It’s been over a year since I posted my list of 100 Essential Superhero Movies, and I do want to keep this list updated every year, adding in new movies from the previous year, and taking out movies that only just barely made the cut. Another thing that I decided to do a little bit differently is to rank the films by their quality, so that it’s more obvious which films are the failures that are still important in the grand scheme of superhero movie history, but aren’t very high quality films. And while my personal preference will obviously come into play, I did make a decided effort to combine my opinion along with the general opinion. Also, I will be sharing my rankings every day for the next 100 days over on Facebook and Twitter and will be collecting them here afterwards. Enjoy!

#100 – The Wild World of Batwoman

It fits into this list as one of the first fan films, or more appropriately a mockbuster as it took the barest of concepts from Adam West’s Batman and tried to make it a success. But a lack of budget, lack of talent, and lack of writing made this film fade away until Mystery Science Theater got a hold of it and brought it back into view as a so-bad-it’s-good cult film.

#99 – Supergirl

This was the first major superhero movie with a woman in the lead role, unfortunately it came after the increasingly low budget and low quality Superman films and is not a good film by any means. The two bright spots are the introduction of Helen Slater in the lead role, and Jerry Goldsmith’s score even though it’s pales in comparison to the original Superman score.

#98 – Batman & Robin

This was the end of the Batman universe started by Tim Burton and ended by Joel Schumacher. It brought in an older Batman with George Clooney, gave Arnold Schwarzenegger top billing as a pun spewing Dr. Freeze, turned Gotham into a neon filled amusement park, and turned fans of the character away in droves grossing just over $100 million and the lowest of any modern live action Batman film. It has basically turned into a big joke that even those involved in the film have turned against it. It is a

#97 – The Return of Swamp Thing

The sequel to Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing which was a cross between a creature feature and a superhero film. The sequel ditched a lot of the horror elements outside of the creature effects and played up the comedy quite a bit more. It also brought in Heather Locklear off of Dynasty as a love interest for Swamp Thing. It seemed to try too hard to recreate what made the first film good, but they did bring in superhero movie alum Sarah Douglas in the best role of the film, even though it was somewhat similar to Ursa in Superman 2 without the super powers.

#96 – Superman III

The beginning of the end of the Salkind/Christopher Reeve Superman films that originally brought superhero films into the mainstream. This film sidelined Superman in favor of hot comedian at the time Richard Pryor who was allowed to pretty much let loose as an accidental computer genius and accidental supervillain. It also got rid of Margot Kidder in favor of Annette O’Toole who plays Lana Lang and would eventually go on to play Martha Kent for many seasons on Smallville. The comedy was not the right direction for this franchise, though it does stand the test of time for introducing the evil side of Superman, also known as “drunk dad” Superman.

The Posthuman Project 2015

Even though I try to keep myself up to date on superhero movies coming out, I rarely search out indie projects and obscure films anymore. Instead, I rely on my social networks and newsfeeds to point them out to me as they show up on other people’s radar, which is why I didn’t find out about this film until a few short months ago when it had its wide release through digital outlets. I’ve watched a fair number of low budget, indie superhero films and I do find myself coming at them from a different perspective. The acting won’t always be there, and neither will the special effects, but there’s usually something in the writing or direction that I can grasp onto and see what the filmmakers were going for. There is some of that here in the Posthuman project, but not quite enough for me to love this film in the way that I have with All Superheroes Must Die, or Squid Man. It’s got some good ideas, and a couple good characters, but it suffers in several places from trying to reach beyond its limitations.

Simply enough, this is an origin story about a group of teenagers: four seniors about to graduate, and a slightly younger brother. And similar to the Fantastic Four, they eventually end up getting hit with an explosion of superhero juice, here referred to as Zero Energy, and all get their own unique powers that have been foreshadowed earlier in the film. It’s a tough call to say whether or not it was clever writing or lazy writing to toss in hints of what each character’s power will end up being. To start off, there’s the main character Denny. He was a near-professional rock climber until he had a debilitating accident some time ago and has nearly recovered to the point where he can occasionally walk with his knee brace and without crutches. When he gets hit with the energy, he gains the power to heal himself and others. His younger brother Archie gets beaten up at school and is basically a science nerd, as evidenced by his large nerd-glasses, and in return gains super strength and invulnerability. The token black guy Adam has a pre-graduation crisis where he doesn’t want to leave his friends behind and there’s a line at one point mentioning how he “can’t be in two places at once”, at least until he gains the power to teleport. The pink-haired tomboy with an abusive stepfather Gwen stands up to said stepfather by burning him with his own cigar and later gains the ability to create and control fire. And finally Lisa, the ex-girlfriend of Denny, has the line “cross your heart and hope to fly” so it’s no surprise that she more or less gains the power of flight, though it’s later revealed that it’s more like telekinesis.

The biggest issue with this film is really the acting. Most of the teens in the core group fall fairly flat, with the occasional moment to shine here and there. Adam and Gwen had some of the best moments when they are discussing their typical teenage issues, though much of Gwen’s struggle with her stepfather felt very cliched and superficial. The other highlight of the film was William, the main villain and uncle of the two main brothers. He was the one character that really had the opportunity to take things over the top and he went with it all the way. There are some great villain monologuing moments, and he even gets a couple moments to do an evil laugh. It almost felt like he was in the wrong movie when compared to the acting of all of the other characters, but it really helped to inject the right amount of fun into the film.

One thing that was more impressive considering the low budget were the effects. There were some spotty moments of cheaply glowing eyes and digital backgrounds slash green screen, but much of the work on the powers were quite effective. There’s one scene in particular that involves a fight with Adam and the lead henchman where Adam uses his teleporting powers to its fullest potential. It’s not going to blow minds like the White House scene in X2, but considering the limitations, it was quite impressive and entertaining. There are also moments with Gwen’s fire tossing that look very flashy and stylish. Another smart choice by the director was the use of integrated chapter titles, it was one of the most visually interesting qualities of the film where each chapter title was a part of the background in a fairly seamless way like in graffiti on the wall or on one of the villain’s monitors, whether it was done digitally, practically, or more likely a combination of the two.

One word that I often like to use when describing these lower budget superhero and comic book movies is potential. When I’m watching a film like this, I can still see the flaws and those flaws still hamper my overall enjoyment of the movie. But I also try to understand why those flaws happened, and what the film could have been like if the filmmakers had the resources to address those flaws. Whether they needed more resources to find the right actors for the lead roles, or more time to have rehearsals or shoot more takes, or whatever the case may be, I can still see the passion for the material and a concept that is fun and interesting. It’s not the worst way to spend an afternoon, especially if you can find it on a free streaming service like Amazon Prime or Netflix. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Mr. Freedom 1969

In my search for 100 of the most important and influential superhero movies, this is the last of those films that I’ve sought out to watch. I gave it a certain measure of importance mostly due to the label that released it on DVD. When a film is released under the Criterion label, it gives it an extra bit of prestige as they don’t just seek out any films to release. Instead, Criterion is generally known for releasing films that a cinephile would be most interested in. And considering that Mr. Freedom is the single, solitary superhero film released under the Criterion label, I assumed that it’s a mark of quality. I won’t go so far as to say that I was completely mistaken, but this was not the film I expected it to be by a long shot. While there is still a hefty amount of social satire and striking visuals, it’s marred by quite a bit of heavy handedness, low budget, and a nonsensical nature.

To try and put it into simple terms, Mr. Freedom takes place in an odd almost dystopian future where he is an ultra-conservative freedom fighter sent over to France to deal with the red threat. While there, he has to contend with his fervent band of supporters, the somewhat neutral government led by Super Frenchman, and the enemies led by Moujick Man and Super Chinaman. Mr. Freedom himself is a very stereotypical red blooded American, he loves guns, cowboy hats, football helmets, red, white, and blue, and hates Commies, Blacks, Jews, Gays, and anyone else who doesn’t agree with him. Our first introduction to Mr. Freedom in his red, white, and blue decked out football gear emblazoned with a giant “F” on his chest has him breaking into a house with a large Black family who have apparently robbed a convenience store. He then proceeds to kill every last one of them. Offscreen while chanting his theme song which spells “freedom” wrong, by saying “F-R, double E-D, D-O-M”.

There’s also a rampant element of both big brother and rampant sexism. When he gets his assignment to go to France, Donald Pleasance speaks to him over three flickering video monitors under the name “Dr. Freedom”, and spouts off a large amount of blatant propaganda. Every woman in this film is scantily clad, white, and acts like a typical bubbly bimbo. There’s a bizarre moment when he’s in France and goes to talk to one of his contacts in what appears to be a department store, only there doesn’t appear to be any customers and there’s a large group of blonde women, all dressed the same, jumping up and down. They follow the two as they have a conversation and occasionally repeat platitudes as they just circle them continuously with their very squeaky sneakers. The woman he works with in France also lets him know about their vast network of prostitutes which they use to make money and gain information. There’s even a moment during his first night at the hotel in France when a maid brings him his breakfast. He holds a gun on her the entire time and makes her strip and eat the eggs, which then turn out to have been poisoned.

Another bizarre element of this film are the costumes. Besides the fact that Mr. Freedom himself is decked out in overblown football gear that changes from scene to scene with different pads and helmets, his enemies are also rather bizarre. While not exactly an enemy, Super Frenchman is a giant balloon man that looks almost like one of those inflatable tube arm waving signs used on the side of the road. Super Chinaman is a giant inflatable Chinese dragon, and Moujick Man is wearing a giant red foam suit that looks like one of those padded suits to play a game of Sumo in Double Dare. There’s also other similar odd outfits like two guys in the background who look like a rainbow colored Michelin Man. It does make for some very striking visuals, but it just as much makes it look like an episode of H. R. Puffenstuff.

Moujick Man, Super Chinaman, and Jesus and Mary for good measure.

The biggest problem with this film is really the overly blatant political message. Mr. Freedom quite obviously represents America with his shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude along with his very racist and single minded attitude of “Right is might, and might is freedom”. He will kill almost indiscriminately, and when things stop going his way, the solution is to blow up half of the country if not more. He’s a loudmouthed idiot who constantly spouts capitalist propaganda and conservative ideals that border very close to dictator levels of control masked as freedom. The one saving grace are the visuals, to put it simply, it’s almost as if Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote this film to be directed by Terry Gilliam and produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, but none of them really put their best efforts into it. There’s plenty of pomp and circumstance, but when looked at as an actual story it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. There is plenty here to dissect in terms of political satire in the way that he’s dressed, the way that he speaks, and the way that everything looks, but it’s message is somehow so blatant that the subtleties of meaning behind the pretty distractions in the background don’t seem to be that important anymore. And last but not least is the fact that this film appears to have been filmed in French, and then dubbed over in English but the only audio option is the English language version. The dubbing is handled well enough in terms of acting, it just syncs poorly and is a minor distraction. And in terms of being a superhero, it’s mainly just the trappings of the costume and status without any of the superpowers, though the ending makes it unclear if his arm was somehow robotic, or if it was just a very poor special effect. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Episode #56 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Nick Rehak from French Toast Sunday who asks me why I hadn’t seen Goodfellas, the quintessential Martin Scorsese film that makes the life of a gangster look almost glamorous. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen the superhero film that really kicked off the modern era of superhero movies, Bryan Singer’s very first X-Men from 2000.

Click here to listen, or as always you can listen and subscribe to the show through iTunes, Stitcher, or PodOmatic and as always I appreciate it if you give the show a like, thumbs up, and a review however you listen. I also have a Filmwhys page in the main menu of this site where you can read the origins, find information on how to be a guest on the show, and also the show archives where the shows go to (eventually) after they are rotated off of the regular PodOmatic feed. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

The Incredible Hulk Returns 1988

It’s time to finally finish these Incredible Hulk movies as I end with the first one to come after the end of the TV series. I don’t see myself going all the way back to the original pilots for the show as they feel more like they should be considered pilots rather than TV movies, though I may visit them sometime down the line when I run out of other films to watch. But that’s beside the point, I’m here to talk about this film which was also intended to be a spinoff pilot for a potential Thor series, like the Trial of the Incredible Hulk was intended to be a spinoff pilor for a potential Daredevil series. So once again, this movie focused as much if not more on the origin of their version of Thor than they do on Banner and the Hulk. Though it’s interesting that this was the only TV movie that brought back the character of McGee, the reporter who was apparently a big part of the series and this is his only appearance in these TV films. In fact, this was his last major acting appearance. As far as the quality goes, I would say that it falls somewhere in between the other two, it has a lot of fun moments with Thor, but it also doesn’t really go anywhere by the end.

More than the other two films, this does feel very much like it almost directly followed the end of the series, there are several mentions of it being two years without an incident and David is working in a lab under an assumed name and seeing a woman who he uses to help control his certain kind of urges. The angry kind. The big, green Hulk kind. That probably could still be taken in a sexual way, but whatever. He’s trying to keep things quiet on his end, their project is almost finished and he doesn’t want any of the credit, he just wants to have the chance to work in the lab after hours once in a while. And of course, it’s revealed that he’s using this machine to try and cure himself of his condition, but is interrupted by a nerdy little scientist named David Blake who knew him as David Banner several years ago.

A little something for the ladies.

The interesting thing is that while the film uses the comic book secret identity of Thor, they completely change things around as far as how his secret identity works. Here, Donald Black was a scientist who also likes hiking in the mountains. He is drawn to this ancient cave with the tomb of Thor, and he picks up this random hammer and knows to call out Odin’s name to summon the spirit of Thor who is barred from entering Valhalla until he proves himself worthy. So here, Donald Blake is essentially just a regular guy who can call up his buddy Thor to come down and hang out for a while, like a My Buddy. It does lead to a slight discussion about how Blake can control his monster side and truly never has to call him out if he never wanted to. For his part, Thor plays it up as mainly a joke. The actor is Eric Allen Kramer who is likely best known as Little John from Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He is still a pretty big guy and has plenty of moments for comedy, like when Blake finally relents and takes him to a biker bar. The biggest problem is that the whole concept just feels really disjointed, especially considering that when he calls to Odin, Blake always holds the hammer far away from himself with his head turned and his eyes squinted closed as if it were going to explode at any second. And he yells Odin with a thunderous echo, even when they try and do it quietly later on when sneaking into the villain’s lair.

Speaking of the villains, they are the typical random pseudo-military bad guys that seemingly are either crooked cops or are posing as cops since they have a sheriff’s helicopter at one point. It does help that the two main guys are played by Tim Thomerson and Charles Napier. They really help to play up the menace of the two characters even when their motivations are pretty unclear outside of working with one of the other scientists to steal a part of their research for money, or for sabotage, or something along those lines. It’s never really that clear since most of the time is just spent with Blake and Thor. Even Banner’s girlfriend gets tossed to the side pretty quickly after having a nice homemaking moment in the beginning. Once Blake shows up and causes Banner to Hulk out, he blows her off for the next thirty minutes or so. When he finally does show up back at her house, she ends up getting kidnapped by the bad guys the very next day.

Ok, there was this shot that had a little visual flair to it.

The last thing to really mention about this film is that there wasn’t a whole lot in how it was shot. Compared to the next movie with Daredevil, there were quite a few visually interesting shots that cropped up here and there, but not so much with this one. There was also an odd element where every time the Hulk was onscreen by himself, it would be a stilted slow motion that I don’t remember noticing in the two later films. It was especially noticeable when it would cut from one shot with the Hulk in frame by himself in this slight slow motion, then when it cut to another angle when he reached the other characters, it would be back to full speed again. It was apparently done to give extra weight and heft to his character, but since it was shot on video, it wasn’t able to be done the correct way and it just looked out of place and cheap. Aside from that, it was enjoyable enough to watch. Compared to the various ways that I’ve seen Thor handled on film, this was one of them. It wasn’t especially good or wrong, it just was what it was. It still had quite a few of the flaws of being a made-for-TV movie, but it at least wasn’t a bore to sit through. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

The Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guests are Jess Rogers and Rachel Thuro from the Reel Insight Podcast who ask me why I hadn’t seen Moon, a low budget modern sci-fi classic that really showcased Sam Rockwell’s talent as an actor, and in return I ask them why they hadn’t seen Ghost Rider, Nicholas Cage’s first turn at playing a superhero who happens to turn into a guy with a flaming skull for a head.


Click here to listen, or as always you can listen and subscribe to the show through iTunes, Stitcher, or PodOmatic and as always I appreciate it if you give the show a like, thumbs up, and a review however you listen. I also have a Filmwhys page in the main menu of this site where you can read the origins, find information on how to be a guest on the show, and also the show archives where the shows go to (eventually) after they are rotated off of the regular PodOmatic feed. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Alter Egos 2012

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten around to watching a proper superhero movie to review here, I’ve been busy with Channel: Superhero as usual as well as work stuff. But I finally caught up with this film that I had heard of back when it got picked up by Kevin Smith for his new SModcast pictures presents which was quickly renamed to the Kevin Smith movie club where it ran for three years until 2013. I had no idea what the movie was actually about aside from the catch phrase “Alter Egos” and honestly thought it had more to do with the real life superheroes that these lower budget indie superhero flicks tend to move towards. But instead, it has built a world all its own and it only focuses on a small portion of that world. It has a fair amount of humor, and uses the minimal special effects to the film’s advantage to craft an all around entertaining movie. I really enjoyed this look at the struggles of a superhero’s persona with the hints of the larger world revolving around it.

One of the most interesting things about this film is the world that it is built around. It’s an alternate present where superheroes exist and they are subsidized by the government. There are different levels of superheroes, but unlike most comic book universes they are limited to having one ability each and have to work in teams. At one point, they were allowed to use guns until one hero went crazy and shot his wife and himself. But that’s not entirely what this film is really about. Instead, it focuses mainly on a single hero, Fridge played by Kris Lemche. Fridge is in a bit of a crisis, he thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him with his own alter ego, and this all comes out during a mission that is actually part of a frame up in order to create a new super villain and regain funding for the superhero program.

There are plenty of little touches to the world this movie is building, but they’re all presented very subtly and in a context that makes sense within the situation. We find out about the single-power limitation and the gun ban through a regular police officer played by Danny Masterson who tried to get into the super powered league or whatever it was called because his power is that he is only able to turn himself invisible for 2.3 seconds and in turn he is resentful towards other superheroes. The film also uses channel surfing to get snippets of news programs and reality shows based in this world to help sell this world of a superpowered police force who have come under fire once the super villains have run out.

But the real heart of the story is all about Fridge and his life crisis. He’s stuck with a girlfriend who doesn’t care about his normal life, so much so that when he tests her by putting his moves on her as Fridge, she falls for his superhero presence. But while he thinks that she’s knowingly cheating on his secret identity with his public identity, she was just smart enough to see through the disguise and decided to play along. And most of this backstory we hear through Fridge’s discussions with C-thru played by Joey Kern who can see through solid objects. This is also where Lemche shines the most as he talks about Fridge and his secret identity Branden as if they were two completely different people, even going so far as to consider creating a third identity for himself to help figure things out. It makes him feel equal parts sympathetic and a little crazy. It’s also tied into a budding romance with the clerk at this out-of-season lodge who has a thing against superheroes but also has an instant rapport with Branden.

Aside from the relationship angle, there’s also the actual mission at hand involving a long captured super villain who has ties to Fridge, his parents, and their death. It’s presented as this simple mission, but it has so many different connections and twists that it’s always interesting to see which way it will go next. And at the same time, it never feels like it’s just pulling something out of left field, it all makes sense within the context of the world the film is building. It also helps to make this villain a sympathetic character in the end. All of the drama is also tied together with equal amounts of comedy. While the single purely comic relief stoner character Moon Dog can be hit or miss with most people, there is quite a bit of silly fun surrounding Fridge’s constant need to keep his two alter egos completely separate even though they are both staying at this lodge. I had a lot of fun with this film, and I also thought it tacked several questions that aren’t always examined in most superhero movies. In many places, I could obviously tell that it was a low budget film. Mainly the costumes of all the heroes felt very low-rent except for the great looking makeup on the villain Electric Death played by Sean Lennon who also composed the film’s score and several songs on the soundtrack. But the acting was on point for the most part. Lemche handled the lead role of Fridge very well. Kern was a little stiff, but his character was also intentionally a little stiff. It’s well worth checking out if you happen across it or you’re just looking for an unexpected indie comedy with a little meat on its bones. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

AKA The Adventures of Food Boy is Not a Superhero Movie

It’s been a long while since I’ve written one of these blog posts looking at what does or doesn’t make a superhero movie as a whole. I usually err on the side of acceptance, including movies like the Spongebob Movie that only has the characters turn into superheroes for the last fifteen to twenty minutes at the end, or Birdman where the main character is an actor who used to play a superhero and is having hallucinations of that same hero, or even Electric Man where it’s mainly about comic books and one of the characters merely cosplays as the fictional comic book hero. But I finally found a movie that made me draw the line even though the poster for the film has the titular Food Boy opening his shirt in a clear homage to Superman and one of the alternate titles of the film is High School Super Hero.

Honestly, just from the description and concept of the film I had a sneaking suspicion that there wouldn’t be any strong connection to superheroes in the film. One of the only reasons why I decided to watch it was because I was browsing through the Netflix library in search of superhero movies that I hadn’t reviewed to watch for my free month and this was one of only a dozen or so that I found. So I made the correct decision to mostly let it play in the background while I did other things like play a Minecraft card game with my daughter. It does have a few very tenuous links to superhero movies; he has the super power to create generally-ready-to-eat food out of his hands, he also has a grandmother with the same power to act as a mentor to explain this long line of food-gifted-people. But the way those are presented are just as much aligned with a fantasy movie where the main character finds out they have magic powers and come from a long line of wizards.

The film itself follows a very typical high school outcast plot line. Ezra is more or less the class clown that nobody actively dislikes (aside from the teacher since he’s always late), but only has a couple good friends. He also becomes known for being the kid who will eat anything, starting with a pile of random food piled onto a cafeteria tray where he wins a few dollars pooled from all the kids at the table by eating it all without puking. He pulls a few more stunts as he decides to run for class president against the resident pseudo-jock who has been the president two years running and is always seen holding a football but is never seen actually playing football. There’s also the plain Jane girl who likes him but he doesn’t see it, and the popular girl who likes him when he starts becoming popular with his food-related “magic tricks”.

But as far as being a superhero, there’s not really any of that included in this film. There’s a slight costume at the very end as the plain Jane gives him the shirt seen in the poster proclaiming him “Food Boy”. There’s also a slight villain with the class president, though they end the movie as friends. There’s even a bit of moral decision as he learns that he can basically forsake his power to become normal, but if he accepts it he has to use his power to do something to further the state of cuisine as a cook or something similar. And again, some of these tropes feel more akin to a magical destiny rather than a superheroic destiny. But for whatever reason, the filmmakers decided to hitch their marketing towards the superhero wagon rather than the Harry Potter wagon. Just giving someone a weird super power and adding “boy” to the title of the film isn’t enough to make it something I consider a superhero movie, there has to be more than that. So no, not everything with “super” or “man” or “girl” in the title will end up on my list as a superhero movie, I do have my limits. And while I’m at it, I will include movies targeted towards kids, but not what amount to TV shows packaged in a home video package that are targeted towards preschoolers. I.E. you will never see me reviewing Dora the Explorer and her Super Babies. But anything that may be borderline, I will likely at least half-watch so I can make the final decision myself. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Antboy: Revenge of the Red Fury 2014

I’m still moving through my Netflix queue of superhero movies I haven’t reviewed yet and I was a little surprised to see this film on the list, especially since it did actually include the original Danish language track on it. I remember the first time I watched the first Antboy, English was the only available option that I could find. I still watched most of it in dubbed English, though I was able to switch partway through when my daughter and wife weren’t interested in watching the film along with me. This sequel picks up more or less where the first film left off, it brings back almost all of the major characters except for Ida’s sister. It also completely eschews adults in favor of the young characters. In fact, the only real adult in this film is the villain the Flea, not even Antboy’s parents get a moment of acknowledgement.

Now that the origin story is out of the way, Antboy 2 does what a lot of superhero sequels do: it improves. Without having to spend a lot of time setting up who these characters are and how they got their powers, it doesn’t waste any time before getting straight into the story. It also gets straight into the action with one of the surprisingly few action scenes where Antboy takes out a few hockey punks who are picking on the shy, mousy girl Maria. She just so happens to be a big fan of Antboy and ends up asking him to the upcoming school dance. Where this movie really helps sell the kid hero aspect of the story is when it actually takes the time to show the audience that these are still kids and have to deal with school age relationships. There is a bit of a love quadrangle going on where Antboy’s alter ego Pelle still likes Ida. But now there’s a new kid in school, Christian who has the hots for Ida. He’s basically a caricature of a hipster vegan. He wears faux-wool clothing made from plants, a knit cap, a scarf, and eats Kale chips. He plays the guitar and mixes rave music. Meanwhile Pelle feels invisible towards Ida now that Christian is in the picture, yet he also ignores Maria who has the crush on Antboy as he chooses to try to get Ida at the dance rather than honor his commitment to Maria.

Maria in her Red Fury outfit sans-invisibilty.

Meanwhile, Maria’s father is working on an invisibility suit, rather unsuccessfully. And if you’ve ever read any comic book you can see where this is going. The suit eventually works after her father gives up on it, but Maria keeps it and tailors it to herself to get revenge on Antboy as well as Pelle. She quickly learns his secret identity and makes the connection that he was at the dance, he just didn’t want to be with her. Pelle and his friend/sidekick Wilhelm initially think that she is a ghost, specifically a fury, hence the name. But she isn’t the only villain in the movie since you can’t get too far with a villain the just can’t be seen. Enter the Terror Twins, two teenage hoodlums who break into the Flea’s old house while he’s still in jail and find yet another special insect that has amazingly managed to survive several months in a jar. They are both bitten by the stag beetle, but are generally the weakest part of the film. It wisely doesn’t spend too much time developing the Terror Twins. Instead, they are presented almost more as just comic relief since they are all brawn and little brains. Red Fury initially convinces them that she is the ghost of the Flea’s mother in order to get them to follow her orders. And the worst that one of them does is basically just get his head stuck in a refrigerator.

The effects in the film are generally simple, but effective. The entire effects surrounding the Red Fury’s invisibility look and sound great. Since it is prototype tech from an amateur inventor it’s not a smooth and sleek transition, but instead there’s plenty of buzzing and sparking that looks and sound rather fantastic. Surprisingly there is never a moment where the suit actually fails at an inopportune time, instead it’s the human connection that ends up getting through to the Red Fury, and there’s once again a moment where Antboy has to rely on his non-powered friends to help save the day. But even with more than one villain, including several moments with the Flea still in prison in a very Hannibal Lector-esque way, the movie manages to keep things pared down to the essentials. It’s all about Antboy and his relationships. Or more accurately the lack thereof. He pines for Ida but generally lacks the courage to actually ask her out, and as Maria pines for Antboy he also lacks the courage to let her down gently.

Red Fury even has her little Clarice Starling moment to ask the Flea a few questions.

Antboy 2 managed something rather impressive. While the first film definitely felt like a kid’s film aimed specifically towards children, this film still managed to feel like it was aimed towards kids, but at the same time it didn’t feel like a kid’s film. Everything about this film felt like it would be relatable from a kid’s perspective, and yet it never felt like it was talking down to the audience, or oversimplifying things. And after I watched this I saw that there is actually a trailer for Antboy 3 coming out sometime next year with all the same cast. I’m looking forward to watching that one as well and I think that if this continues it could be a great superhero film series that follows these kids into their adulthood as superheroes in a similar way that Harry Potter did for a wizard fantasy. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

They Call Me Superseven 2016

A while back I talked with writer/producer Scott Rhodes about his webseries Superseven and he mentioned his plans to turn several episodes of that webseries into a feature length film. Well, that has happened and not only that but it will be getting some home video and online distribution early next year. I was offered a screener for review and much like the webseries it spawned from I really enjoyed it. If you haven’t heard of it, Superseven is an homage to the superhero slash spy B-movies from the 60’s, most of which I have yet to watch for myself. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it wears its low budget on its sleeve, but is a lot of fun and worth watching when it becomes available.

One of the best things about Superseven is the man himself. Jerry Kokich really gets to the heart of the character and plays it up for all its worth. Superseven as a character is basically Adam West’s Batman, Sean Connery’s James Bond, and a game show announcer all wrapped up into one. He gives Superseven a very dry humor where he takes what he is saying completely seriously even though he looks completely ridiculous talking into his glove phone, or driving around in his tiny little spy car with a smiley face drawn in the dust of the rear windshield. The other characters work in a similar vein, Sandra West is the cocky rogue agent who has a past with Superseven. And Sparky is the childlike mechanic who spends most of her time at the secret base when she’s not fantasizing about killing West to get with Superseven.

The humor itself tends to be a little bit on the dry and subtle side. There’s rarely a moment that draws attention to the humor of the situation itself aside from a scene towards the end where Sandra is “drunk” on truth serum. Instead, it relies on your awareness of the situation and familiarity with the source material while it takes things seriously. It’s a fine line of humor in some cases that could be seen as an excuse for a low budget, but in most cases the obvious lack of budget only add to the humor. It makes a death scene that much funnier when there is an obvious lack of a blood squib combined with the slightly hammy death performance followed by a very casual call to the “Dead Spy Removal Service”. Or when there is a set comprised of acrobatic test equipment that seems to be solely as an excuse to let the stunt team do flips and longer falls. There are even moments in the film where it cuts to footage of classic B-movie footage of explosions and henchmen in evil lair sets.

One of the biggest problems with the film is the very episodic nature of it. It’s quite obvious that it was cut together from different episodes that loosely tie together but don’t really flow together all that well. There’s also a bit of an overuse of montages towards the latter half of the movie that showcase other scenes from the webseries as well as moments that we had seen earlier in this same film. It is helped slightly by the wonderful throwback scene transition that’s just a simple motion blur with a quick bongo score, but it very simply and eloquently evokes the exact right tone that gets a smile each time it comes on screen. The villains themselves also generally fall towards the weak side of things. Even when T.H.E.Y. get the upper hand, T.H.E.Y. often still feel like T.H.E.Y. just got lucky rather than any amount of actual competence. It doesn’t help that most of the villains don’t get much screen time. Only a couple of them appear in more than one act while most are just disposable minions. Thunderpussy is the biggest highlight and that’s mainly just for the amount of humor pulled from her name alone, as well as the wonderful scene where she faces off against Superseven and they exchange barbs in various different languages and subtitles.

Superseven as a film is a difficult one to give a broad recommendation to, it appeals to a very specific subset of fandoms. The humor works well, but only if you’re a fan of the source material, otherwise it generally just comes off as low budget schlock. Even with only a small amount of experience with the type of films that Superseven spoofs I had a blast with it, especially the moments with a bit more of the broad humor. Some of the scenes with Sparky went a little bit too over the top, especially with her repeated fantasies of killing Sandra West. Instead of emphasizing her unrequited love for Superseven, it veered just a little bit too far into her dark side to make her less likable as a character, especially since her regular scenes has her acting more childlike and innocent. She watches old movies, eats popcorn, and falls asleep on the couch. Aside from that it really is worth watching, either as a webseries, or when it becomes available to watch as a full length movie. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Marvel Superhero Adventures: Frost Fight 2015

Just when I thought I had watched every Christmas related superhero movie they had to come out with another one. And in typical Marvel fashion, this one flew under my radar until it was actually released even though they did apparently announce the title at NYCC. It was just released digitally earlier last week and like most of Marvel’s recent home video releases it is very family friendly. But they have also switched animation styles yet again, going away from the anime and the cell-shaded CGI in favor of their TV style animation similar to Avengers Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy, though with only a few of the same voice actors. It does a nice job of tying Santa Claus into the Marvel universe, but it’s mainly just a very disjointed series of battles and/or gags with a very common holiday story at the end.

The overall premise is that Santa Claus is actually a legendary being known by Asgardians as Jolnir which actually does have its roots in Norse mythology. He was the son of a Frost Giant and a Light Elf, though the realm that he resides in looks much more like Candyland than anything in the Thor movies. He also has what was referred to as the Emerald Guard and the Eurokraken (or possibly Jurokraken) to help protect him and his realm as well as the Guardian Box, or some similar name. The Guardian Box was a relic which allowed someone to transfer power from one being to another, and so Loki’s plan was to use it to transfer Jolnir’s mighty power to himself.

So, ultimately the plot revolves around everyone trying to find the mighty Santa Claus, including Loki and his sidekick Frost Giant Ymir, a group of Avengers consisting of: Captain America, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and young trainee Reptil, as well as Rocket Raccoon and Groot because of course they are, and meanwhile Hulk and Thor are off on Earth where Hulk is teaching Thor about Earth’s Christmas. It’s all really odd, disjointed, and mainly just excuses to make jokes about Christmas. There are Christmas movie cliches everywhere, from just the inclusion of Reptil as the young character who still believes in Santa Claus while Tony Stark is the realist who absolutely doesn’t until he finally sees him with his own eyes. There’s also a Santa Claus lookalike who’s named Nicholas and works at a toy store. Not only that, but he’s recruited (barely willingly) by Thor and Hulk to lead their makeshift sleigh filled with all of the toy store’s presents which they bought themselves (with what money?). The sleigh is flown with Thor in the lead, a bunch of plastic reindeer, and Hulk throwing presents at the ground with a force to make them flaming balls of death. If that doesn’t scream Christmas, who knows what does?

Reptil’s power is to change any part of his body to a reptillian feature, like when he pretends to be a giant dino baby.

One of the most tacked on stories in this movie is the addition of Rocket and Groot who get mixed in with everything when Loki posts a fake bounty on Jolnir’s head. But when they come after him they end up catching Mrs. Claus instead who ends up being an insane pilot who takes them for a crazy sleigh ride before wrangling the pilot seat on their ship to fly through an asteroid field. It doesn’t really add to the story in any way, shape, or form aside from getting to hear a very not-Vin Diesel say “I am Groot” a dozen times before turning into a giant Christmas tree at the very end. Rocket even gets a brand new ship without really learning any sort of lesson or helping at all.

What does help this movie for the most part is the humor laced throughout. It rarely takes itself seriously and surprisingly Hulk has some of the best comedic moments. He doesn’t get any “puny god” moments, but instead is shown as a mildly intelligent and somewhat childlike hero who tends to get distracted with tangents. There is no Bruce Banner alter ego, nor is there any moments of Hulk rage. He’s even tossed aside from the main group who is going after Loki. The other half of the story follows Reptil’s hero journey. It again is a very cliche-ridden story where he starts out being very cocky and eager, and through the mission he learns a bit of humility and teamwork. And by the end of it becomes essentially a part of the team.

Rocket and Groot do get a fun moment with some zombie Gingerbread sentries.

The animation itself feels very much like a well done episode of television. There’s nothing that feels overly cheap, but there also isn’t anything that jumps out as being very impressive. One odd direction used multiple times throughout the film was the use of slow motion for no apparent reason. It rarely added to the action or the humor even though it felt like that was the intention, like when Rocket tries to jump for the reigns of the sleigh, or when Reptil delivers the final blow to Loki. This film is also notable for being the first movie to include Captain Marvel Carol Danvers. It’s entirely possible that she has been in some of the Marvel TV shows, but this is the first notable appearance in any film that I’ve seen. Unfortunately, she didn’t really make too much of an impression in this film. She didn’t even have any real defining moments, she was just another member of the team to help in the fighting, or add her thoughts to the main dynamic between Reptil, Captain America, and Iron Man. There wasn’t much memorable about this film, but it wasn’t a bad distraction. And as far as superhero Christmas movies, it’s much closer to Batman Returns than it is to Elf-Man, and it’s a lot more family friendly than Batman Returns. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Avengers Grimm 2015

I’m still currently working on two different-yet-similar goals for this site before the end of the year, and likely just soon afterwards. I’m working on reviewing every 2015 movie that I would cover here as well as working my way towards my 300th review. This movie I had mostly forgotten about for a couple different reasons. For one thing, it’s a mockbuster from Asylum. And somewhat surprisingly, I have yet to watch a film from Asylum before now. They do plenty of horror and sci-fi there, but not a whole lot of superhero movies. Even this movie is barely a superhero movie that combines fairy tale characters with a very loose connection to the Avengers since they give most of the fairy tale characters different super powers and a world-threatening villain that even has a Loki-esque way of mind controlling his minions. But it doesn’t make up for a its lack of story or acting. From what I understand, most if not all of these films are made under a small budget and a very short timeframe. And under those conditions, it’s almost amazing that they were able to come up with something at least this coherent, even if it’s fairly unintelligible.

The basics of the story come down to the league of magical fairy tale princesses vs the evil warlock Rumpelstiltskin, with a little bit of a portal to the real world mixed in for good measure. The princesses are led by queen Snow White who has the power of the Snow Queen because the word snow is in her name, obviously. She’s also joined by Rapunzel who has the power to make her awful, awful wig into a ball-and-chain weapon a la Gogo from Kill Bill. Though I did notice that she was played by Rileah Vanderbilt who also played Wonder Woman in the Rainfall films fan-film concept teaser. Next up is Sleeping Beauty who has the power to make people fall asleep. There’s also Cinderella who has the power to transmogrify things, like she turns a gun into a bouquet of flowers. And she can also heal people who have been turned into mindless thralls by Rumpelstiltskin. And to round things up is the commoner Red, something that gets pointed out often enough, along with the fact that Princesses are immune to Rumpelstiltskin’s mind control, that it was very obvious that she would end up getting under his spell towards the end of the film. And since she doesn’t have any magic powers, she ends up being the Hawkeye of the group with her bow & arrows and fighting skills.

One of the only, honestly cool looking shots in the film.

One of the biggest issues of this film is the fact that it was filmed so quickly, or at least it seems to have been filmed quickly as to have skipped over plenty of the script. Three of the princesses aren’t even called by their names until about 2/3 of the way through the film. It’s fairly easy to determine who Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty are based on their looks/powers, but Cinderella was a complete mystery with her odd powers and non-Disney looks. Though only just now I realized that her powers of transmogrification coincide with the Fairy Godmother’s power that turned the animals and vegetables to a carriage and accouterments. There’s little explanation given to what Rumpelstiltskin’s thralls are or what his ultimate goal is, aside from the very generic “rule the world(s)”.

The Tin Man, err Iron Man, err Iron Hulk, err Iron John.

The acting is what one would expect from a low budget studio known for making mockbusters. Snow White was the worst offender as she typically just spews the words out with random accents and very little emotion. Casper Van Dien’s Rumple probably fares the best as he really dives into the role of the villain. Another actress who I personally enjoyed more than anyone else was the fairly small role of Rumple’s secretary. She plays someone who wasn’t fully made into a mindless thrall with the black eye makeup, but she was under Rumple’s mind control. And the actress basically played being under mind control, as being a stereotypical ditz. She wore a huge plastered smile on her face, her eyes were as wide as possible and blinked frequently, her head was tilted at just the right angle, and she spoke in a high pitched voice that screams “forced pleasantness”. Lou Ferrigno did a passable job as “Iron John” who was basically a mini mob boss who bargains his gang’s safety in return for becoming essentially the Tin Man, or Iron Man for Rumple. It looked and sounded much more on the side of the Tin Man with an overuse of squeaking sound effects and a liberal use of aluminum body paint. The other villain, the Wolf was also a victim of sound effect over-use where every time he was on screen, there would be the accompanying growling sound effect. If there was a saving grace to this movie, it would come down to just a couple of fight scenes that were actually pretty decent. Especially one of the final fights between Red and the Wolf. But aside from that, it was just a disjointed mess with characters that were never fully introduced or explained accomplishing motives that made no sense to prevent a villain’s plan that’s never explained. More or less exactly what I expected from an Asylum movie. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

The Subjects 2015

I’ve done it once again, and before the end of the year this time. I have seen every superhero and comic book movie that has come out in 2015 in the US (though I still have to re-watch & review Avengers: Age of Ultron for real). And like last year with Squid Man, I ended with a low budget indie movie that I absolutely fell in love with. This is technically an Australian movie, but it is available through several channels digitally worldwide. The Subjects is funny, it’s tense, and above all it’s surprising. It’s not exactly a superhero movie, but more like the deconstruction of a typical superhero origin story where things don’t go the way that you think they would. It’s more than a little ambiguous at times, but I really fell into the world that director Robert Mond was able to create.

The film starts off with a simple enough premise that owes to its low budget. There’s eight people stuck in a single room for eight hours as they are observed during a drug trial. There are the obligatory character stereotypes, though Mond was able to use a clever bit of exposition to introduce the audience to all the characters. The main character more or less is the magician slash con man John. There’s also the ditzy girl Jenna, the quiet Asian nerd Lily, the uptight businessman Devin, the new age guy who never gives his name, the ex-con arsehole Giggles, and the relatively normal girl Nikki. And if you’re good at math there is one other character that pops up about halfway through, but that requires a little bit more explaining. Many of the characters don’t really grow past their archetypes, but they are used effectively to help keep the momentum of the story going.

Things start to get interesting about twenty minutes in as one of the test subjects; the uptight businessman literally explodes in a shower of blood and it’s not too long after that when the subjects begin to realize that the pill they all took is giving them super powers. But the great thing is that this isn’t an origin story, nor is it a kid’s story. There’s no explanation given as to why this drug is being tested, how it works, or anything along those lines, and part of that reason becomes a bit of a twist near the end of the film. But what the Subjects is really interested in is to take a much more cynical look at what would happen if a random group of people were suddenly given super powers. It’s not just the cliche that “not everybody can become a hero”, but it’s much closer to “almost nobody would become a hero”. But it’s not just for lack of moral standards, but also the lack of experience, the lack of a good power, and the fact that most super powers are extremely dangerous and not just for the person on the other side.

This is a low budget film, but for the most part it’s tackled quite well. There are a handful of special effects that aren’t anything spectacular, but they get the job done. The one complaint would be against the occasional camera shake that felt very digital and unnecessary, like when it was used to accentuate a wall hit. But aside from that, the effects for the super powers looked quite nice. The actors were also played well, their cliched personalities notwithstanding. Both Giggles and Jenna walked the line between funny and annoying, and while it landed more often on the funny side for me, I could easily see it falling on the annoying side for someone else. What really helped sell it was the ambiguous ending, it’s rare to see a film that dares to not hand out a full set of answers by the end credits, or at least the strong likelihood of a happy ending. But this film ends on basically a fifty fifty split on what the outcome could be, which was quite refreshing.

The tone of the film did tend to jump around a bit between comedy and more of a thriller. It’s a difficult line to walk, but the jumps in tone when they happened were effective. It was also a unique choice to set up a literal ticking clock situation, but Mond doesn’t fall back on the cliche of relying on cutaways to that ticking clock to build tension. Instead, it almost comes all the way around to the other side where you want to know how much time is left but it’s not shown. The pacing of the film is pretty brisk, though it surprisingly takes a little while to get going with an unnecessary argument about taking the pill in the first place. Which is a little odd in the first place since the entire film runs a very short 80 minutes. But it is one of the more unique looks at superheroes that is slightly reminiscent of Chronicle only without the found footage angle and with more powers than just telekinesis. I really enjoyed the twists and turns, especially what they do with one character’s power of invisibility that’s not just invisibility to the eyes, but invisibility to the mind as well. There are just a lot of unique ideas presented in a very unique way that I really loved. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

It’s the New Year and that means that it’s time to look back at the previous year that has passed. And along with most movie sites I’ll be taking a look back at the films that came out this year and sharing my top 8 films. That may sound like an odd number, but there have been only eighteen films by my count released here in the US this year that I would classify as a superhero film or was based on a comic book. In the recent boom of superhero and comic book films, this is actually the smallest number of films released since 2009 as the number has been steadily growing since shortly after 2000. And because of that, I was actually able to watch them all before the end of the year! There were some good films this year, some surprises, and several disappointments. But there are eight films that I wanted to share once again with you as my personal favorites.

#8 28 Minute Epic

This is an extremely indie film made for a mere $4,100 as mentioned in the opening credits. It’s a little bit Kevin Smith’s Clerks, a little bit James Gunn’s Super, and a little bit of Meet the Parents thrown in as two guys working at a porn shop have the worst day in their lives and the best day in their lives all rolled up into one. The humor wasn’t always a hit with
me, but it went places that I never would have expected it to go and I had a good time with it. Not only that, but it’s currently free to watch at their site 28MinuteEpic.com, it’s worth a shot.

#7 Batkid Begins

This is a documentary about a simple wish that ended up going viral and becoming an extraordinary event in San Francisco that was seen all over the world. The actual filmmaking behind the documentary isn’t anything all that special, but the story itself is just so captivating and touching that it makes it worth watching in and of itself. Miles is a young boy battling cancer whose wish was to be the real Batman. And the Make-A-Wish foundation just happened to get all the right people involved to make a child’s wish into something that we can all get behind in one way or another.

#6 Justice League: Gods and Monsters

This was one of three Warner Premier DC Animated movies that were released this year along side several other more kid-oriented DC Animated movies, it also marked the return of Bruce Timm as writer for this alternate universe Justice League. It had several interesting ideas and alternate histories of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but much of it was lost on me as someone with only a passing knowledge of the expansive DC Universe. But it was still a quality animated release as the Warner Premier movies usually are.

#5 Avengers: Age of Ultron

This was ultimately a disappointment for a lot of people, and one reason why I didn’t give it a full written review on release was because I needed some time to let it sit and give it another watch before giving it a fair shake. That still hasn’t happened yet but even as a “disappointment” compared to the original Avengers which I consider the best superhero movie ever made, it’s still a pretty great movie. I don’t think I have to go too much into it right now, but since I haven’t done a written review, the link above goes to my appearance on the Lambcast where the film was discussed.

#4 Batman vs. Robin

I already mentioned Warner Premier and their DC Animated movies just a couple spots earlier, and this is one of their first real ongoing storylines aside from the loosely connected Justice League movies War and Throne of Atlantis. This focuses on the father/son relationship between Batman and his biological son Damian Wayne alongside the reappearance of the Court of Owls who may have had a hand in the death of Bruce’s parents. It has some interesting themes, great performances, and well done action sequences.

#3 Ant-Man

This movie had a pretty sordid history before it ever hit theaters. There was talk about this being Marvel’s first failure as it lost its writer director, fan favorite Edgar Wright in exchange for Peyton Reed who was probably best known for the movie Bring it On. But Reed and star Paul Rudd was able to bring together a great action/heist/comedy with some of the most amazing shrinking effects ever seen on film. One of the few downsides was the major underplaying of Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Pym in favor of a romantic sidekick.

#2 The Subjects

This movie was a complete surprise to me, it was another indie film made by writer/director Robert Mond that takes a very different look at super powers and superheroes. Here, eight strangers take part in a drug test that ends up giving them each different super powers. But they soon find out that learning to control these abilities is a lot more dangerous than the movies make it out to be and the movie takes on the tone of a thriller. It’s just such a different take that I completely fell in love with it. The low budget gets in the way in places, but I easily looked past it for the story and the concepts involved.

#1 Kingsman: The Secret Service

This movie was an early release this year and one of the first big success stories. I was already a fan of many of the adapted works of Mark Millar as well as the films of Matthew Vaughn and this just came together in all the right ways. The action was intense, the humor was spot on, and Taron Egerton as the lead was brilliant. Everything in this film came together as the right kind of jab at a James Bond movie for someone who has seen almost no James Bond movies.

So there’s my list, was there anything that I left out that you think I should have included? Leave a comment and let me know. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Deadpool 2016

The time has finally come, the first theatrical superhero movie of the year and it’s a doozy. As I’m writing this, it’s on the way towards a monster $135 million plus box office holiday weekend, which is around three times greater than what was expected for this R-Rated movie on what could be considered a third tier superhero. In a way, this also seems like what happens when the filmmakers take the essence of what the character is in the comics and translate that as closely as possible to the screen. For many years, liberties have been taken with the origin, the costume, and other aspects of the characters but for fans of Deadpool, this is how they see their character on the page and on the screen and they are ecstatic. Personally, I can’t really call myself a fan of Deadpool in the comics because I’ve never read the comics. Most of my exposure to Deadpool comes from the beginning of X-Men Origins: Wolverine as well as a couple fan films. But this film hit me in all the right places, from the very wrong humor, the pop culture references from the 80’s and 90’s, the meta humor, and the action all wrapped up like a chimichanga of awesome.

One of the slight downsides to this film is that it is yet another origin story with a love story thrown in as the overarching backdrop of the “hero”‘s progression. The film is set in the X-Men universe so the theory behind what happens to Wade Wilson is that many people have a latent X-gene, and all it takes is the right kind of push for that gene to activate and turn that person into a mutant. And in this case, that push comes in the form of a series of painful torture. But what brings Wade to this organization in the first place are two things: the love for a woman and the fact that his entire body is riddled with incurable cancer. There’s also the obligatory creating a costume montage, and it ends with the final showdown between Deadpool and his creators.

What really helps this film feel less like a typical origin story is the meta humor that takes the wind out of its own sails quite often, also occasionally hanging a lampshade on it. Some of the best humor for someone who has seen a large number of superhero movies are when it calls out some of the questionable parts of earlier superhero movies. This is similar to the first X-Men’s line of “what would you rather wear, yellow spandex?” but it takes it a step further. In this film, Deadpool specifically calls out the question of whether Xavier in this film’s timeline would be played by Picard or McAvoy, we see an action figure from the highly questionable Deadpool aka Weapon 11 from Wolverine, and he gleefully announces the “superhero landing” as one of the villains prepares to jump down from a great height. In a small way, the film even pokes a little bit of fun with its Stan Lee cameo, as it places him in one of the most inappropriate places for him to be.

Deadpool is a character that really revels in his inappropriateness and violence. He has a pretty high body count, so the film does something rather smart and brings in a couple X-Men characters that help bring in the moral perspective which gives Deadpool even more of an edge when he ignores their advice. Colossus is the more well known of the two characters, even though here he’s played by a CGI character voiced by Stefan Kapicic who is basically unknown here in the US. He gets a few great moments where he’s supposed to be the voice of reason as he tries to convince Deadpool to stop killing so many people and join the X-Men. His best moment is during his fight with Angel, the super strong sidekick to the head villain. She gets knocked down, and when she comes up her left boob is hanging out, which Colossus points out to her while he averts his eyes and blocks it from the camera and the audience with his hand. Although one moment that was disappointing to see it get completely glossed over is during the fight, Negasonic Teenage Warhead blasts a bus into a couple henchmen, apparently killing them, but it’s never brought up after the fact.

The pacing of the film is interesting, especially during the first half as it cuts back and forth between the big highway action set piece that made up most of the trailer and the origin story along with Deadpool’s 4th wall breaking narrative connecting the dots. It helped quite a bit so that the opening didn’t drag on too long with the non-action oriented pre-superhero stuff, and it also helped break up the action and essentially make that opening scene last for almost the full first half of the film, yet it didn’t seem like it was taking forever to get anywhere. It also helps that Ryan Reynolds himself really helps make Wade Wilson and Deadpool likable. There’s just enough touches and humanity that you like him, especially his crazy/playful relationship with Vanessa, played excellently by Morena Baccarin. He explains it himself the best when he says that he’s not a hero, he’s just a bad guy who kills badder guys.

Finally, it is the action scenes that help hold this film together, and they are handled very well. Both the stretched out highway action scene and the climactic end battle show off some great fighting choreography with Reynolds and/or his stunt double along with some great stylistic flourishes that draw a lot of inspiration from the Matrix’s bullet time and Zack Snyder’s slow-mo without feeling like a direct copy of either style, especially during the scene where Deadpool is counting down how many bullets he has left, complete with slow-mo close ups of the numbered bullet casings. It’s not a perfect movie, as it does end with on overly perfect happy ending and has that bad timing moment when the bad guys capture his girl, but I had a ton of fun with it and am looking forward to not only a sequel, but for more superhero movies to buck the trend with a more adult sensibility. The greater impact of this film’s success will help lead to the growth of the superhero movie so it doesn’t stagnate in the PG-13 Marvel Studios mold. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Up, Up, and Away 2000

I’m continuing my efforts to watch the last few remaining Black superhero and comic book movies that I haven’t reviewed with this Disney Channel Original Movie. I was never really much of a fan of the DCOMs as some people refer to them, they were always too far on the schmaltzy scale for me as they seemed to be targeted directly towards tweens before the term tween even existed. The ones that I’ve been forced to sit through by my wife and daughter have been the surprisingly abundant girl-focused ones like the Zenon films, the Halloweentowns, and most recently Descendants. None of them would have likely appealed to me when I was younger and they definitely didn’t appeal to me as an adult. So I didn’t have very high hopes for Up, Up, and Away even with the inclusion of Robert Townsend as director and star considering I am a mild fan of his earlier work The Meteor Man. But while I didn’t absolutely fall in love with Up, Up, and Away, it did do a few things that surprised me and it made me laugh more than once.

Up, Up, and Away takes place in a superhero family. Warrior Woman and the Bronze Eagle are a married couple with three kids. Their oldest is just about ready to join his parents in being a fully fledged crime fighter and he has super speed, electricity control including some ability to control electronics and erase people’s memories. Their youngest has laser eyes and X-ray vision and likes to use them at any opportunity. And the middle child and main character Scott is without any super powers and is just a few days away from his fourteenth birthday which is the last possibility for him to ever develop powers. The main plot is mainly about Scott trying to figure out his place in the family and how to cope with the pressure of something that he has absolutely no control over. And of course, his first response is naturally to fake it. It’s something that would be done in a slightly similar vein a few years later with Sky High, the only difference is that here Scott never actually gains any powers and has to cope with being a normal kid.

And meanwhile, there’s a couple young people that have created this software that can control the minds of adolescents. The software engineer one of them is an idealistic young woman named Nina who just wants to get people to recycle, save the Earth, and whatnot. The other one is the more villainous one who is really just in it for the cash and doesn’t care at all about the environment. He also happens to be played by Kevin Connoly who is possibly best known for playing the Bud Bundy analogue in the WB series Unhappily Ever After. Connoly does a great job at not just playing a complete sleazeball who would easily take advantage of kids, but he also seems like a complete loser who doesn’t have any prospects outside of this mind control scheme. One of the biggest issues with their plan is that it completely skips over how they convinced the school to use their CD-Roms as homework in the first place, considering when they started this whole thing they weren’t really able to control adults minds very well. It also falls into that whole relatively early stage of the internet and computers when it was assumed that pretty much anything could be done with them if you had enough programming knowledge.

Family dinner with all their green food.

Since it was one of those films intended for younger viewers, it’s laced with plenty of kid-friendly humor as well as some odd quirks that aren’t always explained very well. For example, the family is always eating green food, yet it’s never explained why. Their weakness also happens to be aluminum foil, which robs them of their powers, but surprisingly there was never really a moment where Scott managed to use his ability of not having an ability and therefore likely to be immune to their foil weakness. Instead, he recruits his two other friends and saves the day with his soccer abilities that has also been laced throughout the film. There’s also a subplot of the rival girl on the soccer team who he likes and also likes her, but they’re both too shy an competitive to let each other know. Surprisingly, it actually goes against the cliche at the end to a certain extent. After they are able to free his family from the foil prison, she confesses her like for him by asking him to the dance. Unfortunately, she has to have her memory of the events erased since she knows his parents’ secret identities. And when she comes over the next day, he knows that she would say yes to the dance but still doesn’t have the courage to ask her out. Instead, they end up voting for each other to be team captain which results in a tie.

The costumes aren’t awful by any means, but they’re not all that impressive either.

The humor overall for the film was fairly hit or miss. Again, it was aimed at a younger audience, especially when it comes to Scott’s nerdy best friend played by Chris Marquette who has gone on to a few notable roles playing the nerdy best friend in the Girl Next Door and Fanboys. He has a very similar style of humor here that he mainly gets to show off during the big “fight” at the end. Scott’s grandfather is also played by Sherman Hemsley who used to go by his superhero name the Steel Condor, which he resented Superman for his nickname as the Man of Steel since it carried over that he would be the Bird of Steel. There were plenty of superhero name drops along the way with no regard as to which universe they came from. Besides the Superman name drop, there were also references to the Fantastic Four and the Green Hornet. But what really came through was the overarching message of the film to be true to yourself no matter what you happen to be special at. Before Scott gets caught at faking his super powers, he gets the chance to rescue one of the villains from a burning building, and he ends up going even though he doesn’t actually have any super powers, something that he ends up doing again to help save his parents at the end even though he essentially got in trouble for doing it the first time. While I still never really got fully invested in this film, it did a lot of things that are different from the norm when it comes to superhero movies, it also made me laugh a few times when I wasn’t rolling my eyes at the cheesiness of it and the costumes especially. And when it comes to Black superhero movies, this is actually one of the better ones. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash 2016

It’s the second month of the year and that means the second DC movie that includes Batman in it. Not only that, but it’s the second film that includes Batman fighting another hero and the first this year where he is fighting Superman. Aside from that, it’s also the fourth Lego DC movie to be released on home video after the success of DC Heroes Unite, Attack of the Legion of Doom, and Justice League vs. Bizarro League. It actually continues where Bizarro League left off where Cyborg is now a full fledged member of the team and Batman is on board with everyone but is still somewhat on the outskirts of the team. Like all the others, there’s plenty of humor and while most of it is childish, there’s enough referential humor to make things fun for adults as well.

After last year where the Lego Justice League has faced off against Darkseid and the Legion of Doom, where else can they go except for Brainiac? And to top things off they toss a little bit of Back to the Future style time travel and a bit of a rift in the Justice League involving (surprise) Batman of all people. In Lego world, Brainiac is an obsessive toy-collecting nerd analogue where he has to have all of his planets in “mint condition” and arranged in perfect alphabetical order. And when something happens to one of his planets, he has to replace it with a planet that starts with the letters “EA”. Meanwhile, the Justice League is having a bit of fun while Batman continually chides them for playing hide-and-seek rather than doing actual patrols to see if something is going wrong. While the rest of the Justice League considers themselves friends with each other, Batman is looked at as merely a co-worker or acquaintance.

What was fun about this film are the bits of referential humor, there’s a nice bit of very subtle foreshadowing right after the first big fight when Brainiac is defeated and has to return to the Brainiac homeworld. He tells Brainiacs 1.2 and 1.3 to give his damaged ship “two coats of wax, and don’t scrimp on it this time!” which seems like an obvious reference to Back to the Future, but it’s not until Brainiac returns that he sends Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern into different time periods. But instead of using a DeLorean they use a modified Batmobile that is now a time treadmill powered by the Flash who has to keep running on it or else it will suck them back into their own time period.

The time travel bits end up really being the heart of the story which is partly centered around how Batman is finally getting on board with the whole Justice League idea, but is still ultimately left out. As he travels to the different time periods to find the heroes forcibly integrated into their respective time periods, he has to use different methods to get them to realize who they really are so that the timeline will correct itself. Wonder Woman is trapped in the prehistoric era as the queen of a group of cavewomen who have been terrorized by Vandal Savage, Green Lantern is stuck as a swab boy for Pirate Captain Fear, and Superman is sent into the future to be taken over by Brainiac to help defeat the Justice Society. And in each of these time periods, Batman has to make them aware of their original self in a way that helps show that he really does know more about each of them than a mere co-worker would.

Something that these films tend to do better than some of the other DC Animated fare is their inclusion and portrayal of female superheroes, and while this does include a relatively large number of them at three, they aren’t all great characters. Wonder Woman is still one of the best characters here, she has the most level head of all the Justice League. We also get a little bit of Gravity Girl who is the leader of the three members of the Justice Society that we get to see in the future. But unfortunately we’re also introduced to Supergirl who is getting her first shot at the big leagues in this Lego Justice League continuity. And while Supergirl is shown as being generally as powerful as Superman and the other members of the League, she is portrayed as a very shallow cheerleader who spends all of her screen time doing insipid cheers instead of actual dialogue.

Aside from some of the portrayals of the characters which are very much aged-down for the younger crowd, this was still a fun watch for someone my age. There was another great reference for someone who grew up in the late 80’s when it gets to the final battle with Brainiac where the members of the Justice League come together in a very Voltron inspired way. And while I haven’t mentioned my daughter nearly as often in recent years, I did watch this with my 9 year old and she generally enjoyed it, but didn’t like Brainiac as a villain. She thought he was really dumb, partly because she hadn’t seen Brainiac in any other cartoon before. And one last thing that I realized is that while there has been a fairly loose thread of continuity between these Lego Justice League movies, they completely nixed their Guy Gardner Green Lantern from two movies ago in favor of Hal Jordan without any notice or explanation, aside from the fact that he’s always been the more popular Green Lantern, at least in the executives eyes. But like the other Lego films that weren’t released in theaters, this was a fun distraction that I’m glad I had a kid in the room to enjoy it with and will likely forget about in a couple weeks time. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Episode 66 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is James Thompson from the Meanwhile… podcast who asks me why I hadn’t seen Cloverfield, one of the first twists on the found footage style of filmmaking and an attempt to give the US a giant monster worthy of Godzilla from producer JJ Abrams. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen Superman and the Mole Men, the first feature length superhero film ever made and the precursor to the long running Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves.

Click here to listen, or as always you can listen and subscribe to the show through iTunes, Stitcher, or PodOmatic and as always I appreciate it if you give the show a like, thumbs up, and a review however you listen. I also have a Filmwhys page in the main menu of this site where you can read the origins, find information on how to be a guest on the show, and also the show archives where the shows go to (eventually) after they are rotated off of the regular PodOmatic feed. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Super Capers 2009

Another month has come and gone and after going through last month watching fewer horror movies than I had hoped, I’m moving on to yet another themed month. For the month of April, I decided that I want to get some of the bad movies out of the way, specifically many of the awful looking superhero movies geared towards kids, some that I grew up with and others that I’ve never seen and never really wanted to see. To kick things off, I decided to watch this parody kids movie from 2009 called Super Capers and starring the perennial teen star who would go on to do nothing of note and this was actually one of the last few movies that he worked on before disappearing off the Hollywood planet. The film itself is actually more like a superhero parody film along the lines of Superhero Movie. It has a handful of good jokes, but it’s underscored by way too many cartoonish sound effects that hamper the humor rather than enhance it. And while it has an interesting cast, the actual characters are generally one dimensional punchlines and those punchlines aren’t all that great. It was a bit better than I was expecting it to be, but it’s still a far cry from a good movie.

Super Capers is an odd sort of superhero parody movie. It starts out with some odd gags in the credits that make fun of how long they are, and have some almost Police Squad style gags in an early mugging scene. In it, a woman tosses everything in her purse at a potential mugger played by Clint Howard including her gun which he then immediately turns on her. It makes an unusual twist where the mugger gets tossed into a sleazy lawyer’s office who takes the hapless hero played by Justin Whalin to court. From there, it turns into a rather basic story where he’s thrown into the the superhero C-squad called the Super Capers. It’s presented almost as a training camp for super heroes, but it includes one hero who’s practically retired and another who seems to be just towards the end of his prime. Whalin plays Ed Gruberman who was initially a hero telegram guy without any super powers who is a fan of the Dark Winged Vesper aka basically Batman. There is an overlying mystery involving a mysterious woman named Red who was also the woman in the opening scene and some gold bars, but it’s played more for laughs than anything resembling a coherent story.

What was most disconcerting about the humor was the incredibly overbearing cartoon sound effects. Nearly everything was punctuated by something that you would hear in a Loony Tunes cartoon, but it generally felt like it was there because the filmmakers didn’t think a younger audience would get the jokes so they needed something to punctuate it. Which is a shame because there were some decent jokes sprinkled throughout the film that were weakened by the hammy sound effects. What did work in the sound department were the well done audio homages to Back to the Future and Star Wars. The vehicle that the Super Capers roam around in is an RV made up to look like BTTF’s Delorean, and every time it was on screen the score changed to a well done parody/homage to that film’s iconic score. The same was true for the Star Wars references as Whalin comes to discover that the judge that sentenced him to join the Super Capers was also: his father, the Dark Winged Vesper, the man who killed his parents or technically his mother and stepfather, and was working with Red from the very beginning.

The rest of the team of Super Capers are a bit of a mixed bag in terms of characters. Most of them are there for either their specific usefulness to the story or for a gag. First off is the leader Sarge, played by Tiny Lister. He’s essentially just used as a one note joke as the big angry guy. He never really has any fight scenes, he’s just there to yell at Ed. Next up is Will Powers who is the Superman-esque hero who spends most of his time doing TV commercials and worrying about his looks. There’s also Herman Brainerd who supposedly has a giant head, but in actuality just has what looks like a big lump on his forehead, and he also has telekinesis that comes with its own cartoon gross-out stomach gurgling sound effect, and on top of that he has some mommy issues with a mom played by June Lockhart. Next up is Puffer Boy whose power is what you might expect based on his name, when he gets scared he turns into a giant puffer fish and he tends to get scared rather easily. And finally there’s the woman of the team Felicia Freeze who has ice powers and is obviously there to be the love interest for Ed Gruberman.

Speaking of the women in this film, it was incredibly regretful to see how the women were portrayed in the film. Both are initially just treated as objects to be rescued and/or flirted with. Both seem to have the hots for Ed Gruberman at some point during the movie even though he really has no heroic qualities. Felicia initially is turned off by him since she’s behind a bar cleaning a glass and Ed incorrectly assumes that she’s the bartender. But she’s impressed when he prays and a lamppost hits the Minotaur creature they’re fighting. Speaking of which, the Minotaur, named Cretan was actually a nice looking creature effect. While it looked like a cross between a Minotaur and the Mooby’s cow from Dogma, it moved quite well for a film with a small budget. There was also a random robot sidekick named Robo who looked and sounded like a metal Arnold Schwarzenegger. While it was a lame joke, the design of the robot looked decent enough. The same can be said of the costumes too, there was enough similarities in the designs of the Super Capers’ outfits where you could tell they were on the same team, and Ed Gruberman’s initial costume also looked like something that would have been bought from a store. Again, there were good points throughout this film, but when it all came together there were just too many shortcomings to really recommend this film to very many people. If you’re a fan of some of the older parody films like the Mel Brooks films or the Zucker Abrahams Zucker films and can look past the cartoon sound effects, there will be enough here to keep you interested at least. It’s still a far cry better than most recent parody films that end with “Movie”. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Captain America: Civil War 2016

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is back with its latest installment of their ongoing franchise. And even though I watched this movie on opening night, I feel like everyone and their mother has already voiced their adoration upon this film, probably just because it was released in many other countries a week early. As a whole, Marvel films have been pretty high on my radar starting off with Avengers as the first MCU that was released since starting this site and most of the Phase 2 sequels were much better than the originals until they hit a bit of a snag with Age of Ultron that felt like they were too focused on setting up future films to worry about focusing on the current one. On that front, I felt like Civil War was a success, while it greatly helped to have knowledge of past films, Civil War felt much more self-contained than Age of Ultron. It has the fun aspect that permeates all of the Marvel films as well as some incredible action and some thought provoking themes, but it just didn’t quite knock it out of the park for me this time. And fair warning since this has just opened in the US, there may be spoilers ahead.

Unlike previous Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Civil War really is about the threat from within rather than any external force. There is a lead villain Zemo played by Daniel Bruhl, but he spends most of the movie just putting the pieces into place so that others will do the fighting for him. And while the lines are drawn among nearly all of the still-living heroes across all the films to date, plus a couple newbies, the main point of contention lies between Captain America and Bucky vs. Iron Man and the United Nations, spokespersoned by Secretary of State Thunderbolt Ross.

One main point of contention against this film is that it does take a little while to really get to the crux of the situation. In the trailer, they list many of the climaxes of earlier movies as these giant disasters that have claimed hundreds of lives, but the instigating event in Civil War comes from a relatively small building explosion that claims eleven lives. Specifically from the fictional country of Wakanda, home of Black Panther. It is a fun action sequence, but for some reason it felt much more unrealistic than previous movies have. There was just something off in the way that Steve Rogers and Falcon specifically moved that just didn’t quite seem either natural or stylized where it fell between the line of natural fight choreography and stylized fantasy combat.

The same holds true when it came to the big action sequence in the airport, it just never quite felt like a truly natural fight between that many combatants. Especially the incredibly contrived moment where the twelve of them happen to arrive at just the right moment to create this red rover face off moment. There was a good enough job of splitting the combatants up so they didn’t intersect with each other too much, but the biggest issue was where the two heavy hitters were during the entire fight. Both Vision and Scarlet Witch have powers far above anyone else in the fight, but most of the melee has them just lending a brief helping hand to another combatant. In fact, they even have Wanda be the one to tell Hawkeye that he was pulling his punches against Black Widow and yet she herself seems to be pulling her punches during the entire fight. Not to mention that during this entire knock down, drag out fight, nobody ends up with more than a black eye and a nosebleed. It just stretches the line of incredulity a little far, even though it does do a good job of keeping things interesting with a variety of different match ups and the big reveal of Scott Lang’s Giant Man setting on his suit.

What the film does get right are the characters themselves, and it’s a tough job to juggle so many characters. But throughout the entire movie, it kept things pretty clear what each character’s motivation was during that moment in time and gave the right amount of screen time to each one. It does introduce two new characters, and they both come off quite well here. Chadwick Boseman as T’Chala aka Black Panther brings a great presence as a well rounded warrior prince who has an actual character arc despite being a relatively minor character. This is also the debut of Tom Holland as a much younger Spider-Man and he played it up very well. He didn’t quite have the quippy confidence of Andrew Garfield’s portrayal, but he comes close and also has a great nerdy presence as a junkpile scrounging Peter Parker struggling to keep his secret identity from his Aunt May.

There’s also the exploration of superheroism and responsibility. And not just in the main focus of essentially deciding whether superheroes should be considered like weapons or like people. The government side of things wants to treat them more like weapons where their actions are essentially controlled by the United Nations who will tell them what conflicts to get involved in. This is mirrored in Bucky’s story as the Winter Soldier which essentially is that exact same situation where he was in complete control of Hydra and had no say in his actions. There is also the question of the loss of lives and who really was accountable. When all is said and done, when the losing side of the battle is dead, then it becomes easier to blame the only other half of the equation which happens in many different places in Civil War. Whether it’s the random mother who lost her child in Age of Ultron’s Sokovian disaster, T’Chala himself who lost his father to Zemo posing as Bucky, or the big reveal when Tony Stark finds out that Bucky was the one who killed his parents under the control of Hydra. It’s all about emotional based decisions that cloud reason. The film doesn’t exactly settle on one clear side and does end on a middle ground where the Avengers are still split down the lines, but still willing to work together when necessary. There are plenty of nits to pick in this film, including the bizarre scene of digitally de-aged Robert Downey Jr. as teenage Tony, and the giant distracting location titles in big letters across the screen, but once things really start rolling it becomes a hell of a good time. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.