel and it ain't just the symbiote suit. he is not likable, which is something i always admired the character for; peter parker is a good kid. in this movie he's a self-involved whiny little prat. maybe it has something to do with tobey maguire not wanting to spend anymore time on the spidey franchise (his enthusiasm is nonexistent) or maybe they were just playing up the dark side of parker like they did in the comic -and i admit that i don't have the knowledge i probably should have on how dark Spidey gets because i'm an X-men/Deadpool kinda guy- regardless, i didn't like it. despite all the traumatizing situations i saw him go through, i didn't feel anything positive for him at the end.
i did feel something for mary jane, though. a whole hell of a lot of pity. she is basically used and shit on through out the entire flick. it's hard to watch. i spent a lot of time staring at kirsten dunst's fucked up teeth to keep from looking into the many, many, many close ups of her teary eyes.
as far as the actors go, it's the supporting roles who really hold the movie up. topher grace was surprisingly FANTASTIC as eddie brock. thomas haden church is a little wooden but believable as flint marko. james franco pulled out all the stops and ... not to give too much of a spoiler here: he should be pissed about what they did to harry osborn. bryce dallas howard makes a PERFECT gwen stacy, who'da thunk it. and of course bruce campbell's cameo as a maitre d' is brilliant.
i really hope tobey goes for one more spidey flick because i would hate for this downer to be the last film. if he doesn't, please god let sam raimi have the presence of mind to beg jake gyllenhaal to replace him even if it's just to spit out a single movie that doesn't end on a sour note like this one does.
i'd say go see it in the theater for the action sequences but be prepared to feel every single one of those hits and smacks and crashes. also, the webslinging is always fucking groovy. otherwise, rent it and watch it with friends so you can talk about how fucked up and sad the story is, then go out for pizza or get drunk or something to make yourselves feel better about life.
so i saw ghost rider. it was good. better than i thought it would be. not the best movie in the world and some of the lines were cheesy and some of the acting was wavy hand but still, better than the last vehicles of both bentley and cage. eva mendes was her usual annoying greasy self. sam elliott was his usual growly radass self. fonda was mostly 'eh'. (i would have gone a bit more viggo mortensen with mephistopheles. there was no edge to him, he wasn't scary at all) the plot was stable, the effects were really good if a bit overused but, i mean, flaming head, what can you do. i found the first part of the movie to be rushed. it was like "we're only showing you this so when we get to the really RAD parts you'll know what's going on." but it was still good. not great. good. but you know, good is still saying a lot for this type of flick.
it's a definite renter. but i suggest you see it at the theater and not be mad you paid for it as long as you remember it's GHOST RIDER not SPIDERMAN. and it's worth having in a comic book movie collection, unlike daredevil or elektra. yeah, i went there. elektra sucked more than daredevil and that's REALLY FUCKING HARD to do. it's not in the same league as spiderman or x-men because really, ghost rider is a second-rate marvel character. but as far as those types of movies go (fantastic four, hulk, the two previously mentioned pieces of shit, blade, and punisher) it's one of the better ones. by far better than dd, punisher, and elektra, about the same as ff, hulk, and blade 1 (fuck blade 2 and 3. fuck them sideways.) but you really should look at them in the context of the type of movies they are.
ff was supposed to be a blockbuster and it had the budget to prove it. for some reason 20th century fox thought that the FF were, like, in the same stable as say, X-men. hahahahaha no. people who read the comics were excited about the flick. everyone else in the world went "huh? oh. kay." it has it's good moments [johnny storm laconically saying "that's gross" when reed slides his hand under and up the other side of door to unlock it. or the thing stopping and scaring the shit out of some little kids then growling "don't do drugs!"] and julian mcmahon *is* fantastic as dr. doom, but a blockbuster it ain't because they are, unfortunately, second-rate characters. a pretty good and ownable movie, it is. and so it should be lauded for that.
hulk, i'm not even sure you could classify as a comic book movie. yeah, it's based off the incredible hulk and there's a buttload of cgi but that movie was a drama. it was about bruce banner's inner turmoil and tragic past coming to a head, not about being a really big mad ass green man and he doesn't say "HULK SMASH!!!!11!!!", not even once. i fucking love that movie for that though. it didn't try to be anything but a flick about THOSE THINGS and the addition of the comic panels in some scenes was a great way to distance itself from the reality of the real world but it was more a graphic novel adaption than a comic flick so this movie should be lauded for that as well. plus, i heart eric bana in the worst way. omg.
the first blade movie was a classic comic book film adaptation. it TRIED to look comic book. it had over the top cgi, posed scenes, was overly gory and under lighted, and of course, there's a sam elliott wannabe in kris kristofferson. blade did everything you thought he should do in the way he should do them with the dialogue he should have (translation: lots of rad hack and slash with wesley snipes saying very little because that man cannot act but he CAN kick some ass). the bad guy gets it the way he should. wannabe sam elliott bites it the way he should. the action kept you riveted. the vamps were cool but not campy. the humans were dumb but not retarded. it didn't disappoint. you want to do a low-budget comic flick? do it like that. stay true to the comic. make it about the comic.
blade 2. christ. ok. the first thing wrong with this is that it's a sequel of a low budget flick. the second thing wrong with it is that it's a comic book sequel that stopped trying to be a comic flick and tried to be a real cinematic action feature. no. no no no. stick with your formula, bill, it worked last time! idiot! the third thing wrong with it is ron fucking perlman, who i love in ANYTHING FUCKING ELSE BUT THIS MOVIE. god. i wanted him dead by his second scene and squealed with delight when he finally got wasted. lenore varela is pretty but useless. the plot is dumb. why does blade need these whinybitch vampire hunters? NO REASON. HE'S A BADASS. DID YOU FORGET? YOU GO TO HELL GUILLERMO DEL TORO. YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE. god. fuck. hellboy doesn't make up for this drivel. almost but not quite. i hate this movie so much i want to burn it with poo on the del toro's doorstep. tip: don't try to make comic movies into action movies. people don't like that. blade is not an action hero, he's a comic book hero. tip #2: don't team up a guy who can kill a hunnerd men by himself with punk bitches just so's he can get a piece of vampire ass and then EDIT THE ASS-GETTING OUT. mkay? mkay. the one redeeming factor: nomak is mothering rad. they need to give *that guy* his own movie. hella.
blade 3. whistler's daughter? dracula? parker posey? ...fuck nevermind.
punisher. the people who made this movie should be shot with paint pellets in the crotch. and thomas jane (THOMAS JANE. the guy who played... wait. that's right! he's never done anything good!) is a laughable punisher. if you slapped thomas jane he'd probably cry. aside from the fact that punisher is an acquired taste. either you like him or you fucking loathe his motherfucking shoot-em-up guts. so really, this flick was bound to fail because when there's a one or the other like that in the audience, the latter tends to outweigh the former because people who LIKE him will stick with the comics or they will go see the movie. once. at the cheapy theater. they should have left this one alone. the dolph lundgren one was bad enough but at least true to the vein of the comic. this movie did so poorly at the box office that no one knew that blockbuster song by Amy Lee and the dude from Seether was from this piece of dirt movie. and that's a good indicator of a bad adaptation flick; good soundtracks usually are used to mask the bad film. cases in point: punisher, daredevil, dick tracy, TMNT, batman forever/returns. i'd add the songs that go with those flicks but really i don't care that much and i'm sure you get my point.
the only movie that i know of that doesn't adhere to that soundtrack scheme is The Crow. and that one "Hero" song for spiderman. and even though it played on the radio 24 fucking 7, that song sucked, so it doesn't count.
anyway.
what i'm trying to say here is that it's easy to make a film about superman and the x-men and spiderman because there's a very, very precise formula that has to be used for those types of heroes. people are not ALLOWED to fuck up superman. he's too well-known, too big, too important in the realm of "american good" and all that crap. but it's hard to make a good film about a character only us geeks know about. none of my friends read ghost rider comics. they might know about them but they didn't read them (fanatically. over and over and over.) like i did. so the public impact on a movie like that is so much less than on the Hero Epics. and that's why movies like daredevil and elektra and *gag* punisher get made. some jackass comes along and says "dude. let's toke up and make a Namor flick. huh huh huh huh." and one of the weinstein brother's greenlights it because after it flops they will own that director's immortal soul. but when someone comes along and says, "i want to do a film about Nighthawk." and they do research, write a good script, cast it well, and that fucking movie is good? it's a feat, i tell you. and you should take the time and money to go see it because the formula for that type of movie is so outside that of batman or the fucking phoenix saga that you could easily and regrettably fuck. it. up. and the fact that you didn't... it means something. it means about $7.50 and medium buttered popcorn.
