Captain American

Slipping back a little more to 1990, we get what most people remember as the Cap movie.

Steve Rogers has a limp, but super serum makes him a man! He fights the Red Skull, gets strapped to a rocket, and ends up buried in Alaska... (yeah, the whole First Avenger film gets covered in half an hour here). Thawing in the 1990s, he finds the Red Skull is still around and he's kidnapped the President... who doesn't seem to have a family and plenty of time to lounge around the White House. Together, Cap, President, and the daughter of his girlfriend, combine forces to take on the Red Skull once and for all.

Okay, a few things here. Certainly more impressive female protagonists than even most movies these days. Two, it's odd the see Ronnie Cox playing the good guy, and he's every bit the action hero Steve Rogers is. And Steve Rogers spends a lot of time as Steve and less than half the movie as Captain America. And he adapts to modern day America without any problems at all.

In all, this movie is very earnest as a Captain America movie. In many ways, it's just as much a political movie as Winter Soldier, but gets on with telling the story in half the time. Not that I'm saying this is a better movie than the recent versions... but it does get on with the story without needing an explosion every five minutes.

For a long time, this was the movie we had... and it wasn't that bad.

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Flatastic Four

Let's go back further, to 1994. And this was a movie that no-one saw, and yet, in a way, is better than a certain big budget version...

With a McGuffin in space, first there's is an accident that creates Doctor Doom, and then ten years later creates the Fantastic Four. They escape from Doom, but then have to go back when he threatens to destroy New York. And, in the meantime, Grimm's would-be girlfriend (with a romance that's quick by even movie standards) is taken by the Jeweller, so that gets dealt with first by making the Jeweler completely pointless. Finally, the Torch manages to fly faster than the speed of light to beat the New York destroying laser and exist in space, so there's that.

Most likely because they didn't have a huge budget (this is Roger Corman after all), the action is kept on small stages, which gives the movie a more personal feel than the city expansive fights of the bigger movies. This movie knows it's camp, and goes whole hard... although some of the actors play it a little too seriously (probably because they couldn't hear the sound effects and incidental music track we get treated too). Doom is completely cackling insane, and the other bad guy... should have been the Mole Man. But no, they have the Jeweler? Who is that?

Effects-wise... you know what? I prefer this Thing suit to the big budget one. It looks better and moves better than that foam monstrosity. Reed's stretchiness is just creepy at times, Susan's invisibility is cheap, and Johnny's flame is clearly laid on afterwards. Oh, and if you don't get it, Reed totally explains how their personalities relate to their powers.

Because it didn't have money, this movie had more freedom to not try so hard, and so it does work better. Still not a good film, but better than others.

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Just-ass League of Americant

Instead of talking new movies (as another blogger will be doing), let's talk old. This is one from 1997, actually a tv pilot. No surprise it never spawned a series.

The city of... somewhere... is under attack by a weather manipulator villain, and the JLA is there to save the day! In this case, the JLA is Green Lantern, who looks rather blueish, the Flash, the Atom, Fire and joining them is Ice. Note that this is the Guy Gardner version, although not really Guy Gardner as in the comics, here he is a failed ladies man as opposed to just an oaf. Ice comes about due to a lab accident, and is slowly brought into the JLA, and is scared by the Martian Manhunter... who never leaves their under sea base(?). But, hey, when they need to, they can fail to completely screw up an investigation and manage to un-cover the bad guy and... then the movie ends.

There is an odd framing device whereby we talk to the various people who are the real people behind the superhero identities. Although we never find out who they are talking to, but it's kinda odd, as a) hello, McFly? Secret identity? and b) we know they all make it through the movie because the interviewing is after. Never mind we know they wouldn't kill off characters, that's just tension draining.

The main word that comes to mind is 'goofy'. As in all aspects are. The plot, the costumes, the acting... basically the production is terrible. This should not have been... and, unfortunately, this is closest we've currently got to a live action Justice League movie.

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The Witless Soldier

I can see how this fits in the on-going Marvel movie continuity, but the movie itself... eeeehhhhhh......

Okay, since I haven't really watched the trailers, I'm not sure how much of the story is known. Well, except who the Winter Solider is, because that's been given away in all sorts of places. I will say that the first half of the movie feels like it should be set-up of what's going on... but then, before there can be any investigation and tension building, we get all the answers, and then it just carries on with big flashy set pieces.

And there's the problem. Tension, the lack thereof. Without it, we just have these big set pieces, but they are just set pieces with nothing really at stake, and no dramatic reveals to make us care. Right now, I'm trying to remember any big character advancement... and aside from SamWilson, not really. Steve Rogers is still 'good when people are bad' and Natasha Romanoff is still 'badass with a haunted past' and so on. Nothing changes for them.

I already know there are plenty of people praising this movie. But for me, it just is, and that's all it is.

(And yes, there is a scene right at the very end of the credits, but you won't miss anything if you don't happen to see it.)

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Let's Kill Stephen King

Although, according to this movie, you can't.

A group of young adults go hunting for Stephen King's place and end up in quiet town, nowhere, and then mysteriously start getting killed off one by one. With lots of references to King's works.

Because it's a comedy! Get it! It's like the horror that King writes about! Although, to be honest, King is a lot better than the writers of this movie. Aside from the King context, this is just another generic slasher movie, and with the King context, it's still a bad slasher movie. The comedy isn't funny, and the horror isn't scary.

And starring in this movie is... people I have never heard of! With three people needing to write this. The same three people that directed this, because if there's one mark of true quality, it's having three directors leading production.

But it's not all bad. There was that moment when... I got nothing.

Even if you are a King fan, skip this movie. And certainly there's no reason to watch this if you aren't a fan.

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Reign of Winter

With the dragon out of the way, the forces of the city descend on each other, giving us free rein to get into the forested area where the hut was. Free, that is, with the small problem of some ice trolls in the way. I tried to talk my way around them, but that didn't work, so I axed my way through them, all of us getting rid of them in some way or another.

In the forest, it was like a maze, with canopies nearly blocking the sky, and impenetrable woods around us, leaving only a path for us to follow. Trying to go as northerly as possible, we eventually came across a clearing in which we could see our goal... behind a portal that was sucking in reality around it. Being unable to do anything about that, we went on and found a perfectly normal situation of rocks floating in the air.

There was one centre pillar, on which some fey creature was talking of taking our reality and the hut. That we couldn't stand, and so we set about... slowly moving across the terrain to attack him. I finally managed to scale the rock [really stupid rolls] and finish him off with one blow from my mighty axe! It ended the floating rocks, but the portal was untouched.

Moving further on, some shadow creatures attacked out party, taking on the shadows of Hogan and Mage. They flew swiftly, with focused attacks, but me and my comrades were able to strike them down.

With magical energies running low, we set to rest for a while, before heading further into this forest...

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Two score and seven Ronin

I gather Keanu Reaves is only really in this so they'd have a Western presence to hype the film around in Western theatres... he doesn't need to be there, it's a decent enough film without him.

Due to the dirty tricks of a witch, Lord Asano nearly kills a guest and has to kill himself to regain his honour. And then all his samurai become ronin. And Lord Kira (owner of the dirty trick witch) moves in and claims Asano's land and daughter. But as the wedding comes closer, the ronin decide that enough is enough, and make a play for gaining justice. And there's this other sub-plot about a half-breed with supernatural abilities that fights CGI creatures...

I'm sure I've seen this plot before in one incarnation or another. Either having heard the story directly or seen other film adaptations of it. It works well enough here, with Hiroyuki Sanada as the leader of the ronin, and being the character we care the most about. Although Keanu is in this, the movie is making a deliberate effort not to overplay him too hard. And, of course, Cary-Horiyuki Tagawa is the Shogun.

A well paced watchable movie.

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