Category: rants & nostalgia

So, if you’ve been online today, you probably know by now that the new trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – – the most happy-go-lucky movie of all time – – has arrived, as Warner Bros and DC Comics unveiled it to attendees at the San Diego Comic Con this weekend.

If you haven’t been online today… how are you here?

Anyway, judging by the reaction, people are really excited for this movie, which is okay, I guess, though I personally think it looks like, well, it looks exactly like how I expected a sequel to Man of Steel would look.

In a word: Terrible.

But the most alarming thing to me, as a fan of comic books and storytelling IN GENERAL, is that Superman’s parents on earth are just absolute garbage people.

Remember, one of the key moments in the Man of Steel trailer saw a young Clark Kent asking his dad if he should’ve just let that school bus full of kids sink, if he should have just let all those kids drown, and Pa Kent replied, “Maybe.”

And, now, in this movie, we have a moment where he’s talking to Ma Kent, and she says, “You don’t owe this world a thing. You never did.”

Compare that with ol’ May Parker’s monologue to Peter in Spider-Man 2:

“Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they’ll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.”

I dunno, I think there’s something to be said for acknowledging and encouraging heroism in superHERO movies, especially when your only job as a character is to INSPIRE THE HERO TO BE GOOD.

Using Ma and Pa Kent to teach Superman not to trust humans is a very weird, very unnecessary decision on the part of the screenwriters. The Kents are supposed to tie him to humanity. No wonder the guy levels half of a city without so much as a second thought – – his parents are the worst.

Anyway, Jim Doom is going to pop in here soon with his thoughts on the trailer, so I don’t want to say much more. It is just a trailer, and things could be completely different by the time it hits screens, but I don’t hold out a lot of “S” for this movie.

Welcome to my annual blog round-up discussion thing for all the upcoming superhero movies of the coming year!

This last year (2014, duh) was a pretty big one for superhero movies, with two of the top three grossing movies at the box office featuring men in tights battling the forces of evil.

Predictably, those were a couple of Marvel Studios products: Captain America 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy. And not only were they wildly successful money-wise, but they were also really cool movies, to boot!

Sure, they both ended with giant spaceships or helicarriers hovering in the skies above a couple of major cities, raining hellfire down upon the innocent people below, but only one of them threatened the entire world with destruction. The other just sort of threatened the greater Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

Now that’s what I call restraint! And I applaud Marvel for changing up the formula from time-to-time.

The only other big superhero movie from last year that managed to be a heck of a lot of fun was X-Men: Days of Future Past. Surprisingly, it’s not a Marvel Studios property (it’s one of two Marvel franchises still produced by 20th Century Fox – – the other one I’ll get to in a minute), yet it still managed the feat of not being bowling-shoe ugly.

As a matter of fact, now that it’s all said and done, I think it was my favorite of the three good superhero movies of 2014, though it’s a very close call.

Of course, before we move on, I would first like to point out that X-Men 7 was the only surprise of the year. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Transformers 4 were predictably terrible, though they somehow were even worse than I expected they’d be.

We haven’t written reviews of either of them on Doomkopf yet, but real quick, I’d like to make it absolutely, 100% clear: Those movies were two of the worst movies ever made, superhero or otherwise. I can’t simply mention them, say they were bad, and then magically move on. I need you to understand this: Those movies were offensively awful.

Hopefully nothing that bad will come out in 2015, right?

Now, you may remember at the end of last year that all the Marvel and DC properties in production were given release dates, so that their schedules are now meticulously plotted out until the year 2072.

Of course, those release dates are subject to change, I’m sure, as nobody really believes we’ll ever see a Cyborg movie, because obviously. And the way the Suicide Squad production has been moving, it might have to be pushed back (apparently, nobody wants to star in what will inevitably be a depressing, angsty piece of over-crowded trash – – who knew?).

But, for the most part, we have things mapped out. We will be getting about a dozen superhero movies per year, from now until the end of time. It’s the way things are now. It’s what we do.

The question, however, is whether or not they’ll be any good.

And that’s where I come in. Now, for your reading pleasure, a chilling vision of things to come: (more…)

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written before Marvel announced their plans for Phase Three of their Cinematic Universe]

With the upcoming slate of DC/WB superhero movies recently announced through the next twenty-five years, we started to talk amongst ourselves about how none of it really interests us all that much. I mean, we can only see the same couple of formulas play out on the big screen so many times before we start itching for something better.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy repeatedly watching the same climactic sequence involving a giant alien warship hovering over a city-in-peril, but that’s not to say it wouldn’t be nice to have a bit more variety.

So Doominator and I decided to cook up a list each of comics movies we’d actually be pumped to see come soon to a theatre near us.

Feel free to comment with your own ideas of stuff you’d like to see, but, in the meantime, here’s what we’ve got:

Doominator

Dredd 2

(more…)

Blue and Orange.

Orange and Blue.

What would Hollywood do without you?

As is the case with nearly every major Hollywood release these days, 300: Rise of an Empire only has two colors in its palette: Blue and Orange.

It’s one of those things where, once you see it, you can’t un-see it.

You can’t just sit through a movie anymore without noticing it.

So, up front, before we go any further, let me just say, if you haven’t noticed this before, if this is the first time this has been brought to your attention, I’m sorry.

I really am.

I kind of just ruined movies for you. Forever. Hit the jump. (more…)

According to Rule #34 of the Rules of Acquisition, “War is good for business.”

That’s entirely different than Rule #34 of the Internet, but I can’t really get into that here.

But war is good for business, in a lot of ways.

Especially in movies and television and, of course, comic books, war drives profits up with every appearance, practically, which is why comic books, in particular, always seem to be building toward the next big war.

Not only is it good for business, it’s also, incidentally, a really easy storytelling gimmick to structure these books around.

Once a year, we’re treated to at least one giant war per company, and this year will be no different.

In DC, we’re being treated to the Trinity War, which pits the Justice League vs. Justice League of America vs. Justice League Dark.

For those of you wishing this would be where that “To be Continued” tag at the end of Justice League International finally picks up (which we were left hanging on prior to the New 52), well, sorry, there’s only room for three stupid Justice Leagues in this universe, and that ain’t one of ’em. (more…)