Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #26

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#26: Iron Man

Very rarely do you have a movie role that is custom-made for an actor. This is especially true when it comes to moves based on well-known comic book characters. Quite often the actor has to make the character their own, such as Michael Keaton with “Batman” or Hugh Jackman with the character Wolverine in “X-Men”.

But the 2008 movie “Iron Man” stands out as one of those films where the title character was custom-made for its star, Robert Downey Jr. From start-to-finish, you actually believe that he’s the millionaire inventor Tony Stark.

The movie was released by Marvel Studios, the first movie financed by the Comic Book company, and stars Downey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrance Howard, Jeff Bridges, Faran Tahir, Paul Bettany, Clark Gregg, and Shawn Toub. It was directed by Jon Favreau, who is probably better known for his acting ability than as either a writer or director, but he certainly earned his stripes here.

We start with weapons-maker Tony Stark (Downey) in a military caravan going through the hills of Afghanistan when his convoy is under attack by terrorists. He tries to flee but ends up being wounded by a bomb explosion.

We learn from flashbacks that Stark was the prodigal son of super-genius Howard Stark, the founder of Stark Industries until his tragic death. Since then the company was under the control of Obadiah Stane (Bridges), allowing Tony to live the life of an out-of-control playboy. He skips out on cushy award ceremonies, leaving the uncomfortable acceptance speeches to his friend, Lt. Colonel Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes (Howard), while he brushes off snarky titles of his war-making empire being hurled by cute liberal reporters by sleeping with them. The aftermath of his latest conquest allows us to see the role of Tony’s assistant, Pepper Potts (Paltrow), which is to basically handle the dry cleaning and show the one-night-stands out the door after being scared by the “smart house” named JARVIS (voiced by Bettany).

While Rhodes tries to get Tony to be more serious about what he is doing, Tony is getting lap dances on his private jet and hauling around chilled drinks in his portable bar on their way to Afghanistan. There Tony shows off his latest creation, the “Jericho” missile, which leads us to the ambush by the terrorists.

Tony discovers that he has been taken hostage by a terrorist group called “The Ten Rings”, led by a man named Raza (Tahir). Tony is only alive because of an invention from fellow hostage Dr. Yinsen (Toub) that keeps a piece of shrapnel from entering his heart. Raza wants Tony to build his own “Jericho” missile, and gives him all the parts from Stark Industries to do it. Tony is disgusted at seeing his own weapons in the hands of terrorists but “agrees” to Raza’s demands as long as he has the help of Yinsen.

Rather than build a new missile, though, Tony uses the weapons to create a prototype miniature arc reactor so he could keep the shrapnel away from his heart and still have mobility. He also begins construction of a special suit of armor that would allow him to power through the steel doors, survive the hail of bullets from the terrorists, and escape by rocketing away. The suit works, although Yinsen would be killed in the cross-fire, and while the rockets allow him to fly away from the cave, it’s only short-lived as he ends up crashing in the desert. Thankfully he is rescued by Rhodes and is returned home.

After stopping at a (fast food product placement) to get a couple of hamburgers, he shows up at Stark Industries, brushes off Stane’s welcome, and announces to the world that he is no longer in the weapons-making business, and would instead be doing something else entirely. This does not sit well with the people around him, though, especially Stane.

Tony’s first new invention is to replace his prototype arc reactor with a new one. He then uses that extra power to construct a new energy-based repulse device that would allow him to fly. These lead to some new comedic scenes with his robot aids, one of which he refers to constantly as “Dummy”, and JARVIS. Pretty soon he’s developing a new suit of armor around the repulse devices. After the first field test of the new armor results in him almost crashing because of the high altitude temperatures, he attends a Stark Industries function (complete with a cameo by Stan Lee as “Hef”). There he meets Agent Coulson (Gregg) of the special top-secret Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. (Yes, they shorten it at the end of the movie to something that people will recognize.) Coulson has been pestering Stark for a debriefing, but Tony has been ducking him like he’s ducked everything else. But to appease Coulson, Stark says he’ll arrange things with his secretary, whom he quickly spots wearing a beautiful evening gown. Stark and Pepper have a semi-romantic exchange, and then when he’s getting more drinks, he finds out through the reporter he earlier slept with that his company is arming the Ten Rings after all, and that Stane has been leading the stockholders in locking Stark out of the company.

Tony takes his new armor (now with the familiar gold-and-red finish) back to the Middle East, where takes out the Stark Industry weapons and many of the Ten Rings terrorists. On the way back, he has to reveal to Rhodes that he’s inside the armor to get the Air Force to stop attacking him for violating the “no-fly zone”. Meanwhile, Stane has taken out Raza and the rest of the Ten Rings that have retrieved what was left of Tony’s original armor. Stane has the armor pieces sent over to his own people, only to find they can’t replicate the most important component because… they’re not Tony Stark! (Of course!)

It’s at this point that I’m going to have to pause things, because I don’t want to spoil how the movie ends if you haven’t seen it yet. I will say, however, that you do not want to miss what happens after the credits. In fact, this movie is the one that starts a long string of “teaser” clips getting people hooked to Marvel’s “ultimate production”.

In terms of casting, there are some great and some okay choices. Downey as Tony Stark has to be spot-on the best casting, period. Tony Stark as a character is far from perfect, and given some of Downey’s real-world history, he seems to be a natural. One has to wonder if there would even be a script needed, or if Downey was just told “Okay, be yourself and have fun.” Casting Bridges as Obadiah Stane was a bit of a surprise, since I didn’t really know the character, and having Bridges end up being the villain in this was a shocker, never mind making him BALD!

On the other hand, casting Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts seemed to be one of those moments where you have to ask “WHY?” when you see what the character really does, and I don’t mean the “dry cleaning and floozy-removal” role in the beginning of the movie. Pepper seems to be too flaky at times, especially at the end.

The story may seem simplistic, but it worked in that it brought an updated look to Iron Man’s origins. The original Iron Man story had Tony injured in Asia. Here, it’s Afghanistan. Using a modern-day battleground to showcase new weapons is nothing new either. Why do you think the Hummer and the Patriot missile defense system became so popular in the 90’s?

The one change that took me by surprise, though, was replacing “Jarvis” the human butler into JARVIS, the artificial intelligence “smart house” which ends up being Iron Man’s “sidekick” as well. Okay, as part of the “smart house”, I can see that happening. But using that same AI to also run the Iron Man armor? That’s a big stretch.

In all, this is a really good hero movie in terms of casting and story. So now the real challenge is… how does it handle sequels? We’ll find out in a future review of “Iron Man 2”.

Capes:	This movie easily earned four capes out of five.
Cheese:	Despite the “playboy” tone of Tony Stark, the overall cheese level is kept pleasantly low and tolerable to Mild Cheddar (1 out of 5).
Books:	While simplistic at times, the overall story works and easily earns four books out of five.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #25

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#25: Megamind

When it comes to superhero movies, it’s rare to find one that takes the superhero ideal and turns it in on itself without coming off as being incredibly cheesy. And yet, this movie manages to pull it off.

“Megamind” is a computer-animated superhero comedy movie released in 2010 by DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Tom McGrath and featured the voices of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, and Brad Pitt. It was released in both traditional and 3D formats in the theatres but only in 2D format in the DVD release.

The story begins with a rip-off of the Superman legend, namely a blue alien baby from a dying world is sent into space by his loving parents. He is given some last-minute messages and his “minion” in the form of a sentient fish before being launched into space. Unfortunately as his ship travels to Earth, it runs in conflict with another orphaned baby ship containing the “perfect baby”, and the two orphan ships race to find the “suitable family” for their babies. The “perfect” baby ends up appearing in the living room of a wealthy couple on Christmas Day while the blue alien baby ends up in a prison yard. From there, the two grow up to be in constant conflict with each other. The “perfect” child would do everything right, while the blue child would end up getting tormented and blamed for everything.

Eventually the two grow up to be rivals in Metro City, with the “perfect” child becoming the superhero Metro Man (Pitt) and the blue child becoming the evil villain Megamind (Ferrell). And for years, the two of them have the same routine, consisting of Megamind kidnapping nosy reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Fey), putting her well-being in peril, and Metro Man would foil the “master plan” and send Megamind back to prison, where he would later escape and do the same thing over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So when Metro City honors Metro Man with his own museum and gigantic statue, Megamind cannot help but device the “ultimate” plan to humiliate Metro Man. With the help of Minion (Cross), Megamind kidnaps Roxanne and holds her hostage, knowing Metro Man would rush to her rescue, and accidentally fall into his deathtrap. But then, much to the surprise of everyone, Metro Man announces that the deathtrap is made of copper; his one weakness. When the trap is blown up by Megamind’s death ray, a skeleton wearing Metro Man’s cape is thrown from the blast area. At long last, Megamind has won and Metro Man is dead.

For a while Megamind uses Metro City as his own playground, but he quickly discovers he is bored by it all. There is no joy in being evil when there is no hero to save the day. While he prepares to blow up the Metro Man Museum, he accidentally comes across Roxanne, who also wished that Metro Man was still around. Killing the museum curator and taking his place, Megamind begins to befriend Roxanne and decides to follow her idea of creating a new hero. He takes a sample of Metro Man’s DNA to create a serum that would give someone superpowers. But Megamind accidentally sends the serum into Hal Stewart (Hill), Roxanne’s simple-minded cameraman who is head-over-heels in unrequited love with her.

Determined to turn Hal into the superhero worthy of replacing Metro Man, Megamind and Minion launch a scheme to trick Hal into thinking he’s really a “space baby” just like Metro Man. Megamind pulls this off by using the same holographic watch he uses to trick Roxanne into thinking he’s the museum curator, and turns himself into “space dad” (which is a knock-off of Marlon Brando’s Jor-El from the “Superman” movie).

Thus we have a montage of scenes of Megamind getting to know Roxanne and of him training Hal into becoming a superhero known as Titan (or “Tighten”, since it was the only name he could trademark). He also begins to clean up Metro City from his earlier celebrations, much to the pleasure of Roxanne, who begins to think that Megamind isn’t as “evil” as he used to be.

On the evening before the “Big Battle”, Hal, as Titan, shows up outside Roxanne’s apartment to woo her, only to have her utterly reject him. Meanwhile, Minion finds out that Megamind has been sneaking away to see Roxanne in disguise and that he is actually falling in love with Roxanne. Minion reminds Megamind that “the bad guy does not get the girl”, causing Megamind to blurt out that maybe he doesn’t want to be “the bad guy” anymore. With Minion leaving him in disgust, Megamind’s date with Roxanne becomes a disaster, with her finding out that he has been impersonating the curator, and proclaiming that she could never see herself with someone like him.

Dejected, Megamind orders his numerous robot drones to prepare his “Black Mamba” outfit so he can kick off his “big battle” with Titan in style. Sauntering into Metro City in his giant robot with AC/DC’s “Black in Black” playing in the background, Megamind calls out Titan, only to spend the whole day doing nothing but waiting in front of City Hall. Much to his horror, Titan has been spending his time stealing whatever he wanted.

Revealing that he’s really both “Space Dad” and the guy dating Roxanne, Megamind goads Titan into the promised battle, until Titan announces that he’s going to actually kill Megamind for not working with him. This forces Megamind to use his “contingency plan” and contain Titan in a ball made of copper. Unfortunately Titan breaks through the ball, much to the surprise of Megamind since Titan should have the same weakness as Metro Man. Megamind leaves, and Titan announces that the city wasn’t really “saved” as it was placed under “new management”.

And we’ll leave it here, because the rest will spoil the ending.

The movie is a great play on the classic superhero story, showing how the “eternal battle” gets to the point that it becomes boring to the participants. And of course there is the “Wiley E. Coyote” dilemma of what do you do when you get what you’ve been chasing for so long. The good guy always wins, the bad guy always loses, so what happens when the bad guy finally wins? This movie plays up on it quite well.

The vocal casting is done quite well. If you didn’t know it was Will Ferrell doing the voice of Megamind, you wouldn’t have guessed. On the other hand, you can see the facial mannerisms of Roxanne and see Tina Fey doing her voice, and the same holds true to Brad Pitt doing Metro Man’s voice. The characters are done over-the-top, but only just enough to avoid being cheesy.

The use of well-recognized pop songs to mark the arrival of Megamind help sell the character, although a few songs delved more into the “music video” category than helping to sell the story. This was the mistake that the people behind “Zoom” made as well, although DreamWorks didn’t go as far as Sony Pictures did.

In all this is a good hero comedy movie, and one that even villains should be able to enjoy.

Capes:	I’m hesitant to give this movie five capes. The hero level certainly gives it four capes.
Cheese:	While this is a comedy, and a great play on the classic hero story, there is still some cheese to it. I won’t say where because it will ruin the ending, but you’ll know when you see it. Don’t worry; it’s just Mild Cheddar (2).
Books:	Megamind is a good story, although not great, and with the few songs used more for “music video” than to convey a story, I have to give it three books out of five.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #22

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#22: Fantastic Four

In the world of comic, the “Fantastic Four” are dubbed “The First Superhero Family”, although in many instances they are the “First Dysfunctional Superhero Family”. Created in 1961 by comic legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the “Fantastic Four” focus on the quartet team of Reed “Mister Fantastic” Richards, Susan “Invisible Girl” Storm, Johnny “Human Torch” Storm, and Ben “The Ever-Loving Blue-Eyed Thing” Grimm. It was the first team series published by Marvel Comics, and it would also be the series that would introduce some of Marvel’s signature villain, including Victor Von Doom (aka “Doctor Doom”) and Galactus. It would also introduce notable cosmic beings The Watcher and Silver Surfer.

The quartet roster would change over the decades as Reed and Susan got married and had children. Temporary members include She-Hulk, Storm (from the X-Men), the Hulk, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, and Wolverine. This was also a rare superhero team that did not have secret identities, as their lives were as about as public as Hollywood celebrities, and even their Baxter Building stood out in the New York City skyline.

Needless to say, Marvel Comics desperately wanted to do a movie featuring this team, and in the 1980’s they gave the rights to Constatin Film.

Unfortunately those rights were set to expire in 1992 unless filming began before then. Determined to keep the film rights, the studio hired famed B-movie director Roger Corman (of “Battle Beyond the Stars”, “Death Race 2000” and “Galaxy of Terror”) to direct this on the cheap. Production was finished in 1993 and was given an “official” release date for 1994. The cast and crew were all supposedly led to believe that even if the movie would not be released, their work would be used at some point as a pilot for a TV series. The studio then announced that the movie would never be released EVER, all copies were destroyed, any mention of the movie was purged from the books, and all participants were then shipped to undisclosed locations to have their memories wiped by Charles Xavier. (Okay, I’m kidding about the last two parts.)

Bear in mind that the first rule of denying the existence of a movie means that it WILL show up as bootleg releases at comic and fantasy conventions, which is how THIS reviewer knows that the original movie exists!

But with Constatin Film keeping the rights of the film, they were eventually able to raise the money needed to come up with a proper major studio production and release of the “Fantastic Four” movie.

“Fantastic Four” (or “Fantastic 4” as it was alternatively titled) was released by 20^th Century Fox for Constantin Film in 2005, directed by Tim Story. It stars Ioan Gruffuld, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, and Laurie Holden, with special cameo appearance by Stan Lee.

The film starts with Reed Richards (Gruffuld) and Ben Grimm (Chicklis) arriving at the door of Von Doom Industries to convince Reed’s old MIT classmate Victor Von Doom (McMahon) to finance his experiment. Reed believed that life on Earth came from a wave of cosmic energy that was set to make its return, and he planned on measuring its effects in space. But when NASA said no to the idea, Reed turned to Victor for help. Victor agrees to the project, provided he goes up to the station with them along with his girlfriend, Dr. Susan Storm (Alba), and her brother, thrill-seeking pilot Johnny (Evans). Reed looks forward to working with Susan again, although Ben objects both to Victor’s presence and to Johnny piloting the shuttle.

In the private space station, Reed discovers that the cosmic wave would reach them sooner than earlier predicted, and it sweeps the station before they could retreat to join Victor in the safety of the shielded sections. They find themselves back on Earth in quarantine, unsure of what the cosmic radiation would do to them.

Sure enough, they each discover the radiation had changed their bodies. Johnny found out his body could generate heat and fire without burning him. Susan’s body could turn invisible and project invisible waves outward. Reed could stretch any part of his body to seemingly infinite lengths. Ben, however, suffers the worst of the changes as he becomes a rock-skinned creature with a deep gravely voice. His changes are so dramatic that his fiancée Debbie (Holden) wants nothing to do with him. Depressed, Ben finds himself on the Brooklyn Bridge and inadvertently causes a scene which has the police and fire department rushing over. When a traffic accident knocks a responding ladder truck over the bridge, the others quickly move to contain the damage and save lives, with their actions being broadcast on TV around the world. The media dubs them the “Fantastic Four”, and Reed takes control of the team and announces they would retreat to the Baxter Building for further study. The change of scenery allow Reed and Susan to get closer, and Ben even ends up with a new girlfriend, in the form of blind artist Alicia Masters (Washington).

The news of the “Fantastic Four” along with the disaster of the space station bankrupts Doom’s business and his investors quickly abandon him. But Doom was also changed from the cosmic wave, and soon he develops electro-magnetic powers as well as taking on a metallic appearance. Reaching for a metallic mask that was once a gift, Doom vows revenge on Reed Richards and his new “family”.

I’m going to leave the rest for you to discover, but sufficient to say the rest of the film does both the characters and their creators justice.

The movie is a welcomed break from the original comic origins, which involved the Mole Man and one of his giant creatures. It provides an easier explanation for their powers, as well as the “unstable molecules” idea that would become key to explain how they could use their powers without ending up naked (something that Alba’s Susan Storm found out the hard way on more than one occasion). I do, however, have to balk at it used to justify Reed’s sudden “touch of grey”.

The casting was top-notch, especially with Chicklis and Evans. Chicklis lived up to the character both as Ben Grimm and as The Thing. Sadly, McMahon’s character of Doom, although narcissistic and sociopathic in nature, was a little wooden… or, in this case, mechanical. Overall the story jumped a few places, but not in crucial ones. I’m surprised that for someone who couldn’t afford to pay his bills, Reed could somehow get funding for the equipment they used when they moved into the Baxter Building. Where was all this equipment at Von Doom’s undisclosed hospital? Or did they blow the money on restaurant settings, helipads, and hot escorts doubling as nurses?

There are multiple versions of the DVD release, including an expanded version that incorporated some of the deleted or alternate scenes. Get them if you wish, but the movie enough is worth the purchase.

Having seen both this version and the original Corman incarnation, I have to say that the executives at Constatin Film redeemed themselves with this release, although it still does not justify the level of duplicity they used surrounding the 1993 production.

Capes:	The heroic qualities of the film gave it four capes out of five.
Cheese:	Sadly, a lot of sharp cheddar (3) cheese, mostly by Evans’ hammy performance and the montage of Johnny’s various pranks and jokes at the expense of Ben.
Books:	Good story, but lacking in a few areas. It only gets four out of five books.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #19

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#19: Superman Returns

After the abysmal failure that was “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace”, the whole Superman franchise was thankfully sent to movie limbo. Superman was relegated to the “Superboy” TV series, a brief Saturday Morning cartoon series on CBS, a romantic comedy series “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” on ABC, and back to the world of cartoons with “Superman: The Animated Series” and “Justice League”, and then in the anti-Superboy series “Smallville”. In the comics, he was killed by Doomsday, he came back to life, he finally married Lois Lane, and he finally brought down Lex Luthor.

The call went out to bring Superman back to the big screens, especially after Marvel proved with “Spider-Man” and “X-Men” that big-budget superhero movies still worked.

Warner Brothers considered several approaches. Directors Tim Burton, McG, Kevin Smith, and JJ Abrams each took a shot at trying to come up with something. Superman was going to be played by Ben Affleck, Nicholas Cage, Tom Welling (who already plays anti-Superman Clark in “Smallville”), Ashton Kutcher, Brendan Fraser… well pretty much anyone who was young and had a leading role someplace was approached to play Superman. The “Doomsday” story was going to be re-created. Then it was “Batman vs. Superman”. Then it was Superman versus Brainiac.

Finally it fell to “X-Men” director Bryan Singer, who said that he was a huge fan of the original Richard Donner movie, and he managed to bring Superman back to the big screen.

“Superman Returns” was released by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures in 2006, and it starred Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, Parker Posey, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Sam Huntingon, Eva Marie Saint, Tristian Lake Leabu, and - thanks to the magic of modern technology - the late Marlon Brando. The film also brings back brief appearances by Noel Neill and Jack Larson.

The film starts with a text introduction of Superman’s brief origin and mentions that scientists had discovered the possible remains of the Planet Krypton. We then see Krypton as the voice of Jor-El (Brando) gives an important speech from father-to-son. This is the same speech made in the original “Superman” film. As we pull away from Krypton, we see the massive red sun as it collapses into a nova. The shockwave of the destroyed sun then tears Krypton apart, scattering its remains outward. (This is similar to way Krypton was destroyed in the original movie, albeit not as realistic-looking.)

As the credits roll in the same manner as the original film, we travel through space seeing all sorts of cosmic wonders. We finally arrive on Earth, where Martha Kent (Saint) is cleaning up after a night of Scrabble. Suddenly a huge object crashes into the field. She drives out to find a crashed Kryptonian ship, and Clark Kent/Superman (Routh) wearing a grey-and-black Kryptonian bodysuit.

Elsewhere, an elderly woman (Neill) is on her last breath as she praises the man she loved and helped to make her last days special. As her relatives pound on the door begging to be let in, she uses the last of her strength to sign away everything she has to Lex Luthor (Spacey). Luthor pulls off his toupee and tells the family he owns everything, and then leaves with the maid (Posey) who was working for him all along.

The next morning, Clark reflects on his childhood in Kansas, remembering when he could first fly and no longer needing glasses. He tells his adopted mother that he buried the crashed ship so nobody would find it, and that, despite what the scientists originally suggested, there was nothing left of Krypton. He notes that the world had gotten worse since he left and wonders if there is a place for him as well.

Luthor and Kitty travel by yacht north as he lectures her on the story of Prometheus, the god who shared fire with the humans. Kitty says that he’s no god, to which Luthor says that gods are people in capes (Superman) who fly around and don’t “share” their power with the people. He doesn’t want to be a god, he just wants to share “the fire”… and get his cut. Wait, I thought he wanted LAND.

We discover that Luthor has found Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, and activated the crystal control panel, where the spirit of Jor-El (using footage from the first movie digitally remastered) mistakes him for Kal-El. Kitty comments that Lex acts like he’s been there before (a subtle hint to “Superman II”). Then Lex asks the spirit of Jor-El to tell him everything, starting with the crystals.

Clark returns to the Daily Planet, where his return is largely ignored by everyone except Jimmy Olson (Huntington). Perry White (Langella) comments that he only got his job back because another reporter had the audacity to die. Jimmy gets Clark caught up on what had happened, including how Lois Lane is engaged, has a son, and has finally won her much-sought Pulitzer Prize… for an article entitled “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”. How’s that for a kick in the codpiece?

Back at Lex’s new home (which is now missing one pet dog), his henchmen shave off a sliver of one of the Fortress crystals and then drops it into the miniature lake of a railroad set. At first nothing happens. Then the ground beings to shake and all electricity is shut off.

As Clark and Jimmy have a lunchtime drink and tell their sorrows to the bartender (Larson), they watch Lois Lane (Bosworth) on board the launch jet of an experimental shuttle as it ascends. Suddenly the power goes out in the bar. This is followed by the power going out at NASA. This is followed by the power going out on the shuttle and the jet. Power is quickly restored, but both the jet and the space plane are locked in launch mode, hurling into the upper reaches of space.

News of the runaway space plane and airline cuts across all networks. Clark runs into a nearby alley and rips open his shirt to show the legendary “S” shield. Superman is then seen racing into space to catch up with the jet and the shuttle. He uses his heat vision to separate the shuttle from the jet and guides it into a safe orbit, then races down to catch the jet, which is now in a free-fall. He catches the jet and brings it safely down in the middle of a ballfield. Lois is shocked to discover he has returned and, in a scene reminiscent of the first movie, tells everyone flying is still the safest way to travel. As he leaves the plane, his face is shown on cameras all around the world and everyone cheers at his return as he flies off into the skies… and as Lois faints down the emergency slide.

Later Clark catches up with Lois, who is also introduced to her fiancé Richard White (Marsten) and their son Jason (Leabu), who suffers from asthma. Richard is Perry’s nephew, which probably explains how he somehow managed to get an editor’s position. Clark is also shocked to learn that Luthor was acquitted of all charges after Superman wasn’t on Earth to testify in the appeal of his conviction. Feeling rejected after peeping into the White Family life, Superman spends his time saving the world from all sorts of problems, and Lex is busy getting his new master plan in motion.

I don’t want to ruin the whole story for those who haven’t seen it, so I’m going to leave it there. Sufficient to say, Lex’s old ambitions from the first movie will come back to the forefront, and we discover another reason for us to hear Jor-El’s speech from father-to-son.

First, this hero reviewer has to thank Director Singer for doing what twenty years could not… and that is to get us to FORGET about “Superman III”, “Supergirl”, and especially “Superman IV”. And it did it from the first few minutes on in by bringing us back to the original movie, with Jor-El and the score from John Williams.

Brandon Routh looks like he was born to inherit the cape from the late Christopher Reeve. He plays both Superman and Clark Kent in the same way as Reeve once did, and I would dare say that at times he does Clark one step better than Reeve did. This Clark Kent isn’t a total bumbling buffoon. The only disturbing part about his Superman character is when he uses his powers to peep into the White household. Understandable, given his abilities, but still somewhat disturbing.

Kate Bosworth did an okay job as Lois Lane, although somewhat detached. She looks great as a brunette… far better than her natural blonde color… but she doesn’t really fit into the role as did Margot Kidder, or even as Erica Durance does in “Smallville”.

On the other hand, Kevin Spacey does an EXCELLENT Lex Luthor, and he outdoes Gene Hackman’s comedic approach to the character from the original movie. He does make wisecracks, but he is also very, VERY dangerous, and he lets the audience know just how dangerous he really is after getting out of prison.

Parker Posey as Kitty, Luthor’s girl-of-the-moment, is also one step above Valerie Perrine’s Eve Tessmacher. She’s not there to be eye candy. She’s there to be Luthor’s assistant, and she’s not an idiot, even though she is often treated as one.

And then there’s Eva Marie Saint as Martha Kent. Though she only has a limited role in this movie, she still lives up the part of Clark’s adopted mother in both the beginning and near the end of the film.

As for the movie itself, the special effects are mind-blowing! From Krypton’s destruction, to Superman catching the falling plane, to the various ways he stops bullets and saves Metropolis, to just watching him hover over Metropolis listening in for problems, they all make you feel like he’s really doing these things.

Sadly, though, the story is just a bit off in a few places. Superman blowing out a natural gas fire like it was a candle is one of them. A sonic wave by clapping his hands would have resolved that. The effect of the Kryptonian crystals shutting down power EVERYWHERE, even in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, didn’t make sense either. On land, okay. But in the air too? And how is it that the SLIVER of the crystal could cause far more of an effect EVERYWHERE opposed to the whole crystal itself?

Although this movie doesn’t really fit in with the whole Superman series (and I’ll have more on that in a future special comment), it certainly should have been. Singer, Routh, and company brought the Superman series back from cinema limbo. Now it is up to Warner Brothers to make sure they don’t squander the second chance they were given.

Capes:	Clearly earned all five capes.
Cheese:	Although there is some cheese, it’s only Swiss (1), and a far improvement from the full-blown limburger of the previous films.
Books:	Sadly, I could only give it four books out of five. There’s a good story in there, but not a GREAT story.

Ask Captain Catastrophe #15: Influence

The legendary team-killer is BACK with a new YouTube video! And stay tuned to the very end for the special announcement regarding the Captain!

Recognition and a Villain Video

Thanks to the persistence of yours truly and the leader of the City of Comic Creators, the administrators (aka "Red Names") of the City of Heroes forums have started a new announcement thread for all C.C.C. releases.

First comic announced... "Guardians of the Dawn Spotlight" Issue #10!

It's good to see the comic series finally get some recognition!

Meanwhile, I came across this great video from Powerman 5000 that I wish they came out earlier with so it could have been included in the City of Heroes & Villains Soundtrack on iTunes. Enjoy!

Samuraiko Strikes Again!

Michelle/Dark Respite/Samuraiko has done another great music video, proving once again that City of Heroes RULES over the hero competition!

A Mirror Dimly - Going Rogue Preview

Long before a certain Alaska governor decided to use it as her book title, "Going Rogue" was the name of the next major evolutionary step for the City of Heroes MMO.

Now there is a new teaser video...

Thanks as always to my friend Michelle/Samuraiko for taking the time to do this. Please visit her site to download the high-def version and see some of the other work she has done.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #18

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#18: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

"Superman/Batman: Public Enemies” was released by Warner Brothers as a direct-to-video movie in 2009. It is the latest in a string of direct-to-video movies based on previous comic storylines. In this case, the first six issues of the “Superman/Batman” series, which was created in homage to the old “World’s Finest” series.

“Public Enemies” was adapted from Jeph Loeb’s six-part series by Stan Berkowitz, and directed by longtime DC Universe animator Bruce Timm. The movie reunites some of the DCU Animated’s best voice actors, as well as brings in a connection to the CW series “Smallville”, and the long-overdue animated debut of a certain fan-favorite character.

We start with a quick glimpse into a possible future. The United States is in a full-blown financial meltdown, even worse than it has been recently. Misery leads to anger, anger leads to rioting, rioting leads to martial law. And in the turmoil and talk of revolt, one man steps forward offering hope and change… and that man is…

LEX LUTHOR!

No, seriously. Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) not only becomes a serious contender for the White House, but he wins. And as soon as he gets sworn in, he fixes the economy. Times are easier. The sun is shining brighter. And he also has a plan to deal with some of the other loose ends in society… namely the superheroes. To that end, he has recruited his own super-team consisting of Captain Atom (Xander Berkley from “24”), Katanna (Chiara Zanni), Black Lightning (LeVar Burton from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), Major Force (Ricardo Chavira from “Desperate Housewives”), Starfire (Jennifer Hale), and… Power Girl (Allison Mack from “Smallville”).

Wait, you thought I would say “Supergirl”, right? I’ll get back to that one.

What’s missing from this group, though, are the “big guns”. Namely Superman (Tim Daly) and Batman (Kevin Conroy). Despite Captain Atom’s rather condescending recruiting effort, the Man of Steel isn’t buying the idea that Lex has either changed or that he’s really done some good as President. But soon President Luthor has a reason to reach out to Superman… in the form of a giant chunk of Kryptonite making its way to Earth. An asteroid so large it would destroy all life on the planet if it hits, and full of so much Kryptonite radiation that Superman would not be able to get near it much less try to divert or stop it, even if he wore lead armor.

Luthor has a plan to launch high-powered nuclear missiles at the asteroid, which he says would work because HE did all the calculations. But his experts, including his advisor Amanda Waller (CCH Pounder), want Superman involved “just in case”.

Superman agrees to meet with Luthor, and Luthor demands complete accommodation. He wants Superman to work FOR him, not just WITH him. And then Superman begins to weaken. He discovers that Luthor’s Secret Service bodyguard is really John Corben, a.k.a. Metallo (John C. McGinley), the cyborg with a Kryptonite heart. This leads to a battle in a graveyard, with Batman joining in. Metallo uses a sliver of Kryptonite broken off in the fight to create a bullet which he shoots into Superman’s chest. Batman tries to extract it, but not before Metallo buries them both in an open grave.

I won’t say what happens next, but sufficient to say they escape their shared grave and make their way to the Batcave. We are treated to a great conversation between the two about shared villains before arriving at the cave and being treated by Alfred (Alan Openheimer). Luthor then addresses the nation, declaring Superman unstable and a threat to the country because of the approaching Kryptonite. He puts a bounty of one billion dollars on Superman’s head. (Yes, that’s BILLION with a “B”.)

As you can imagine, just about every villain in the DC Universe big and small come out of the woodwork to claim that bounty, so we are treated to plenty of fighting before Captain Atom’s team comes in, and then we have still more fighting. And our “most wanted” get an ally, which leads to still MORE fighting; including bringing in two more iconic figures that can match Superman and Batman in brains and brawn.

Meanwhile Lex’s plan was a big failure… no big surprise there. But what is surprising is that he doesn’t seem to CARE that it failed. There’s a reason why, but I won’t spoil it for you. You can probably guess what it is.

Sadly, without giving away the ending, this is where the story starts to break down. Stopping the Kryptonite follows the story set in the comic series with a few twists. Dealing with President Luthor also TRIES to follow that story, but obviously fails, partly because the reasons in the comic series were a little more complicated. But even without the extraneous circumstances there was room to better resolve that subject without making it overly cheesy, which it was.

The vocal casting was OUTSTANDING. Bringing in Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy, and Clancy Brown together for the first time in nine years was a great feat because it really made the banter between the characters stand out. Then you throw in Allison Mack, CCH Pounder, John C. McGinley, Ricardo Chavira, and LeVar Burton, and you end up with an incredible talent pool to work with.

And unfortunately, some of that talent is badly under-utilized. LeVar Burton has only ONE cognitive line in the whole movie outside of the usual fight-scene grunts. In the comics, Black Lightning is not only a superhero, but in his civilian guise as a schoolteacher he served as the Secretary of Education! I was hoping to catch some of that personality in the movie, even if for a minute, and there were opportunities to bring it in. Amanda Waller was the most formidable woman behind-the-scenes even before Luthor was President, but in the comics she wasn’t just an “advisor”, she was a member of Luthor’s cabinet. This is a woman that knows where all the closet skeletons are and she doesn’t play games! In the comics, the “unnamed general” would have been General Sam Lane, Secretary of Defense and father-in-law to Clark Kent. These are all elements that WOULD have fleshed out the story much better if the folks at DC gave them more time to use them.

The penultimate battle involving Superman, Batman, and their two “adversaries” was FAR shorter than it should have been, with far less banter. There is reference to a certain maneuver, but in the comics there was an explanation as to WHAT it is and to WHO reportedly invented it. That too could have been mentioned to flesh out the action and it wasn’t.

Sadly it appears that this video, like many others before it, have succumbed to the unseen requirement that EVERY made-for-video production for the DC Universe fit into Cartoon Network’s broadcast schedule, even though the Time Warner-owned cable channel has decided to go with live action and still more recycled anime. It is this requirement that has slashed otherwise potentially great stories into pieces. DCU people should just make the movie and let Cartoon Network decide for themselves how many of their shows they would have to pre-empt if they wish to air it.

The BIGGEST plus to this movie is the inclusion of Power Girl. For those who do not know, Power Girl was an alternate world’s version of Supergirl, only she never wore the colors and she was always more WOMAN than GIRL. (That’s why she is also very much a fan favorite as well as one of my favorites.) It was always hard to explain her in the DC Universe outside of the comics, especially since they needed to differentiate her from Supergirl. The writers got around this by just not saying who she is. They just put her in the movie and showed that she had SOME sort of connection to Superman, but that it was never explained. Casting Allison Mack (Chloe Sullivan from “Smallville”) made the character sound mature and naïve without sounding like a ditz. The only downside was they made her face look TOO much like an anime character, which didn’t fit when you look at how they showed villainesses like Giganta, Shiva, and Silver Banshee. Other than that, she was essentially the fourth star of the film, and she rightly deserved to be there.

There are some canonical references that go unexplained in the movie, such as Superman’s funeral, Superman married to Lois Lane, the conversation about a villain named Magpie, which each do a great job fleshing out the friendship that Batman and Superman have. If they had spent as much time with the ending as they did with these little details during the first half of the movie, it would be an OUTSTANDING production.

In terms of heroes, you can’t find a better definition than with Superman and Batman. They do what is right, not just what is “expected” of them, and their inner-strength helps sway others to the cause.

If you read the comics, be prepared to do a LOT of face-planting, especially at the end. If you watched the Justice League animated series, you’ll be a little confused by some of the differences. But if you’re neither of these, you’ll probably enjoy ninety-percent of the movie and grit-and-grimace over the ending.

Capes:	It earned all five capes easily.
Cheese:	It starts out with little cheese but unfortunately went into sharp cheddar (3) by the end.
Books:	SOLID storyline at first, but how it wraps up brings it down from four books to two.

i16 The REAL Video

My friend Michelle/Dark Respite/Samuraiko is back in the video business just in time to show off Issue 16!



SHE KNOWS how to promote an Issue release!

Now let's compare that to the "official" video...


It's splashy, but a little vague. Michelle still wins hands-down!

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #17

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#17: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

The Superman movie series took a tremendous downturn starting with the overdose of cheese in “Superman II”. This followed with “Superman III” becoming nothing more than a Richard Pryor movie, and with the spin-off “Supergirl” suffering from bad writing and abysmal reviews. Even though father-and-son super-team of Alexander and Ilya Salikind as well as Superman star Christopher Reeve believed that the whole run was done with, SOMEONE still wanted there to be at least one more sequel. It was, after all, getting close to the fiftieth anniversary of Superman’s comic book debut. So Ilya Salikind sold the rights over to Cannon Films and action-film producers Golan & Globus, and they gave Reeve a sweetheart deal to wear the polyester tights and cape one last time.

“Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” was released by Cannon Films in 1987. It was directed by Sidney Furie, best know for the teen-friendly action movie “Iron Eagle”. It starred (for one last time) the remaining members of the Superman franchise, namely Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marc McClure, Gene Hackman, and Jackie Cooper, along with Mariel Hemmingway, Sam Wanamaker, Jon Cryer, and Mark Pillow.

Fair warning… if you were thinking about spending some Netflix money on this, I’m going to do you a favor and spare you the effort.

The film starts with Superman (Reeve) saving a team of Soviet Cosmonauts after their ship was hit by a rogue satellite. He somehow can speak in airless space and have the Cosmonauts hear him. (This actually goes back to “Superman II”, so this is really an old story flaw.) Back on Earth, Superman changes to Clark Kent and visits the old Kent farm in Smallville. His adopted mother had long since died and Clark isn’t there to take care of the place, but he still refuses to sell it to anyone except an actual farmer. Once he’s by himself, he goes into the barn and pulls out the trap door that hides his original spaceship (going back to the first movie) and hears a recording from his birth mother Lara (instead of Jor-El, simply because Cannon Films did not want to pay to have Marlon Brando make a cameo) giving him one final gift… the ship’s energy module (which looks remarkably like the same glowing green crystal from the first two movies), which can only be used once and then the last piece of Krypton would be gone. He removes the crystal and makes the ship disintegrate (through a strange god-power he apparently has).

Meanwhile, legendary super-villain Lex Luthor (Hackman) shows his disdain for his fellow prisoners and announces that he has plans to recreate “life itself”. His mutual hate-fest, though, is cut short by the arrival of his dim-witted nephew Lenny (Cryer) in a tricked-out car designed to take out the prison guards to facilitate his escape.

Returning to Metropolis, Clark finds out that the Daily Planet has been taken over by a tabloid tycoon named David Warfield (Wanamaker), who quickly turns the Planet into something resembling the New York Post. The changes don’t sit well with Perry White (Cooper), nor is the fact that he now answers to Warfield and his daughter Lacy (Hemmingway), who has her own ideas of how the paper should look, as well as her sights on Clark, much to the protests of Lois Lane (Kidder).

When diplomatic relations between the US and the USSR begin to break down, a schoolchild named Jeremy writes a letter to Superman via the Daily Planet, asking him to help stop the threat of nuclear annihilation. Superman is torn by his desire to step in and his promise to Jor-El of not interfering with human history, causing his hesitation to result with the Daily Planet leading with the headline “Superman says Drop Dead to Kid”. This headline also causes Perry White to quit. Bye-bye Perry.

Superman seeks guidance at the Fortress of Solitude… wait, wasn’t that destroyed in “Superman II”? Anyway, the floating heads of the Kryptonian elders (all two of them) tell him that he should forget about the Earth and find a new home where war is forgotten. He then invites Lois over to his place, revealing to her in the lamest way possible that Clark Kent is Superman, and then takes her on a whirlwind tour of the world, complete with a resurrection of the first movie’s love theme, before flying her back to his apartment, whereby in her conversation she reveals that she now remembers EVERYTHING about their previous encounters. She gives him a pep talk, tells him that he’ll make the right decision because he always does it, and then he gives her the super-forget kiss (from the second movie) and she once again is back to her “Oh Clark, Poor Clark” self.

As Jimmy Olson (McClure) is giving Jeremy a tour, Superman appears and walks with Jeremy over to the United Nations building, with a whole group of spectators, and Lois and Lacy in tow (who just HAPPEN to have been driving in front of the UN building), where he addresses the delegates and announces he is a citizen of the Earth and that, effective immediately, he will rid the world of all nuclear weapons. Cue the momentous applause and the tears of joy from Lois.

We then get to see several minutes of missile launches from various submarines and mobile launch units. With each launch, Superman soars in and grabs each missile and collects them in a giant net in space. He then hammer-throws the collection into the sun in what is one of the WORST perspective animations this side of a Rob Liefeld comic.

As Superman is enacting his own disarmament policy, Lex is meeting with the arms dealers that are going out of business and brokers a deal with them. Using a strand of Superman’s hair, which he and Lenny stole from a museum with help of some extra-large bolt cutters, Lex has developed a device that will create a clone of Superman called the Nuclear Man, and he will destroy Superman. They agree to attach the device to one of their missiles and allows Lex (disguised as a four-star general) to personally launch it. Superman throws the missile into the sun and the device creates the Nuclear Man (played by Pillow, but voiced by Hackman). Nuclear Man arrives on Earth and Lex reveals that his creation has one obvious weakness in that it must always be in sunlight, or else he becomes useless… like the movie’s writers.

We spend several minutes playing super-speed tag team with Lois and Lacy on a double-date with Clark and Superman before Lex interrupts the gag and tells Superman that he’s going to destroy twenty stories of a nearby building. He really won’t (again, going back to the first movie) but it allows the two of them to chit-chat before Lex tells Nuclear Man to destroy Superman.

We then get several minutes of Superman and Nuclear Man fighting around the world. Nuclear Man destroys the Great Wall of China and Superman rebuilds it with but a stare of his god-glance power. Nuclear Man causes Mount Vesuvius to erupt and Superman caps it with the top of a nearby mountain. Nuclear Man rips the Statue of Liberty off its perch and throws it at the Daily Planet, and as Superman catches it and returns it to its place, Nuclear Man uses his extendable “death nails” to scratch Superman and make him mortal. Nuclear Man then punts Superman off the island, with his cape landing conveniently on Lady Liberty’s torch.

As the Daily Planet launches a new headline announcing Superman as being dead, Lois quits and storms out of the editor’s office with the cape that Warfield acquired “cheap”. She goes to see Clark, who is suffering from radiation sickness. She gives him a good-bye message for Superman and gives him the cape.

Lex has decided to turn on his new financiers after putting them back in the warmongering business and take over their empires. He’s confident that Nuclear Man will keep him in control of things.

That night, Superman uses that glowing green crystal as the voice of his dead mother tells him that once he uses it, he will be completely a child of Earth. (Hey, what about the Fortress? Or did he destroy it AGAIN?)

The next morning, Nuclear Man wakes up to a picture of Lacy Warfield on the front page of the Daily Planet and decides to go visit her. On his way to the Daily Planet, he encounters Superman, no longer looking like a refugee of “The Day After”. Nuclear Man uses his powers to throw several people into the air and cause destruction. Superman sets down the people with his mysterious god-glance power and says he’ll take Nuclear Man to see “the woman”. (Does Superman really know which “woman” he’s thinking of? Or does he think it’s Lois?) It’s a ruse, though, as Superman throws him into an elevator car (in the dark), then hauls it up to the moon, where a sunrise on the moon awakens Nuclear Man and we get a couple more minutes of a lunar battle until Nuclear Man plants Superman into the lunar surface and buries him. Then he flies back to Metropolis and kidnaps Lacy.

Superman pulls himself out from his makeshift grave, then moves the moon into a lunar eclipse. Lacy finds herself in outer space, somehow alive and able to breathe, and her kidnapper is without power. Superman rescues her, takes her back to Earth, then flies back to get the comatose Nuclear Man and drops him into a nuclear reactor, which gives the power plant a power surge and makes everything shine brighter.

Apparently Perry White used his away-time to line up some new financiers so he would become the majority shareholder and fires Warfield and his daughter, so Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are all back in business. (Wait, Jimmy quit too? When was this?) Superman then has a more somber press conference and announces that while he “tried” to make the world nuclear-free, he couldn’t really do it, but that the people of the world WOULD have peace someday, but only when they want it bad enough. Awww…. Then he captures Lenny and drops him off at Boys Town, then drops Lex off back at the rock quarry, where everyone there is pleased to have “Mozart” back. Superman explains how he managed to figure out Nuclear Man’s weakness and tells Lex that the world is where it always is… on the brink of being vaporized. Smile, fly off into a low orbit, and soar into the sunrise. Roll the credits.

There… once again I saved you some Netflix money.

Let me preface this scathing condemnation by saying that this is not THE WORST hero movie. “Batman and Robin” is certainly worse. There are some movies that I haven’t reviewed (yet) that are worse than “Superman IV”, including “Megaforce”, “Masters of the Universe”, and the 1990 movie “Captain America” (here’s a hint: rubber human ears). But it certainly was THE WORST of the whole Superman film series. In fact a Saturday Night Live skit featuring Bill Murray as Superman was better than this movie.

I feel sorry for the late Christopher Reeve for having been talked into playing Superman one last time, being given a sweetheart of a deal with Cannon Films, and then having the studio pull the rug out from under him at every opportunity. At least cape-killer Joel Schumacher and the suits at Warner Brothers both had the courage to say up front when making “Batman and Robin” that they were making a glorified Saturday Morning cartoon.

The overall theme of having Superman save the world from nuclear war is noble. And the scene of him addressing the United Nations General Assembly was absolutely the best part of the whole film. But the idea got lost once Lex Luthor and his comedic troupe came on the scene. Suddenly it wasn’t about nuclear war. It was about Nuclear Man. It was about Lex Luthor dressing up as a gaudy hetero Liberace playing with piles of money. It was even about lame-ass Valley Dud Lenny, who actually did more than bumbling Otis or sultry Eve Tessmacher ever could.

The transformation of the Daily Planet into the (Not New York) Daily Post and the introduction of David Warfield was meant to be a subtle reference not only to DC Comics character Morgan Edge, but also to News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch, who turned the real-life New York publication into his skin-free version of the British Sun, complete with tabloid headlines based loosely on reality and designed to illicit maximum attention. Wanamaker’s portrayal of the tycoon was one-dimensional… grumpy, frumpy, and bitter. Just like the writers wanted the character to be. To that end he did not fail.

Mariel Hemmingway’s Lacy Warfield seemed to be an alternate universe version of Lana Lang… same puppy-dog emotions, just with blonde hair, more money, and a willingness to show SLIGHTLY more skin. Her fixation over Clark Kent combined with Clark’s faux-comedic cluelessness and with a generous dose of reverse-sexual harassment to boot really made her character one-dimensional, and that was a shame given the actress and her film resume.

And I have to give special attention to the whole “world tour” scene with Superman and Lois Lane. If there was any scene that truly deserved to be on the cutting room floor it should have been THAT one. Why, why, why, why, WHY did the writers have Clark Kent reveal himself to Lois Lane, force her to remember EVERYTHING from the second film, and then take it all away again with that lame-ass super-amnesia kiss if it was all just to get her view of the whole nuclear war issue? If the writers wanted Superman to get Lois’ honest opinion, then all they needed to do was have them meet without the subterfuge.

The first “Superman” movie won an Oscar for best special effects. Ten years later, Cannon Films defecated on that Oscar with their not-special effects. Their bargain-basement effects resulted in massive green screen failures, absolutely unrealistic concepts (like Lacy Warfield surviving deep space in a skirt and jacket), and giving Superman a special “god-gaze” power instead of using his KNOWN abilities like super-speed.

I’m not going to end this with a lame reference to the title of the film. Rather I will end with this observation: Superman’s last line of “I’ll see you in twenty” was almost prophetic... because it would be just shy of twenty years before the next film would come along, and thankfully make you forget all about this one.

But that is for another review…

Capes:	Only one out of five capes, and that was for the UN speech.
Cheese:	Full-blown Limburger (5) cheese with a radioactive chaser to boot.
Books:	Just one book out of five. An extremely weak story strung together by a few concepts, a lame attempt at camp, and a desire to link everything to the previous three films minus Richard Pryor.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #16

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#16: Supergirl

After the abysmal 1983 movie “Superman III”, father-and-son super-producers Alexander and Ilya Salikind decided to change things up a bit and bring Kal-El’s cousin Kara to the silver screen.

“Supergirl” was released by Tri-Star Pictures in 1984 after the hassles Warner Brothers executives gave the Salikinds for turning the Superman franchise into a Richard Pryor vehicle. (It could have been worse, though… they could have had Gene Wilder in with them, with Mel Brooks playing Perry White just for good measure.) The film was directed by French director Jeannot Szwarc, whose past works included “Jaws 2” and “Somewhere in Time”, which featured “Superman” actor Christopher Reeve. (He would later direct several episodes of the pseudo-Superman TV series “Smallville”.) The movie stars Faye Dunaway, Peter O’Toole, Mia Farrow, Brenda Vacarro, Simon Ward, Mark McClure, Maureen Teefy, Hart Bochner, and the then-debut of Helen Slater as the Maid of Might herself.

You can tell that Ilya was trying to recreate the same magic as the first “Superman” movie by the big names, casting a relative unknown for the one wearing the “S”, and also with the addition of McClure recreating his role of Jimmy Olson to connect this movie to the whole franchise. Reeve was supposed to appear as a cameo, but thankfully backed out, although he would appear as Superman on a poster.

We start in a weird community called “Argo City”, which exists in this equally weird trans-dimensional space powered by a device called the Omegahedron. It’s this device that supposedly saved Argo City when the planet Krypton exploded, although it doesn’t really explain why the city and its people bear no resemblance at all to the Krypton we know from “Superman” and “Superman II”.

Their great savior Zaltar (O’Toole) has foolishly taken the Omegahedron out of its safekeeping to demonstrate it to young Kara Zor-El (Slater). As he explains its power and how it has kept the people of Argo City safe for all these years, Kara mentions that they know all about her cousin Kal-El and how he has become this legend known as Superman, and how she would love to see him some day. Unfortunately, she’s distracted, and the thing she created with the Omegahedron shatters the nearby window, sucking out the Omegahedron into the great void. As Zaltar assumes responsibility for what happened, Kara tells her parents Zor-El and Alura (Ward and Farrow) that she must retrieve the Omegahedron herself. She takes the ship that will follow the Omegahedron to wherever it went… which by no coincidence is EARTH.

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice…

Oh, wait, it doesn’t exist in this series…

On Earth, a struggling witch named Selene (Dunaway) is moping about with her lackey Bianca (Vacarro) when she encounters the strange device. She realizes that with it, she can perform real magic. So she takes off with the strange object that just literally fell out of the sky… at the same time we hear through the car radio that Superman has left the planet for some off-world emergency. Actually, given the number of coincidences that are about to happen in the course of this movie, we all probably wish we could leave the planet.

At some point during her travels, Kara decides to step out of the craft (but we don’t know why) and make her debut wearing the classic blue-and-red outfit of Supergirl. She didn’t start out wearing the outfit. We don’t know WHY she decided to wear it. We also don’t know why she arrived on the planet by flying OUT OF A LAKE when the Omegahedron arrived by falling out of the sky. We also find out that immediately after flying out of the lake that she is fully aware and experienced in using her super-powers, although she knows absolutely NOTHING about Earth culture, as witnessed by two truckers trying to attack her without recognizing the outfit she is wearing.

The remarkable string of coincidences continue as she ends up enrolling in a boarding school under the name “Linda Lee” and says she is the cousin of famed Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. She is roomed with a girl named Lucy… as in Lucy LANE (Teefy), the younger sister to Daily Planet reporter LOIS LANE. She knows all about Superman, because of her sister, and also because of her boyfriend Jimmy… as in Jimmy OLSON (McClure), Superman’s pal and photographer for the Daily Planet. Will the streak of coincidences ever end? Not until the credits roll!

Turns out that Supergirl (as Linda) and Selene both like this guy Ethan (Bochner), although with Selene it’s more lust than like. Supergirl encounters Selene as the witch tries to rattle Ethan silly. This leads to a lakeside conversation between Supergirl and Ethan. Then as Selene uses the Omegahedron to enhance her power over the area, she sends Supergirl into an “eternal void”…which looks remarkably like the Phantom Zone. Well, actually IT IS the Phantom Zone, and we get the first-ever view of it from the inside. It’s not that impressive. It actually looks a lot like Dagobah in “The Empire Strikes Back” only with really bad lighting and no diminutive backward-talking teacher. Instead we have Zaltar, who is so O’drunk he could really be O’Pickled because he was thrown into the Phantom Zone for screwing up. Why couldn’t they have just kept him in Argo City and have him watch as everyone else suffocated, you ask? Well then the actor who plays Zaltar couldn’t show how well he plays an O’drunk.

Supergirl decides to play up to Zaltar’s drunken state by getting tipsy herself and then prodding him into revealing that the so-called “inescapable” Phantom Zone had a way out.

What? You mean that Zod, Ursa, and Non could have escaped all this time WITHOUT needing help from a thermonuclear bomb in space? And how could some flaky drunk know a flaw to the Phantom Zone that its creator JOR-EL didn’t apparently know of or else would have told his son? You remember Jor-El, don’t you? White hair, father of Kal-El of Krypton, looks like Marlon Brando… I guess I’m making too much sense here.

Anyway, Supergirl manages to escape from the “inescapable” Phantom Zone WITHOUT the need of a thermonuclear bomb in space. She encounters Selene one more time, whom at this point has pretty much become a two-bit empress, betraying everyone, including her friends and lackeys, just because of the power she now has. When Supergirl arrives, Selene merges with the power of the Omegahedron to become…. GALACTUS! Oh, wait, that’s twenty years (and a few reviews) too soon. She becomes this huge smoke creature that grabs Supergirl and twists her like a Stretch Armstrong doll. Our young heroine is about to give up, but then she hears the voice of Zaltar prodding her forward, and she forces herself to suck the smoke-filled monster into the same “endless void” (aka the Phantom Zone) that she just escaped from.

Supergirl gives a very awkward and lame good-bye to Lucy and Jimmy, and an even worse one to Ethan, and then with the Omegahedron in hand, she flies back INTO the lake and soars towards Argo City so it can come back to life and the people can be saved. Roll the credits.

There, I just saved you some Netflix money.

Where do I begin with this?

The number of coincidences with this movie are not just beyond belief… they are beyond comprehension. The cousin of Clark Kent being roomed up with the sister of Lois Lane, whose boyfriend is Jimmy Olson? I was waiting for the headmistress or even the half-witted boy-toy to be related to Perry White, and having Selene be related to Lex Luthor, and one of her cohorts being related to either Miss Teschmacher or Otis. Or maybe the school was funded by one of those companies owned by Ross Webster, the greedy millionaire that served as the villain to “Superman III”.

The level of super-stupidity is equally apparent in this movie. Kara Zor-El knows that Kal-El is both Superman and Clark Kent, she knows how to speak English, she knows all of the powers of her cousin, yet she doesn’t know what a brassiere is? The drunk headmistress and two redneck truck drivers don’t recognize the colors of Superman on a blond-haired girl, even though everyone knows that Superman just left the planet? And don’t get me started on the whole thing with the lake!

Sadly, the only things that the Salkinds did right were the casting and the Supergirl costume. Helen Slater played an excellent naïve and determined Supergirl. Unfortunately the movie suffered greatly by the one-two super-punch of cheese and bad writing. The only other redeeming factor was that it would NOT be the worst from the Superman series…with that particular distinction just a few years away.

Capes:	Only two out of five capes. Supergirl bounces between noble and clueless. She seems to know what to do, but doesn’t have a good explanation how or why.
Cheese:	Full-blown Limburger (5) cheese as super-stupidity runs amok!
Books:	With all of those coincidences and bad writing, it should come as to no surprise that this movie can only squeeze out one book out of five, and that is being super-generous.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #15

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#15: The Dark Knight

At the end of the 2005 movie “Batman Begins”, newly-promoted Lieutenant Jim Gordon talked with Batman in front of a certain iconic spotlight about his fear of criminal escalation now that the city has a vigilante with a mask. To point it out, he shares with Batman the latest case… a double-homicide, with the suspected killer having a taste for the theatrics and giving out a certain calling card.

It is with this scene that the audience knows who would be in the sequel, but nobody, not even director Christopher Nolan, would realize how much of an impact that sequel would have.

“The Dark Knight” is the 2008 continuation of the realistic Batman relaunch. The film was released by Warner Brothers and stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Michael Hall, Eric Roberts, and Maggie Gyllenhall, with cameos by Cillian Murphy, Tiny Lister, and US Senator Patrick Leahy.

Gyllenhall takes over the role of Rachel Dawes from Katie Holmes, who stepped down after a scheduling conflict with another film. Her brother Jake had previously worked with Ledger in the controversial film “Brokeback Mountain”.

The sudden and tragic death of Heath Ledger following the making of this movie only served to magnify the intensity of the character he brings to it. Because of his work, he posthumously received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The movie starts not long from when “Batman Begins” left off. A robbery crew is assembled and converges in groups towards a certain bank. Each group has a specific role to play in the bank robbery, and when their role is done, they are each picked off one-by-one by their partner, as per their orders. We learn from the exchange of conversations that their boss is the Joker. But we don’t know until there is only one robber left standing that HE is the Joker (Ledger). We also find out that this was no ordinary bank, but one exclusive to the mob.

That night Lieutenant Gordon (Oldman) is on the rooftop of police headquarters, shining the Bat-light over the city. He knows Batman would not show; he’s only doing it to scare the criminals. And to a large extent they are scared. But the major crime bosses are still doing business, including one called “The Chechen”, who always has guard dogs with him. He is doing business with Jonathan Crane, aka “Scarecrow” (Murphy), when their deal is interrupted by men wearing capes and cowls. Crane exclaims that they’re not the real thing, especially when they are using shotguns. The real Batman (Bale) arrives and has his hands full disarming the imposters, taking down Scarecrow, and fighting off the Chechen’s dogs. The imposters ask Batman what makes him better than them, to which Batman replies “I’m not the one wearing hockey pads!”

Back at the interim Batcave, which consists of a mostly-empty warehouse basement on the docks, Alfred Pennyworth (Caine) hands Bruce Wayne the breakfast and paper that he didn’t get at the penthouse. Alfred jokes that he would be glad when Wayne Manor is rebuilt so Bruce could spend his mornings “not in his bed” instead of “not in the penthouse at the other side of town”. Alfred helps stitch Bruce’s arm from the dog attack as Bruce looks at the news footage of the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Eckhart), along with his assistant, Rachel Dawes (Gyllenhall). Alfred wonders if Bruce’s fixation on Dent’s work is because of Dent’s involvement with Rachel outside of work.

Bruce meets up with Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Freeman), who gives him the designs for a new bat-suit. At this point there is no confusion that Fox knows what Bruce is doing with all of the equipment he gets from Wayne Enterprises, even though they try to keep it as innocent-sounding as possible. Bruce’s seemingly-oblivious and rude reception to a visiting Chinese investor is but a smoke-screen, though, as we discover that Mr. Lau is the banker for the mob’s money. Lau leaves quickly once he is warned about the police making a raid of the rest of the mob banks, taking the mob money with him for “safe-keeping”.

The various crime families meet and talk with Lau via TV, when the party is interrupted by the Joker. He tells them that “television’s” plan wouldn’t work because Batman doesn’t work within the law and would go anywhere to hunt the investor down. Joker offers the bosses to do what they could not, kill Batman, in exchange for half of the money. Some of the bosses refuse to work with Joker and put a bounty on his head.

As Bruce Wayne formally meets Dent, and as Batman later meets Dent with Gordon, the Joker takes out the people who question his plan, and later gives the city an ultimatum, delivered through the hanging corpse of one of the Batman imposters. Batman must reveal himself to the public, the Joker warns, or people will die.

At this point I have to stop, because to try to even explain some of the various twists and turns that the film takes would not do it justice.

This film is full of triangles. We have the love triangle between Bruce, Rachel, and Harvey. We have the professional triangle of Batman, Gordon, and Harvey. We have the Batman triangle of Bruce, Alfred and Fox. We have the mob triangle of the Chechen, Maroni (Roberts), and Lau. And we have the Joker somehow managing to stay one step ahead of everyone, as well as being able to destroy ALL of the triangles.

Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker as an agent of chaos really took the iconic villain to the absolute extreme. Much like Director Nolan and co-star Bale, Ledger did his homework on the Joker, including reading Alan Moore’s chilling graphic novel “Batman: The Killing Joke”. He also isolated himself for a month until he got the mindset down just right. This wasn’t some strutting circus clown looking to make everyone white-skinned, green-haired, and laughing to death. This was as amoral and anarchistic of a person as you would ever find! You can almost understand, then, what kind of a toll such a role played on the late actor. He clearly EARNED his posthumous Academy Award. It’s just a pity he had to die to get it.

Christian Bale’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne and Batman continues to be spot-on. You can see how the Joker’s mechanizations have an effect on Batman, destroying his dreams of finally passing on the burden of being Gotham’s guardian, and forcing him to go to levels that alienate him from everyone. You can see how he hates being driven that far, but that he has to.

Aaron Eckhart does an equally good job as the new “White Knight” of Gotham, including how that image of Harvey Dent is inevitably corrupted and turned.

Gary Oldman also continues his spot-on job as Jim Gordon, seemingly the only cop smart enough and ethical enough to win everyone’s trust. Morgan Freeman also continues his role as Luscius Fox masterfully as Bruce Wayne’s corporate manager and as Batman’s reluctant assistant. Maggie Gyllenhall’s portrayal of Rachel Dawes is more credible than her predecessor’s version.

Sadly, as Freeman’s character gained more ground in the movie, Michael Caine’s Alfred lost that ground. He provides some key philosophical advice, but his role at this point is reduced to bringing people stuff.

The wild-card in this movie is Anthony Michael Hall, who plays a Geraldo Rivera-style character whose push for ratings eventually gets him in hot water. While his role is extremely limited in this movie, it certainly plays a key part leading into the finale.

“The Dark Knight” is definitely a superb follow-up to “Batman Begins”, and is also a must-have movie for any hero’s library.

Capes:	This film easily earns all five capes. Iconic heroes and villains, as true to their comic book counterparts as you can get.
Cheese:	Nothing but American Cheese (0) here. The realism kept the cheese factor at bay.
Books:	This movie easily earns all five books. It has a realistic story and more than enough twists to keep you at the edge of your seat.

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review #14

Paragon Pundit Hero Movie Review

#14: Batman Begins

After Joel Schumacher and executives at Warner Brothers pretty much destroyed the Burton-inspired “Batman” series in 1997, the studio struggled with a way to restore trust with disillusioned Bat-fans. There were several ideas toyed around, which mirrored the attempts to salvage Superman from the camp graveyard.

Eight years later, Batman made his triumphant return to the silver screen, and he did so by going back to square one.

“Batman Begins” was released by Warner Brothers in 2005, directed by Christopher Nolan and features an all-star cast consisting of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freman, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, and Ken Watanabe.

The film starts with a boy named Bruce and a girl named Rachel playing at the grounds of a huge mansion. Rachel finds an arrowhead, which Bruce steals and tries to hide, but he falls through an abandoned well. The noise disturbs the creatures living there, and the bats start flying out.

This turns out to be a nightmare for the adult Bruce (Bale), who is in a Bhutanese prison, where he is holding his own against local prisoners, which he considers to be “practice”. He defeats them, but then is sent to solitary for “their” protection. It is there that he meets Henri Ducard (Neeson), a man who represents a group and a benefactor seeking to bring real justice to the world. Ducard says that he knows that Bruce is really Bruce Wayne, millionaire orphan, and that his benefactor, Ra’s al Ghul, can show him how to become more than just a man, but a legend.

The next day, Bruce is let go by a dirt road, and he climbs a mountain to bring a single blue flower to a mountaintop compound, where he meets Ra’s (Watanabe) and Ducard and is quickly knocked unconscious.

While Bruce is unconscious, we see more of his flashbacks, how he was rescued from the well by his father, Thomas Wayne, and that the event caused him to deathly fear bats, even though his father told him they were more afraid of him. Later, Thomas and Martha take Bruce into Gotham City, and his father explains the impact his family had in the city’s recovery from economic depression, including the rail line that would play an important role in the movie. Going to a theater show, Bruce was scared of the bat-like actors on stage and asked that they leave early. Leaving out a side-door, they are confronted in an alley by a man with a gun… and what happens next is legend.

The only kind faces to the young traumatized boy are Officer Jim Gordon (Oldman) and Alfred Pennyworth (Caine). Years later, Bruce returns from Princeton to appear at the sentencing hearing of Joe Chill, the man that killed his parents. Chill has his sentence reduced for testifying against mobster Carmine Falcone (Wilkinson). Bruce joins a now grown-up Rachel Dawes (Holmes), who works with the District Attorney’s office. Bruce refuses to speak up at Chill’s hearing, even though doing so could keep him behind bars. Chill is released, but then is killed by one of Falcone’s men. Bruce feels cheated, because he was there to kill Chill, a turn of events that Rachel discovers and is disgusted at hearing. After meeting with Falcone, though, Bruce discovers that he can’t do anything for the city, and thus leaves.

This brings us to the present, and Bruce’s training by Ducard. Ducard trains Bruce to overcome his fear and to use the skills of the League of Shadows to be stronger and more cunning. But when Ra’s reveals to Bruce that his plan is to destroy Gotham, Bruce confronts his master and defeats him in combat, setting the compound on fire in the process. He drags an unconscious Ducard back down to a nearby village and returns to Gotham, wiser and with a plan on how to make a difference.

Bruce goes to Wayne Enterprises, run in trust by Bill Earle (Hauer), who just took the company public, and through that connection learns of an underused research arm run by Lucius Fox (Freeman), who has a warehouse full of workable unused prototypes, including a military-style all-terrain armored vehicle, protective body-armor, and a parachute cloth that could be used to create bat-like wings. Bruce also returns to the abandoned well to explore the cave where the bats live. Using foreign contractors to supply the crucial trademarked headgear, he creates a series of bat-shaped devices, explaining that he still fears bats, but now he wants criminals to share his fear. He also reaches out to Jim Gordon, now a sergeant, and gains his trust and tells him to trust Rachel.

Showing up at the docks, Gordon’s corrupt partner meets with Falcone to supervise the latest drug shipment, and points out that half of the drugs would go to him, and the other would go to the crime-controlled slum known as the Narrows. Falcone’s men are quickly picked off one-by-one by a masked man wearing a cape and using ninja-like skills. Falcone tries to escape, but is confronted by the masked man who quickly identifies himself as… BATMAN! Batman ties Falcone up on a nearby searchlight, with his shadow crudely resembling a large bat.

As Gordon and the others arrest Falcone and are awestruck at the symbolism, Batman saves Rachel from being attacked by Falcone’s men. He also gives her compromising photos of a judge for her to use to make sure that the charges against Falcone stick in court.

Falcone tries to use the insanity defense, only to discover that the Arkham Asylum psychiatrist, Dr. Jonathan Crane (Murphy), is the contact Falcone was working with, and he uses his special fear drug, along with a Scarecrow mask, to make Falcone really crazy.

While interrogating Gordon’s partner, Batman discovers where the second half of the drugs go, and soon he’s face-to-face with Scarecrow, who sprays the caped crusader with the drug before setting him on fire. Batman escapes, but he recognizes the effects of the drug as something he encountered before.

As Bruce recovers, Rachel investigates Crane’s activities and discovers that he’s pumping the water supply with the drug. Batman goes to rescue her, now immune from the drug’s effects through an antidote that Fox developed. He confronts Crane again and gives him a full dose of the drug to get him to talk. Crane reveals that he is only the point man for someone much more dangerous… Ra’s al Ghul, a man that Bruce Wayne believed was dead.

From here the movie becomes a roller-coaster of twists and turns where all secrets soon come out, where the true motives for Joe Chill’s crimes are revealed, and where Batman is transformed from a vigilante into an urban legend.

The movie is a welcomed departure from the earlier approaches of the Batman franchise. This is not a surreal look at Batman, nor is it the childish cartoonish camp that Warner Brothers execs previously turned it into. This is a REALISTIC Batman. Gotham City has the look and feel of a REAL city. Batman relies on more state-of-the-art REALISTIC devices instead of day-glow bat-utilities custom-designed for any specific threat. There are no bat-skates or bat-lasers or fake nipples on the costume. If Batman were to exist in the real world, THIS is how he would look.

Christian Bale’s approach to both Bruce Wayne and Batman is almost night-and-day when compared to the actors that wore the cowl before him. Bale gets the point that Bruce Wayne is the act, and that Batman is the real person. Coming from movies such as “American Psycho” and “Equilibrium” and “The Machinist”, Bale brings both a suave and dangerous look to the legend that is just a step beyond Michael Keaton’s portrayal in “Batman” and “Batman Returns”.

At first Michael Caine seemed out-of-place as loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth, but he does a good job taking ownership of the role. Sadly the same could not be said of Katie Holmes as Rachel. Quite simply she comes off as looking too young for the role.

Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Jim Gordon is a welcomed surprise. Oldman is normally known for playing the bad guy, so it’s good to see him for once playing one of the few honest cops in Gotham. Cillian Murphy’s role as the Scarecrow was also a welcomed surprise. He gives off that kind of “nice quiet guy” look that you know holds something really deadly under the surface.

Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman both own their respective roles as Henri Ducard and Lucius Fox from the moment you see them. The characters are a perfect match for the actors.

The realistic look and feel of the movie keeps the cheese factor down and it does what it needed to do… it revived the Batman legend, and it set the stage for an even better sequel. This should be on the list of any hero’s must-have movies.

Capes:	All five capes. A realistic Batman along with some clearly-defined villains… or at least they BECOME clearly-defined by the time the movie ends.
Cheese:	Nothing but American Cheese (0) here. The realism kept the cheese factor at bay.
Books:	This movie earns all five books. It has a realistic story, based on two classic Batman tales that established the legend, and it doesn’t serve as either a music video or an overhyped toy commercial.