THE WOLVERINE
Release Date: July 26th 2013
Rating: PG-13
Starring: Hugh Jackman
OVERVIEW:
So, I went to go see THE WOLVERINE tonight. Over the last couple of weeks, i’ve been subjecting myself to the X-Men Cinematic Universe (Origins, X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and First Class). Tonight, I capped it off with the latest installment of Fox’s X-Men Franchise, “THE WOLVERINE”. What did I think of this? Find out after the jump.
I will try to keep this relatively spoiler free.
..you KNEW this was coming right?
DEADPOOL
Release: 2013
Publisher: High Moon / Marvel
ESRB Rating: M for Mature (….did you REALLY expect less?)
Rating For:..its Deadpool….
Systems: PS3, Xbox 360, PC, steam
I have been WAITING for this game since it was announced at SDCC last year. I LOVE me some Deadpool, and after watching the potential of a Ryan Reynolds’ portrayed Deadpool in the “Wolverine” movie get washed down the drains, and seeing my hopes and dreams shattered into a non chimichanga eating mouthless merc who looked like Lex Luthor and Baraka had a baby….the idea of playing an M Rated Deadpool game was really, REALLY, inspiring.
Let me say this. Deadpool is rated M FOR MATURE. Which to video games is the equivelent of an R.
It is rated that way for a VERY SPECIFIC REASON.
If you’re not familar with Deadpool, google it. Here’s the quick version: Wade Wilson was a mercenary-recruited by Weapon X and given a mutant healing factor. It backfired, and basically made it to where he cant be killed (or hurt) and is certifiably INSANE. He is self aware, knows he’s in a comic book-and when written properly is the single funniest-and deadliest character.
That said, I do not READ the current Deadpool comic by Brian Poshen for the story. I read it because its mindless, harmless fun. Brian Poshen is funny as hell, and it shows in Deadpool. I dont EXPECT “The Court of Owls” when i read Deadpool. When..or well..if…the Deadpool movie gets made-I don’t EXPECT to go into it seeing “The Dark Knight”. And with that said-I didn’t expect to play “Arkham City” when I popped the wonderful pancake designed disc into my PS3.
Did I get what I expected?
YES!
I completely got what I expected. Is the story pretty bleh and cliche? Yeah. Yeah it is. Its a complete meta joke where Deadpool abducts the developers at High Moon and forces them to create a game about him. It jumps through hundreds of cliches and jokes-even switching to an 8 Bit Zelda style dungeon for a segment. It’s hillarious-and the fourth wall will never be the same again.
Is the action repetitive? Yes. Yes it is. You run through worlds that are fairly linear-hacking, slashing, and blasting your way through waves of drones and villains.Its honestly no more repetitive than the Arkham games, or Force Unleashed, or God of War.
Other X-Men characters like Archlite, Psyclocke, Domino, Wolverine, Cable (!) and The Maruaders make an appearance. The central villain is Mr. Sinister-and the bulk of the game takes place on Genosha. So it’s a pretty comic book fan boy centric plot.
Oh and Daniel Way wrote the story…so yeah…bonus chimichangas there.
Nolan North voices Deadpool. And he’s perfect. If Ryan Reynolds fell out of the Deadpool movie-I would approve of Nolan North taking the role.
The jokes are great-again-don’t expect a super deep story.
The game is full of R-Rated humor. Deadpool interacts with his world in such a way that you cant help but enjoy it.
I give the game 4 chimichangas out of five. only because the replay value-is kinda…not there. It’s not Arkham City where you have 3209802983092830982043937048973 1/2 Riddler trophies to obtain. It’s pretty straight forward. I hope a second one is a little more open, and a little bigger.
MAN OF STEEL (2013 – Warner Brothers)
DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300, SuckerPunch)
PRODUCER: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, Inception, Intersteller, The Dark Knight Trilogy)
WRITTEN BY: David Goyer (The Dark Knight Trilogy, one of the Blade movies)
US RELEASE: June 14th 2013
RUN TIME: 2:32
MPAA RATING: PG-13
Hey, I don’t know if you guys knew this..but I LOVE Comic Books! Right? Gasp, shock and awe! You may have also noticed I really enjoy superhero movies (..well except Iron Man 3..).
Now, most of you who know me know my absolute favorite superhero is Batman. I’m A DC guy, I’ll admit it. I also really enjoy Superman, depending on the creative force behind it. I’ve spoken at length about The Symbol of Superman is as iconic as Mickey Mouse, and serves as a symbol of American pride, hope and strength-so I do have very strong feelings for the character. Hell, this will make my THIRD Superman movie review in just over a year (vs The Elite and Unbound from DC Animation). I’m also LOVING the new “Superman: Unchained” comic being put out by DC, written by Scott Snyder (Batman, American Vampire) and the art by Jim Lee (..its Jim fucking Lee..). So…lets get to why you’re all here.
“Man of Steel”, the first Superman live action FEATURE since 2006’s “Superman Returns” has FINALLY hit the big screen today, and I went to go see it at midnight. What did I think about it? Well, click the jump to find out!
BE WARNED. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. THIS IS YOUR ONE AND ONLY WARNING.
kneel before zod….
I don’t know if i want to call this a review. My Smallville posts were a “review”….this? Probably not so much.
Earlier in the year, I fell in love with a new CBS Drama called “Elementary”. The premise was a former heroin addicted Sherlock Holmes was in New York in 2012-as a consulting detective for the NYPD. Watson is a girl, named Joan…played by Lucy Lu.
I want to preface this: I am not super familar with Sherlock Holmes. I dont think I’ve ever read the books. I haven’t watched the BBC’s “Sherlock”, and I haven’t watched EITHER of the Disney Sherlock Holmes movies starring Iron Man. I am familar with the character, and the jist of his mythology-but for the most part I went into “Elementary” blind.
I also despise police prodecural shows. I loathe CSI, NCIS, ABC, 123,…all of those shows. I detest them with an utter passion.
“Elementary” felt like the bastard love child of “House” and a police procedural. But it was fun. The lead actor is astounding funny, quirky and has this slightly crazed quality about him that my wife and I absolutely fell in love with. We don’t watch alot of TV-so it’s pretty much been this, Arrow, and American Horror Story for us…
The first season lasted 24 episodes-with the finale two being aired together as a 2 hour finale movie. I don’t know if the producers knew they were getting a second season-because the story line with Moriarty wrapped itself up pretty nicely at the end of the series-granted it felt a little forced.
“Elementary” suffered the same complaint i had with Arrow (which I will be posting an article about this weekend-ish maybe).
The pacing was WONKY. There were at least half a dozen “murder of the week” episodes in Elementary, that didn’t serve much use other than fluff and filler. The show was originally signed for I believe 18 episodes, than expanded to 22, than to 24….so that means the producers had to scramble to stretch their story for the whole season. The same thing happened to Arrow-where the first season kept getting extended.
This made key plots, like the whole Moriarty plot drop like flies for several weeks on end-while Sherlock went to solve the crime of the week. From my understanding, Moriarty is to be the Joker to Holmes Batman, the Lex Luthor to his Superman, the Sinestro to his Hal Jordan, the Elmer Fudd to his Bugs Bunny (i..guess?)…it didnt really play that way in “Elementary”-because of the fact that they introduced the concept mid season, and than it vanished for several episodes before being the central focus of the final six or so episodes. There was definatly a dissconnect between the second half the season-as certain episodes felt like the actual show, and the other ones felt like the writers were saying: “Meanwhile…..at Stately Wayne Manor…”
The whole subplot with Sherlock training his sober companion-Joan Watson-who is a disgraced surgeon-to be a detective on his caliber is interesting. They downplay the obvious romantic tension between the two-presumably because they knew it would just brow beat the story into a stand still.
I love when they give the hero a real, tangible weakness…something relatable. You can’t relate to being hurt only by a glowing meteor rock. You can’t relate to being hurt by the color yellow. You CAN relate to being a human in a suit.
You CAN relate to the psychotic genius of Sherlock Holmes being a former addict. Everyone is an addict-not always to heroin, but to something. I’m addicted to comic books, I’m addicted to film, you may be addicted to porn, or to crystal meth, or whatever. Everybody has vices, and vices are relatable.
So giving us a hero with such an identifiable-but relatable achilles heel-was a stroke of brilliance. It made the character relatable, and allowed the viewer a way into his oft damaged psyche.
Overall, the show is on Hulu Plus now…at least the most recent episodes. Im sure it will dump on Netflix sooner than later, as well as hit DVD / Blu Ray sooner than later. Network dramas tend to be out very quick.
I will DEFINATLY check it out on blu ray, as the potential bonus features for this show excite me.
Check it out. I loved it-and you probably will too!
4 / 5
“Superman Unbound” is the second DC Universe Animated Film to be released in 2013. Following January’s “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 2”, and preceeding July’s “Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox”.
The story is based on Geoff John’s “Superman: Brainiac”-which retells the first encounter between Superman and the Alien Cyborg entity known as Brainiac. We also get a teenage Supergirl, who is still adjusting to life on Earth, and a firey Lois Lane-who flips Brainiac off.
The voice cast is actually really good. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer when WB uses the voices of the DC Animated Universe for these projects. I like Tim Daly or George Newburn as Superman. I like Kevin Conroy as Batman, i like Dana Delaney as Lois Lane, I like Loren Lester as Dick Grayson-so I havent been really psyched for movies when they dont involve my ideal voice casts.
However, Matt Bommer (White Collar) does a fantastic job as Superman. Much the same way I felt about Bruce Greenwood’s Batman in “Under The Red Hood”-I feel he’s doing as adequate of a job as Tim Daly or George Newburn would of done. The rest of the voice cast is really good, and the voices fit the characters.
The animation is tight, and the movie moves along at a nice pace. Not to fast, not to slow. The scene where Superman travels to an Alien world to get a glimpse of Brainiac in action COULD of been shortened a hair..but its not too terrible.
They tie in a subplot with Clark being very controlling of Lois in their relationship. It’s done as an analogy of how Brainiac bottles cities like Kandor (and eventually Metropolis). It was a fun parallel to explore.
The script kept the amount of profanity down this time. I find it odd when Lois calls the bad guy a “son of a bitch”-although I’m not OPPOSED to such words, it feels weird for an animated Superman movie.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. I actually have no complaints about it. It was an entertaining 90 minutes. The bonus features are interested. We get a pair of 30ish minute documentaries. One about Superman and one about Brainiac. We get FOUR DCAU episodes, two from “Superman: TAS” and 2 from “Justice League”. Audio Commentary (Blu Ray only), and a preview of “Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox”.
My son watched it with me-and the attached “Man Of Steel” trailer made him lose his shit. He’s pumped up. I’m usually more of a Batman fan (yes, I realize I didn’t review Dark Knight Returns, what else could I of said though that wasn’t said. Best. Batman film. Ever.)
All in all, check it out! It’s available on Blu Ray for around $20 from all your favorite brick and mortar stores, or online retailers like Amazon! Also, you can buy it digitally via iTunes, Playstation Store, Xbox Live, Google Play! Check it out, and check back in July-when we unravel the Flashpoint Paradox!
4 out of 5
follow on Twitter @johnolesen
Iron Man 3…
..wow…okay..where do I begin here?
I went to the 9:40 PM showing on Thursday, May 2nd 2013 at the Goodrich Portage 16 theatre, in Portage, IN. I paid roughly $45.
That $45 went to the two tickets you see above…plus a large popcorn, 2 large Pepsis, a box of Snow Caps, a box of Buncha Crunch, and a pretzel with cheese. We hadnt ate all day.
But we had fun. Right?
So…im not going to give you a synopsis of Iron Man 3. It directly follows last years “Avengers”. It’s the first film in “Phase 2” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It will be followed by Thor: The Dark World. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gaurdians of the Galaxy and end capped with Avengers 2.
Oh and Ant Man is getting a movie too…because yeah.
Overall I liked the movie. It was a fun popcorn flick. The laughs were there….the fun was there. the action was there. There was just so many…..I dont know. Gripes I had with it.
First off, I’m not a big Marvel fan. I’m a DC Guy. That has absolutely nothing to do with my reaction to this, as I loved Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Avengers. I’m going to number these issues I had…but bare in mind-they are not actually in ORDER. Alot of this is Nitpicky…
There will be spoilers….you have been warned….
so JARVIS, set a course for Iron Man 3…..and punch it!
Obviously not the official logo.
So this is a project that has been in development for a LONG TIME. If you go back in the archives of this site, you’ll probably see some early story points or synopsis ideas. What started as a cyberpunk distopian war story-has evolved into something much, much, much more. Coming from the creative team of myself (PWX Wrestling, From The Ashes, Pariah’s Voice, this site right here.) and Calvin Heikilla (SPIRIT) – Advent is a sci fi hero series we plan to distrubute digitally via Comixology in the early part of 2014.
Here’s the synopsis of the story:
Even Angels Need a Dark Knight
“Have you ever wondered what really happens in the afterlife? Do the good and just really go to Heaven, and the merciless and despot really burn eternally in Hell? Is there no gray area? Have you ever thought about the Battle to End All? Wouldn’t that be rather one sided? The Old Word has many example of God’s wrath upon the wicked. The Archangel Michael, Gabriel, the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Even in these modern days, where our city streets are filled with hate, anger, crime, disease, and the whore of nature. As a plague of darkness, the Horror, continues to eat away at humanity-God must once again turn to a new death dealer. Advent. As even Agents of the Lord-need a Dark Knight at their side.”
As a child, Mikal Grayson grew up without a father. He was taken from him mysteriously-without so much as a warning or a trace. One night, cold and alone-moving between foster homes-he was visited by a dark force, a being known as Nihil-a creature born and bred from humanities darkest corners. A creature whose sole existence, is to fulfill his role as the head of the Covenant, and please his master, Mesias.
In his early twenties, Mikal Grayson was attacked coming home one night. He was greeted at the gates by his father. He told him one thing, that his time was not at hand, that he must return to his place in the Earth Realm-where he can overcome the darkness coming. He woke up in his bed-with a black and white bracelet on his wrist. A cross affixed to it-and a realization about his role in life coursing through his body. He began to see the darkness everywhere. He knew one day, that Nihil would come back for him-for the rest of the world-and that he was to be the hero the angels needed. He was meant to the be their armored savior.
Advent.
Using the bracelet, known as a Cross Drivier-Mikal transforms into a powerful warrior known only as Advent. His powers remain a mystery, and the strange link he has with the Covenant, with Nihil, and Mesias
Taking influences from Batman-and shows like “henshin hero” shows like Kamen Rider and Garo-Advent tells the story of a young hero battling the forces of evil. Coming to grips with his new found powers-and unraveling the mysteries clouding his past.
Once again, not OFFICIAL art. Photoshop of an idea for the costume-using the Tron style Deadpool as a base.
A core cast of characters-asking the question of how far the forces of good would go-to succeed in their goals? Even the angels need a flaming sword at times. Check here for more updates-and stay tuned for Advent to drop!
Alternate Title: Fuck “The Avengers”
2012 has been one FUCK of a year for comic book fans. First, we all jizzed our pants over “The Avengers”, and now, we can gather around the table and give thanks to our Savior…to quote Kevin Smith. “Our father, who art in Gotham. Cowled by thy name.”
That’s right kids. Let’s all RISE, and take a look at THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Also known as “The Greatest Movie of 2012”
And there came a day unlike any other
Where Earth’s Mightiest Heroes found themselves united a common threat
On that day, they became…THE AVENGERS!
So I’m going to start this by saying: I’m a DC guy. DC overall has had better television, better animation, better toys, and just more interesting characters to me. That said, I do enjoy some Marvel characters. Spiderman, Gambit, Deadpool, Venom….characters that in no way are involved in this show (well, Spiderman…). However, I enjoyed the Marvel movies-and decided to give “Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes” a try, since Season 1 was available to me on Netflix. I made this descison after getting swept up in “Avengermania” leading up to seeing the movie in May (which may or may not be reviewed a few posts below).
Since than, Avengers; EMH has become a regular watch for me, to the point that I’ve gone as far as finding rips from episodes that have not aired in the US yet (on Disney XD)-because America is the only country that stops shows in the middle for no apparent reason.
So how did it stack up? Did it become the first Marvel series to be put in my top animated comic book films of all time? Find out, as we Assemble….after the jump!
Wel the latest DC Animated Feature has arrived, SUPERMAN vs THE ELITE. Starring George Newburn (Justice League Unlimited) as the Man of Steel. Follow the jump for my full review!
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