Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme

Year 2, Day 177 - 6/26/10 - Movie #544

BEFORE: This is another of Marvel's direct-to-DVD animated films, part of the deal with LionsGate Films to highlight Marvel's underused comic-book characters. This deal produced "Punisher: War Zone", but also resulted in "Man-Thing" - so there have been ups and downs. I'm filling in today with 2 shorter animated films, killing time until a bigger movie on Sunday.

THE PLOT: Dr. Stephen Strange embarks on a wondrous journey to the heights of a Tibetan mountain, where he seeks healing at the feet of the mysterious Ancient One.

AFTER: A pretty basic re-telling of the origin of Dr. Strange, Marvel's main sorcery character. For a lot of people, Dr. Strange represents the psychedelic 60's and 70's era of comic-books, with cosmic silver guys surfing around the universe, and devils and demons constantly attacking our plane of reality. The great thing about these comic books was that it allowed the writers and artists unlimited creativity, they could write just about anything into the world of magic, or have Dr. Strange cast whatever spell he needed to save the day.

The story of Dr. Strange is one of redemption - an affluent surgeon who gets into a car crash and loses the use of his hands travels to Tibet to study magic with the Ancient One, and eventually becomes a sorcerer. This film makes the Ancient One into a hybrid of Yoda and Mr. Miyagi, making Dr. Strange's journey similar to that of Luke Skywalker and/or The Karate Kid.

This is for kids, so there's a lot left unexplained - what are the weird demonic creatures that are attacking the world? How come no one else seems to notice them, except for the Ancient One's students? Who exactly is Dormammu, and why is he attacking our dimension? I guess there's only room for one back-story, and that belongs to Dr. Strange. And can all magic really be summed up with the explanation of converting energy to matter, and vice versa?

So this was pretty bare-bones, but a live-action version is apparently being planned for release in 2012. Through Marvel Studios, not LionsGate.

RATING: 4 out of 10 concrete blocks

Man-Thing

Year 2, 176 - 6/25/10 - Movie #543

BEFORE: If you're not familiar with the Man-Thing, he's sort of Marvel Comic's version of DC's long-time anti-hero Swamp Thing. He lives in the Florida Everglades, and he guards the nexus of all realities. Also, his touch burns people who feel fear.

THE PLOT: Agents of an oil tycoon vanish while exploring a swamp marked for drilling. The local sheriff investigates and faces a Seminole legend come to life: Man-Thing, a shambling swamp-monster.

AFTER: Though the anti-oil drilling bias couldn't be more timely, this was still a terrible, terrible movie. Perhaps the first movie that has seriously made me want to abandon this process. It was worse than "Catwoman", and that's saying something.

The movie (and I use the term loosely, since a movie is supposed to have a plot) mostly consists of people walking around knee-deep in a very fake swamp, calling out each other's names, only to find that their companion has been killed by the title swamp creature. Process repeats as necessary until the end of the film is reached.

The movie can't even follow its own rules - the Man-Thing's touch is only supposed to affect people who are afraid, yet one character clearly and calmly says "I'm not afraid!" just before being killed.

I couldn't understand anyone's motivations, other than the sheriff's desire to solve the mysterious deaths, but unfortunately this always involves going back into the swamp with more people, who end up dead. What a great plan. And this always happens at night, and no one can see anything. Please, consider investigating the spooky swamp during the daytime.

Starring no one I've ever heard of, and utterly, completely pointless.

RATING: 1 out of 10 shotguns

Catwoman

Year 2, Day 175 - 6/24/10 - Movie #542

BEFORE: This movie got pretty terrible reviews when it came out a few years back - but come on, how bad could it be?

THE PLOT: A shy woman, endowed with the speed, reflexes, and senses of a cat, walks a thin line between criminal and hero, as a detective pursues her, fascinated by both of her personas.

AFTER: Oh, THAT bad. Though the major complaint about this film seems to be that it was a "reimagining" of the Catwoman character, and not a direct adaptation of DC's Selina Kyle character, I have my own reasons - namely that the movie tries to play it too straight, and doesn't remain true to itself. It sets up rules and scenarios, and then discards them. The movie is set behind the scenes of a cosmetics company, and it's producing a face cream (or something) that has harmful effects - but what exactly those effects are seems to change several times throughout the movie. So using the make-up is good? Using the make-up is...bad? Once you use it, it's bad to stop? Can we have just a little consistency?

Then we have people constantly doing things in ways that make no sense - like playing a game of basketball and somehow forgetting to shoot a basket. There's more to the game than just defense and ball-handling (insert your own joke here, it's too easy for me...). Or Catwoman ordering a drink by asking for a White Russian, minus the vodka, minus the kahlua. Is it too simple to just order a glass of milk? No one, simply no one, talks this way - the dialogue is so poorly written, it feels people don't know how to speak English, like they're all foreigners or something. For example - the cosmetics line is spelled "Beau-Line" - which to me looks like it should be pronounced "Byew-line" (as in "beauty line") or at least "Bo-Lean" (if you're French) but everyone in the film seems to prefer saying "Bee-you Leen" Huh? That would never work.

Halle Berry spends most of the movie looking and acting confused - who can blame her, after all. Peter Parker got bitten by a spider and became Spider-Man. That guy who got hit by a meteor became Meteor Man. You see where I'm going with this? She got her powers from the chemical run-off from a cosmetics factory - and became Catwoman? She should have become Chemical Waste Woman, or Toxic Avenger or something.

But no, the accident gives her speed, agility and cat-like reflexes. It also unleashes her inner "bad girl" (and her inner "bad haircut"). But I'm sorry, cats don't actually climb walls or move at super-speed (or have a preference for fine jewelry). However, the effects of Catwoman moving around the room quickly (in a tight cat-suit) are probably the only redeeming parts of the film, for a number of reasons.

Also starring Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt, Frances Conroy (as "Crazy Cat-lady") and Alex Borstein.

RATING: 3 out of 10 spotlights (on the catwalk, of course)

Superhero Movie

Year 2, Day 174 - 6/24/10 - Movie #541

BEFORE: As I've said, if you're going to do a parody, you might as well go all the way. I've seen so many superhero films that take themselves WAY too seriously, thus unintentionally making myself the ideal (?) target audience for this film. You've got to admit, the genre is ripe for parody.

THE PLOT: Orphaned high school student Rick Riker is bitten by a radioactive dragonfly, develops super powers (except for the ability to fly), and becomes a hero.

AFTER: It's about time that superhero movies had their own parody film, on the level of "Airplane" or "The Naked Gun". This one gets almost to that level - unfortunately it gets dragged down by a little too much toilet humor - farts are funny, yes, but there is a limit. Even the baked beans cookout in "Blazing Saddles" seems tame compared to the auditory gas featured in this film.

The jokes that play off of "Spider-Man" mostly land, though - with a spoof of Batman's origin story mixed in, and guest appearances by the Fantastic Four and various X-Men. How they got away with using the names "Wolverine" and "Professor Xavier", I have no idea.

Nickelodeon star Drake Bell plays the Peter Parker analog, Rick Riker, and Leslie Nielsen and Marion Ross play his uncle and aunt, who've taken care of him since his parents were gunned down (in hilarious fashion) - Nielsen, of course, provides a direct link to both "Airplane" and "Naked Gun", so I wasn't surprised to see a Zucker Brother or two in the credits (but no phony credits at the end, darn...). However, there are outtakes and additional gags in the credits sequence that I found to be funnier than most of the jokes in the main film. So go figure...

Of course, a high-school field trip to a scientist's animal experiment lab ends in an accident that grants a teen super-powers - only this time the agent is a dragonfly, not a spider. Riker is granted super-strength, the ability to climb walls, but for some reason, not the ability to fly (Why? Because it's funny, I guess...)

I've got no use for "Scary Movie", "Date Movie" or "Disaster Movie", but I have to admit that I found a lot of this to be funny. I think this is largely because of the tone - the movie doesn't try to be serious in any way.

Spoofs of characters like J.Jonah Jameson really work - spoofs of real people like Tom Cruise (who as far as I know has no connection to superheroes), not so much. And the nerd jokes at "Hero Con" just hit a bit too close to home.

Also starring Christoper McDonald, Brent Spiner, Keith David, Robert Hays (another "Airplane" veteran...), Nicole Sullivan, Tracy Morgan (as Prof. X), Pamela Anderson (as Invisible Girl), Dan Castellaneta, Craig Bierko (as Wolverine!), Jeffrey Tambor, and Robert Joy (the coroner from CSI:NY) as Stephen Hawking.

RATING: 5 out of 10 titanium blades

Sky High

Year 2, Day 173 - 6/22/10 - Movie #540

BEFORE: I've got another week's worth of superhero movies, but mostly I'm batting clean-up now.

THE PLOT: Set in a world where superheroes are commonly known and accepted, young Will Stronghold, the son of the Commander and Jetstream, tries to find a balance between being a normal teenager and an extraordinary being.

AFTER: Another movie for kids, I guess - or at least the tweener set. Yeah, high-school is tough, and we're supposed to sympathize with the young heroes, but I had to make it through high school without the benefit of super-powers. (Unless you count the ability to make good guesses on standardized tests...)

But there's just something extremely cornball about it all - again, you can't make the ultimate superhero movie AND parody the superhero genre at the same time. You've got to either play it straight or play for laughs, and it's got to be consistent.

First of all, you've got to believe that superheroes exist, next you've got to believe that super-powers are inheritable (in Marvel/DC, some are, some are not...), then you've got to believe that all the superheroes (and some villains) know each other, and send all their offspring to a special high school that's floating in the clouds - I think overall, it's asking a lot.

Because THEN they get into the societal aspects of it all, as it relates to high-school cliques, and the complicated nature of friendships and dating, dealing with parents, etc. There's one scene where Will, the son of two popular heroes, has to admit to his father that his powers haven't kicked in yet - and it's the equivalent of a regular person telling his father that he didn't make the football team, or is flunking math, or any of a number of other real-world situations.

But mostly this is so far off the believability grid, that it becomes very difficult to suspend disbelief. Kids with super-speed, kids with flame-based powers, kids who can melt or change their shape. My other problem is that this has been done SO many times before, in everything from "Teen Titans" to "Young X-Men" to the very recent "Avengers Academy". So for me, it's been there, read that.

Complaint #1 - you can't have all these heroes interacting, with secret identities that everyone seems to know about - then they're not so secret, are they?

Complaint #2 - how come the only music that these kids seem to listen to is emo covers of 80's songs like "I'll Melt With You", "Voices Carry" and "True"? Not that I mind the music, I love cover songs - but it doesn't ring true somehow. Only the cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" makes any kind of thematic sense.

There are a couple of original twists, and an interesting examination of what it means to be a sidekick - sorry, "Hero Support" - and the types of classes one might expect to see at a superhero school (Mad Science 101, Save the Citizen). But it's too easy to imagine the type of scenario where the misfit sidekicks have to band together and step up as heroes against the evil villain - gee, I sure hope they have the right combination of super-powers to save the day...

The one thing that saves the film is the large number of cameos, with two members of the "Kids in the Hall", one from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, and several people known for their roles in various sci-fi and superhero classics.

But with so many young unknown actors and actresses, this film could easily contain someone who could be the next Michael Cera or Megan Fox - and then this would be the film they spend their whole career trying not to be embarrassed by.

Starring: Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Michael Angarano (who?), Kevin Heffernan (Landfill!), Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce Campbell (as the gym teacher), Lynda Carter (as the principal), and Cloris Leachman (as the school nurse). Also Tom Kenny as an average citizen, and Jim Rash (the dean on "Community") as the villain's sidekick, I think.

RATING: 5 out of 10 giant robots

Superman/Doomsday

Year 2, Day 172 - 6/21/10 - Movie #539

BEFORE: Drove back from Massachusetts this morning, by hitching a ride with my friend Don, who dropped me right at my office before heading up to the Museum of Natural History (where the kryptonite meteorites are on display, duh...) Then we went out to the Carnegie Deli for matzoh ball soup and a (split) reuben sandwich - which gave us the energy to walk back to his car so we could drive to Queens. It's been a long day, but I don't want to fall behind on my movies, still being 2 ahead of the count - so a shorter film tonight.

THE PLOT: When LexCorps accidentally unleash a murderous creature, Doomsday, Superman meets his greatest challenge as a champion.

AFTER: This is based on the famous "Death of Superman" story from the 1990's DC comics, but a greatly condensed and altered version. For starters, in this film Lois Lane has been dating Superman for about 6 months, and doesn't know (for sure) that he and Clark Kent are the same person. This sort of takes away from the tragic element a bit when he dies - in the comic book, Clark Kent and Lois were already married during this storyline, I believe.

Another alteration is that this story takes place after the death of Jonathan "Pa" Kent - but in the comic books, it was Pa Kent's near-death experience that supposedly reached the soul of Superman in the afterlife and convinced him to return.

Also, in the comic books, no less than four replacement Supermen (Supermans?) showed up after the original's death - a young clone (who eventually became known as "Superboy"), a new hero named Steel, a Kryptonian device called the Eradicator in Superman form, and a super-villain disguised as a futuristic cyborg Superman. Here we just have one clone, who's a dead ringer for Superman, created and controlled by Lex Luthor.

I know, I know, this story is aimed at the kids' market, the tween crowd, so the story probably does need to be simplified - but did they have to dilute it so much? It's like "Comic Books for Dummies" - when comic books are pretty approachable for the teen market as they already are.

And Lois Lane is really annoying and whiny here - I guess part of that blame falls on the voice-work of Anne Heche, but the writing didn't help. I think I like last night's ineffectual Lois better than tonight's whiny one.

Spoiler alert - Superman isn't really dead, he's only "mostly dead", and he comes back to fight his evil clone and win back the hearts of the citizens of Metropolis. But you probably figured on that.

Also starring the voices of Adam Baldwin (I guess he's a regular on "Chuck", not a lost Baldwin brother...), James Marsters (who played Brainiac on "Smallville") as Lex Luthor, Swoosie Kurtz as Ma Kent, Ray Wise as Lou Grant...I mean, Perry White, and a vocal cameo by Kevin Smith as "Grumpy Man on Street".

RATING: 4 out of 10 kryptonite blasts

Superman Returns

Year 2, Day 171 - 6/20/10 - Movie #538

BEFORE: Something appropriate for Father's Day, hopefully... We invaded the Outback Steakhouse with 5 adults and 2 toddlers at 5:30 - thank God it wasn't a big dining-out holiday... Had about a 45-minute wait for a table, but once we got seated things went relatively smoothly.

THE PLOT: After a long visit to the lost remains of the planet Krypton, the Man of Steel returns to earth to become the peoples savior once again and reclaim the love of Lois Lane.

AFTER: Yes, appropriate for Father's Day, for reasons that may be obvious, but which are plot-related, so I won't address directly. Also appropriate since I watched this with my parents, and introduced my dad to the IMDB afterwards, with all of its continuity errors and trivia notes.

Plot-wise, this film progresses from the plot of "Superman II", while ignoring "Superman III" and "Superman IV" - that's OK, I think most people would rather forget those films. However, things don't really sync up with the plot of the 2nd film, since we're never sure what Lois Lane seems to know about Superman's secret identity. Essentially, she's a blank slate in this film, I'm not sure if that's an acting problem or a writing problem.

I should mention that one of the screenwriters, Michael Dougherty, is an ex-co-worker of mine, and hopefully still a friend after I post this review. I see him sometimes at San Diego Comic-Con. I'll try to be kind - but I do have some issues with the ending, which contains a large plothole of sorts. You can't explain the way that Superman's powers and Kryptonite weakness work, and then ignore those rules.

Also, the relationship/triangle between Superman, Lois, and Lois's other love interest, Richard White (James Marsden) - an ending should resemble a resolution, and nothing is really resolved here, it's left mostly ambiguous. But I suppose this is a Superman for the new century, the champion of blended families and absent fathers...

The Superman story has always been about the relationship between fathers and sons. Jor-El and Kal-El. Pa Kent and Clark Kent. And in the comic books, Superman and Christopher, the son of Zod who Lois and Clark semi-adopted for a while. Supes may be the son of an alien scientist, but he learned his solid Midwestern values and work ethic from Pa Kent.

The plan of Lex Luthor (who, according to the "Smallville" TV show has Daddy issues of his own) is a solid one, again progressing logically from the events of "Superman II". It's genius AND insane, which is the perfect balance for Lex. But bilking old ladies out of their money? I dunno, it seems sort of beneath him. I personally would love to see a movie based on the semi-recent storylines where Luthor was elected as U.S. president...

I've been a Superman reader since 1983, which is when John Byrne helped re-boot the character with the mini-series "The Man of Steel", at which time they were able to combine the best elements of previous Superman and Superboy stories to forge a new reality. That meant that Pa Kent was alive again, and remained part of the adult Superman story until...well, I think last year they finally got around to killing him off again, in dramatic fashion. So in a way that's ingrained into the Superman story.

Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey (awesome as Lex Luthor), Frank Langella, Parker Posey, Kal Penn, with a cameo from Sir Richard Branson and a CGI Marlon Brando as Jor-El.

RATING: 6 out of 10 headlines