The Dark Knight Review - Here Be Spoilers

You have been warned.

The Dark Knight starts off with a Bank Robbery with clown-mask wearing robbers. Some guy called the Joker is calling the shots. It also seems that whenever someone accomplishes their task they are killed by the robber behind him, until only one remains. That one removes his clown mask to reveal a make-upped and scarred face. He is The Joker. I found it interesting that the Joker in this telling in fact wore make up to give him that pasty complexion. In Chris Nolan’s Batman, everything has to have a real feel element, and so if someone were to fall into a vat of toxins, they would die, rather than come out with white skin and green hair. This works for me. The next time the Joker appears, he is confronting a group of mob bosses, and starts to explain his plan. The mob bosses are mad at him, because it was their money he was stealing from the bank. The Joker then proceeds to do a magic trick, in which he makes a pencil disappear. This was probably the most shocking moment of the movie for me, because at this point we didn’t know what type of villain he would be, and bam… the pencil disappeared… eraser end first mind you. Yes, this was going to be a very intense movie. They weren’t pulling any punches with the Joker. He will go down as one of the best movie villains in the history of cinema. He was cruel, calculating, and quite frightening. He was also quite insane. I think my favorite Joker moment was when he was walking away from the hospital as it exploded. This felt right out of a comic book to me, which is why I enjoyed it so much. He started off the series of detonations *before* he was even out of the hospital. And then when the final kaboom didn’t happen… that was just classic. And to top it off his outfit made it all the more ludicrous. I can picture the scene in comic book format, and it is perfect. Yes, the Joker stole the show, but I don’t think he would have done without the characters he stole it from.

Don’t forget… there are spoilers present…

Batman… I absolutely love this Batman. He *is* the Batman from the comics. He is the bone breaking, shuriken throwing (albeit Batshaped shuriken), gadget toting, non-lethal Batman. I was 15 when Tim Burton’s Batman came out, and hadn’t read the comics. It didn’t bug me that Batman killed bad guys in Batman and Batman Returns. Then I found out that Batman doesn’t kill people in the comics, and those movies lost a little something. And then in Batman Forever, the Batman I knew would have saved Two-face. He was able to save Robin from the same death… heck, it would have been even better had Robin saved Two-face. Anyway, I digress. So when Batman chucked Joker off the building, in a split second I thought “Good… wait, no… Batman will have killed him if he hits the ground.” Then I think I sighed and rolled my eyes. Then the totally unexpected happened. Batman shot out his grapple thing, and saved the Joker’s life! I cheered! I was so happy! Chris Nolan understands Batman, and that is pleasing.

What? The spoilers don’t end there? Nope… in fact there’s some bad ones ahead…

Harvey Dent. He’s what the movie was all about. It truly was a Harvey Dent / Two-face movie, and Joker was the vehicle in which Harvey travels. Yes, Two-face had a different origin story in the comics, but this worked just as well. Actually it may have worked better. What better way for a man to snap then to have your girlfriend say she’ll marry you, and then hear her die. After the explosion, we finally get to see Two-face, and this was one of the few times Chris Nolan left his “grounded in reality” world of Batman. His scarred side was very shocking, and looked very similar to some of the comics, and the Batman Animated series, but honestly I was expecting something less… less being more in these movies. I figured his face would be that of a burn victim, which would have been shocking enough, but no… this time they went over the top, and I was a little disappointed by it. Character wise, Two-face was written very well indeed. And his final moments with the Gordon family and Batman were excellent. Including himself with the coin toss rotation, and the internal struggle as Jim plead with him, and then relying on the coin toss to make his decision. I was disappointed that Harvey died mainly because I was expecting him to be the villain in the next movie, but also pleased that Batman didn’t kill him. Batman saved the child and himself, and if he could have, he would have saved Harvey… I know he would have. That’s what Batman does.

Ahh… no more spoilers.

Soo… yes it did have a flaw here or there in my opinion, but they are very excusable. There was no sex / nudity, which in my books is a plus. There was no swearing that I recall, which in my books is a plus as well. And there was no over the top, graphic, blood splattering violence… that was shown. It was rated PG-13, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone under 14 seeing it, as it was quite disturbing and somewhat frightening. Having said that… this was almost a perfect movie from my point of view. I really hope that this group makes a 3rd movie, but only if they can make it as good as Batman Begins, because there is no way to top this one.

I give it 9.7 out of 10… it’s an arbitrary number and doesn’t really mean anything, but I think Two-face’s face not being grounded in reality lost a few points.

Oh yes, and if you have the means, see it in the IMAX… I totally recommend that.

Review: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

On my way to the theater I found myself thinking “Do I really want to go see this movie? So many people have told me that it sucks, and that it diminished the other movies. That the CGI spoiled the movie and there was no urgency, no fear for the characters. Maybe I’d rather go see The Incredible Hulk.” Then I mentally slapped myself and said “What are you talking about… it’s Indiana Jones, and you must see it on the big screen no matter what anyone says.” So I did.

The movie starts out with the new Lucasfilm logo… well, not really new anymore, but new since 1997, but then the Paramount logo from 1982 appears and then it fades and turns into a mound of dirt in the exact same shape, just as it did in Raiders and Crusade (though those were a mountain and a rock formation, respectively). Anyway, when I saw that I knew that they were going to try very hard to be true to the characters and movies of the 80’s.

We get taken through the storage warehouse from the end of Raider’s of the Lost Ark, which we found out is at the Air Force Base, Area 51. Indy gets into a scrap with the Ruskies, and bullets start flying. Indy of course is not hit by any of them, because he’s Indy! I remember seeing this other movie, where the hero was being chased by a bunch of Natives and even though they are probably very efficient with their spears and blow guns when hunting game and warring against other tribes, they can’t seem to even knick the hero… what was that movie called? What? Oh yeah! Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Then it gets a little silly… ok… it gets a lot silly. He goes and gets himself blown up by a Nuclear bomb. But no, he saves himself in a fridge. Don’t worry… the fridge is lead lined, and apparently also has Inertial Dampers and is a Super Fridge that can keep things cool even though outside is 2000 degrees C. They had much cooler stuff in the 50’s because they *had* to be prepared for just such an emergency, and didn’t have to worry about the EPA saying that it’s bad for the environment. Indy just needs to be scrubbed down afterwards… no big deal. I’m going to put it out there that he also keeps a vial of water from the Holy Grail on hand at all times for just such an emergency. Yes, yes, the grail’s power loses effect beyond the great seal, but work with me here people.

So we go on. Indy is accused of being a commie and is fired. He makes mention of the death of Marcus Brodie and Henry Jones Sr. Funny that he said first Dad, then Marcus, because Denholm Elliot is actually dead, but Sean Connery isn’t. It should have been the other way around.

He meets up with a knife juggling greaser, there is a chase, and we get to hear the Wilhelm and they go to South America. There they find a crystal skull, and the Ruskies find them. They threw in the old Serial gag of “Native-about-to-kill-sidekick-with-blow-dart but hero-jumps-up-and-blows-dart-backwards” which never made sense to me because how would the poison tip stick in the guy’s mouth, but it was from the serials, so it must be included.

Oh yes… the crystal skull? Alien. Nuff said.

Anyway, was it a perfect movie? No. Did the CGI diminish it? Somewhat. Was there a feeling of urgency, and did you fear for the hero’s life? Not at all. Was it entertaining? In my opinion, very much so, although it was entertaining in the same why that Wile E. Coyote entertains me. Absolute absurdity. Do I think that George, Steven, Harrison, and David Koepp believe that someone could survive a Nuclear blast in a fridge? Do you? Did you say to yourself “That’s not realistic” or did you laugh and enjoy the humor of it. I laughed when I noticed the fridge flying over the car… I still feared for Indy’s life a little with the Ant scene, because there wasn’t an ant proof fridge to be seen. Actually I feared more for Indy’s hat then I did for Indy.

I’m not afraid to say it… I’ll shout it from the roof tops. I LIKED THE PREQUELS A LOT! I DIDN’T FIND JAR-JAR ANNOYING! AND I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL!!! There… I’ve said it. It was a fun movie that didn’t take itself seriously, and I will watch it again, and add it to my movie collection. This one ranks number 3 for me in the series. In this order: Raiders, Last Crusade, Crystal Skull, and a very distant 4th (5th or 6th if you include any of the video games) Temple of Doom (which I just really have a hard time watching… doesn’t entertain me at all).

I give Crystal Skull 3.5 Wah-PAA’s out of 5… it’s just an arbitrary number… it means nothing.

AFI 10 Top 10: A Rant.

So the American Film Institute (AFI) are a bunch of idiots. I thought the Academy Awards was political, but the AFI’s latest List is down right retarded. They did 10 categories and showed the top 10 movies in each category, that they felt were the 10 best for that category. Sports movies made sense; Gangster movies made sense; Sci-Fi movies mostly made sense… except for A Clockwork Orange. That movie was never on my books as Sci-Fi. And Westerns even made sense. Anyway… Fantasy made no sense at all. There was only one movie in the list that if you looked in the Fantasy section of a bookstore, would you find the novel of. That being Fellowship of the Ring. Umm… the only Fantasy movie to win a Best Picture Oscar was Return of the King… would *that* not qualify? Other “fantasy” movies in the list were Big, Groundhog Day, Field of Dreams, and Harvey. Those aren’t Fantasy… not really. I mean, yeah, they can’t happen in real life, but if that’s the only factor, where was Raiders of the Lost Ark? Actually I guess Harvey *can* happen in real life… it’s just a guy with an imaginary friend. I think I saw that in “A Beautiful Mind”. Fantasy should be about dragons or skeletons or magic. Where was the 7th Voyage of Sinbad? Where was Legend? Anyone ever hear of a movie called “The Dark Crystal”? The “#1” movie was The Wizard of Oz, which I would call fantasy, but was it better than Lord of the Rings? No… don’t be silly. 2001 A Space Odyssey was the number 1 Sci-Fi, with Star Wars (A New Hope) being #2. I guess you could say that 2001 was pure Sci-Fi, in that it is somewhat realistic and could even be achievable. It was an excellent book, but was it a good movie? I haven’t seen it, but others have called it boring, confusing, and artsie-fartsie. Now compare that to A New Hope. This movie changed the way Sci-Fi movies were made. It is a story of good vs. evil with good triumphing at the end. It’s a great movie that stands the test of time… at least it did until George went and made Han shoot second. 2001 obviously did not, because it’s 2008 and there’s still no moon base, space station with artificial gravity, or manned interplanetary space travel. It was rather funny that all but one of the Animated top ten were Disney or Disney-Pixar cartoons. The non-Disney cartoon was Shrek and it was number 8. Perhaps they don’t feel that Anime counts, because Akira was a dang fine movie. I hear that Princess Mononoke was also really good. What about Chicken Run or Curse of the Ware-rabbit? Both were really excellent animated movies. Oh yes… the #1 Romantic Comedy was a Charlie Chaplin silent picture called “City Lights”. Why? Quoting the AFI president: “When 'City Lights' is honored as the number 1 romantic comedy, millions of people will go back and watch it again." So basically they aren’t honoring any films, they are just using it as a 3 hour TV commercial for a bunch of movies that people don’t care about any more, and they throw some in that people do care about to keep them interested. Annie Freaking Hall. Anyway… I had to rant about that.

The Dark Knight

Batman Batman Bat Man, Batman Batman Batman... Batman?

The Dark Knight

And Then They Pull the Rug Out from Under Us

So maybe The Hobbit won’t be made at all now. Apparently New Line Cinema, who had issues with paying Peter Jackson’s production company last year, but has since settle, also didn’t pay the Tolkien Estate a penny of the $6 Billion made from the theatrical release as well as the DVD’s. What is up with New Line… I guess someone never learned to share. Here’s a quote from the news release: New Line was required to pay 7.5 percent of gross receipts to Tolkien's estate and other plaintiffs. Let’s see… 7.5 percent of 6 Billion dollars is 450 Million dollars. You could see why the Tolkien Estate wants the money, and it is rightfully theirs based on the agreement signed before the movie rights were released.

Now here’s something interesting, also from the same article: The plaintiffs seek more than $150 million in compensatory damages, unspecified punitive damages and a court order giving the Tolkien estate the right to terminate any rights New Line may have to make films based on other works by the author, including "The Hobbit."

So fine… you want your money, and I can totally understand that. But if you win you not only take the money, you also stop The Hobbit from being made? That’s punishing the fans just as much as it is New Line… and it’s also punishing yourself. That part makes no sense to me. Yes, they are made at New Line, as was Peter Jackson a year ago, but they made up after everything settle.

Can’t we all just get along, and make some decent movies that are actually worth seeing? I feel the same as these Hobbits pictured below… sad that more movies about their race probably won’t be made, because of money grubbing scum.

Movie Review: Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Well… to start off, Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight was fairly accurate to the novel. I haven’t read the novel for a good 10 years or so, so I’m a bit fuzzy, but it brought things back to my remembrance, and nothing seemed too out of place.
It’s a pretty typical Dungeons and Dragons style story with a whole gambit of characters: Half-elf, Barbarian, Cleric, Dwarf, Halfling (or Kender in this case), Mage, Knight, and a Fighter. They get into trouble, a quest is given to them by a unicorn and then by the king of the elves, the leader doesn’t want to be the leader, they win the battle, but the war continues on. Yup… that sounds just like the D&D campaign I was playing 10 years ago, except we had a monk that could punch a guy’s spine out with his bare hands. (Though he missed the spine by a few inches, and punched through the guy’s heart instead… same outcome.)

The animation was… how should I put this? Crap. It really was. Strawberry Shortcake cartoons have better animation than this. It was very similar to the animation in the D&D cartoon from the 80’s, but I think even that was better. What was very odd though was that all the dragons and draconians (which are different than goblins) were CG 3D animation, which looked really clean and cool… but made the cell animation look that much worse. When I first heard that they were making this movie, and it was to be animated, I pictured TMNT and thought, yes… this is going to be really good animation. Alas… I was disappointed. There were also a lot of gratuitous cleavage and butt shots, which just seemed silly and very out of place.

The voice acting was really well done however, and I thought Kiefer Sutherland as the mage Raistlin was an excellent choice. His voice was kind of how I imagined it would be: a little rough and gravelly. Xena… I mean Lucy Lawless was the Plainswoman Cleric, and Michael “Lex Luther” Rosenbaum was the reluctant leader Tanis Half-elven. They did some good voice acting, and it was hard to tell it was them. All the other voices seemed to be well cast too.

All in all, I give this movie 3.5 outta 5, because as for story and acting, it was really good. The animation was really lacking though, which is really unfortunate in this day of superb and cheap animation.

As an aside, I am reading Dragons of Dwarven Depths, which is a new book that takes place between Dragons of Autumn Twilight and Dragons of Winter Night. The movie summed up Autumn Twilight excellently, and so I am not lost while reading this new book. (Though I don’t think any editors read this book, and if an editor DID read it, he/she needs to be fired. More typos then I’ve ever seen in a book, and they even forgot that the Kender had given his knife to the Fighter’s girlfriend before she left on a solo adventure… I’m really disappointed on the editing front.)

Does Jack Ryan really need Tom Clancy?

This was just quoted this weekend on Dark Horizons.

In late 2006 came word that Paramount Pictures was planning to continue its successful Jack Ryan action franchise with a fifth film that would NOT be based on one of Tom Clancy's books.

Well, why not? I mean, Sum of All Fears wasn’t based on a Tom Clancy novel either (even though it shared the title). At the beginning of the commentary on the DVD, Tom Clancy says “Hi, I’m Tom Clancy, the author of the book they didn’t read.” How much more evidence do you need? They changed the villains, the location, the age and marital status of Jack, his position in CIA… at least they set off a Nuke at a football game, but they even screwed that up. Just sad…

“Clear and Present Danger” was just barely based on the book. Why did they make the Captain of the Coast Guard ship a woman? In the book it was a grizzled old sailor who had internal dialog about how there’s a new girl recruit on his ship now, and they have to have a female head (toilet), and times they are a changin’. I guess that just wasn’t PC enough for Hollywood… anyway.

Was Sum a good movie? Sure. Was it a Tom Clancy / Jack Ryan movie? No… not really. So why not make more movies with the Jack Ryan name? Because the Tom Clancy books were good… up until the Bear and the Dragon (that one was just lame). The couple of books that turned up afterwards were alright in my opinion… but I digress. The movies that come out with Jack Ryan in them have just gotten worse and worse. Red October was great, Patriot Games was really quite good, though in the novel he doesn't kill Sean Miller, and I've already discussed the other two. IF they make another, it's going to be so awful... well... it really can't be worse than Sum of All Fears, and I guess they wouldn't be pretending to be basing it on a novel....

If a new Jack Ryan movie comes out, and it doesn’t even have the title of a Tom Clancy novel attached to it, don’t go see it. If it DOES have the title of a Tom Clancy novel, you probably shouldn’t see it either, because it won’t be based on any novel that he wrote. They will just pretend it is. Send stupid Hollywood a message, stating that we won’t put up with garbage just because you pretend it comes from a good source.

What I'd really like to see is someone brave enough to make “Debt of Honor” and be faithful to the story and fly that 747 into the Capital Building… it’s not like it’s going to give the terrorists any ideas, and I think it would put a very real context into the movie, like yeah… this really could happen again, and what are we doing to make sure it doesn’t. Anyway… that being said, I really hope they don’t make any more Jack Ryan movies, because they are so changed and watered down, they are truly pathetic. This goes for John Clark as well, in my opinion.

The Terminator Timeline has Been Terminated

Ok, so “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” just came out yesterday on TV, and I gotta say that I was very impressed. It had some really good action scenes, and some excellent effects… well, make-up at least. And it even tried to add some realism to the action (Read: Kevlar put in the back of the Lazy-boy). However, what it did not try to do was figure out the timeline.

As it stands right now:The Terminator took place in 1984. Fine, no problemo.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day took place in 1994. Fine, no probl… wait a second. You expect me to believe that John Connor is 9 (he would have been born in 1985) in T2? Eddie Furlong was 13 when he acted in that movie, so everyone figured that John Connor was approximately the same age.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines took place in 2004. Ok, John could be 20 or 23 or whatever in that movie… it works out.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts in 1999. Fine, no probl…. Wait a second. In T3, Sarah was said to have died of Leukemia shortly after Judgment Day was supposed to have happened. Hmmmm. Well, let’s just pretend that John was lying, and that Sarah was in hiding, or off the grid (because her coffin did not contain her body). But then they jump to 2007 and… wait… doesn’t the war start in 2004 as per T3? Did they just decide to ignore T3 and start the franchise over at 1999? I’d be ok with that, however, here’s something that they can do to make EVERYTHING work out.

Instead of hard-coding the year in the movies and TV shows, they can just asterisk them, and I use the following as an example.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day takes place in 1994. Because it was the best movie, that will stay firmly in place. John is 13. Thus, The Terminator can take place in 1***. Any year you want… 1874? Sure, but that makes no sense, so for now we’ll make the variables 980 so it takes place in 1980. Remember that she was pregnant, and probably wouldn’t have had John until 1981.

After T2, we now have Sarah Connor Chronicles, and it starts in 1***. Now, in T3, she was said to have died shortly after Aug 29, 1997 (Judgment Day). If instead of dying, she just dropped off the grid for 2 years, then low and behold, we can make those variables 999, and it works! Hey! Look at that! So in 1994, John was 13, and 5 years later, he’s 18. And can still be in High School! Grade 12!

Then they jump ahead to 2***. To make things easier, we can call it present day, so they don’t really have to invent or down grade technologies, so the variables can be 007. 2007!

Now that we have variables, T3 takes place in 2***. Right now, let’s say that John was 23 in T3, which is 5 years from the Pilot of Sarah Connor Chronicles, so the variables are 012. T3 now takes place in 2012. But these dates are not hard and fast. They remain variables, so any changes that come up (in either upcoming episodes of Sarah Connor Chronicles, or the upcoming trilogy staring Christian Bale as John Connor) can be easily dealt with, because any dates that show up should be 2*** from now on. Just put in the date that makes sense for the timeline.

There I just fixed it. The Studios can send me money.

Early Christmas Present!!!

I am in geek heaven. Just announced yesterday (Dec 18), Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have settled their differences, and are going ahead with… THE HOBBIT!!!! HAZZAH!!!! I am so looking forward to this film, and with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh serving as Executive Producers, it will be as high a quality of film as The Lord of the Rings was. This will be an epic prequel to one of the best Trilogies ever put to celluloid.

WOW!!! I just can’t believe how excited I am to see this picture. We’ll get to see Bilbo, Elrond, lots of Dwarves, Gandalf (let’s hope that Ian comes back, which I’m sure he will… he said he would love to play Gandalf again), Gollum, and of course Smaug: A BIG FREAKING DRAGON!

Here’s some details stolen from Dark Horizons (where I go to get my movie info):

* MGM and New Line will co-finance and co-distribute two films, "The Hobbit" and a sequel to "The Hobbit." New Line will distribute in North America and MGM will distribute internationally.

* Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will serve as Executive Producers of two films based on "The Hobbit." New Line will manage the production of the films, which will be shot simultaneously.

The two "Hobbit" films - "The Hobbit" and its sequel - are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, with pre-production beginning as soon as possible. Principal photography is tentatively set for a 2009 start, with the intention of "The Hobbit" release slated for 2010 and its sequel the following year, in 2011.

I’m not sure what a sequel to the Hobbit would entail, unless they are breaking up the book over two movies. Perhaps it’s the goings on of all the characters between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, which would make for a good story as well. Get Viggo back to hunt down Gollum. Ooh… shivers. Let's also hope that Jackson jumps on board to Direct as well.

We now have a new date to look forward too. Christmas 2010! Three years of waiting has started!

WOOT!!!!!

More Movie News

A poster, a poster! The official Indiana Jones site has posted the poster for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Though I think the name of the movie is a mouthful, the poster definately looks like there is a skull present. Perhaps it's even crystal.

Batman and Indy... what a great summer this is going to be! GLEEE!

Movie News

Three little tidbits of movie news have come up.

The first: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian has released the trailer, and it looks really good. You can find it here.

GIJOE has some casting news. GIJOE, of course is based off of G I Joe, but as the rest of the world doesn’t really like the US right now, they have to change it. So now GIJOE stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, which is based out of Brussels… lame. Anyway, Snake Eyes has been cast, and it is Ray Park, whose movie credits include The Headless Horseman (Sleepy Hollow), Toad (X-men), and of course, the way cool Darth Maul (whose life and body were cut short). I may actually have to see this movie now.


Finally, Warner Bros. has released a teaser poster for the much anticipated “The Dark Knight” which is the next Batman movie coming up this summer. Chris Nolan did not disappoint with Batman Begins, and so hopefully he can top that movie with “The Dark Knight”. Having the Joker as the main villain should make it easier to top Scarecrow and Ra’s al Ghul (The Demon’s Head).