The King and the Worst

Think "The Avengers" was fun? Did you enjoy the spectacle of "The Dark Knight Rises?" Do you think that superhero films have no where to go from here?

Well, guess what? That's right, I'm here to let you in on the internet's biggest secret, a short film that may in fact be the single greatest thing ever created by humanity, "The King and the Worst" -- a film that makes "The Avengers" and "The Dark Knight Rises" look like frozen crapsicles.

What is "The King and the Worst," you ask? Well, here's the synopsis in one sentence:

Jack Kirby and Ed Wood team up during World War II to battle Nazi sorcerers from a dimension of pure evil inside an ancient European fortress.

Read that again. And now get this: The film is entirely in Spanish, with really bad subtitles. And it's partially animated. And one of the main characters is... The Phantom Stranger.

The greatest thing in the history of man. Honestly. Just wantch it and let your life be changed forever:

 

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Movie Review: The Avengers

Now, some of you have probably been wondering why I haven't posted a review of The Avengers yet. And the answer is pretty simple: I've been too busy seeing The Avengers over and over again for the past several weeks to write about it. But now that I've finally exhausted my life savings buying disposable 3-D glasses, I've found a little free time to write up a review for you. You're welcome.

Before we get into the details, let me put out a disclaimer: The Avengers has been my favorite comic book series since 1986. It's no exaggeration, therefore, to say that I have been waiting for over a quarter of a century for this movie to come out. So I am not an unbiased viewer. On the one hand, this means that I am predisposed to like The Avengers, assuming they do it right. On the other hand, I am also probably a lot pickier than your normal moviegoer as this material is close to my heart. So you can consider those facts when reading my review.

Because, honestly, I loved the damn thing. It might not have been perfect, but it was as close to perfect as I could possibly have hoped. And not only is it an excellent comic book movie, it's also an excellent summer popcorn movie. You'd think those things would naturally go together, but often they really kinda don't.

So what works with The Avengers? Well, let's start with the basic concept, which is probably the trickiest part to pull off. After all, Marvel has been carefully (some would say ponderously, slowly and tediously) laying the groundwork for The Avengers for years, setting up plot threads in every one of their previous films. That sort of thing could lead to an exposition heavy, continuity clogged data dump and could easily derail the entire film.

Instead, director Joss Whedon and company manage to intertwine all the elements and all the characters as seamlessly and organically as the situation allows for. And the result of that is that, while knowing all those earlier bits of setup help make The Avengers a more interesting experience, being up to speed on every niggling detail isn't necessary at all to enjoy the film. In other words, it stands on its own.

Much of that credit, of course, has to go to the cast, which is uniformly excellent. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans, as the leads of individual franchises, are very strong, as they each manage to maintain the integrity of their character while still fitting into the smaller role called for by the team environment. It's a tricky balance that everyone manages to pull off just right.

Even better, though, are Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner as Black Widow and Hawkeye, characters who could have been throwaway space fillers but who instead manage to come to life and be vital pieces of the Avengers puzzle. And best of all is Mark Ruffalo, who somehow actually made me enjoy a Hulk appearance, which I literally did not think was possible. Ruffalo's wry and bone dry humor was a perfect match to the character here and worked superbly within the context of the team.

The upshot of all of this is that The Avengers doesn't just satisfy all the expectations that were created by the years of buildup in Marvel's previous films, it actually justifies Marvel's previous films. Iron Man 2, for instance, felt at the time like a bit of a bloated mess, with a bunch of Avengers stuff shoehorned into the action to the detriment of the film. Now, however, it retroactively gains entertainment value thanks to The Avengers.

Not that redeeming their few missteps is Marvel's primary goal here; entertainment is the top priority, while setting up even bigger future blockbusters is clearly a close second. Which may be the best news of all about The Avengers, because if you liked this one, well, trust me: There's going to be a whole hell of a lot more where this came from.

My Grades: The film as a whole gets an incoherent fanboy squee, which roughly translates to an A+. All of the actors get an A, with the exceptions of Mark Ruffalo and Tom Hiddleston, who both get an A++; and Scarlett Johansson, who was mostly really good but did flatline a couple of bits, so I'm just going to give her an A-. The post-credits teaser for the upcoming Avengers arc gets an I for incomplete only because the character teased has had far more crappy appearances than great ones, so even though Marvel has a really strong track record, I'm still not entirely sold yet. But here's hoping.

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Movie Review: Thor

Hey guys, what's up. It's been a while since our last fandango, but I've been pretty busy -- you know, training for top secret missions in Pakistan, sorting through my fan mail, that sort of thing. Only, totally different. Yet even with my busy schedule, I've still managed to find the time to slip out to the theater and catch this month's biggest superhero blockbuster: Thor.

And I have to say, this film is exceedingly difficult for me to review. That's because Thor is a pretty idiosyncratic comic to begin with and it has become even more idiosyncratic up on the big screen. Though Thor rubs shoulders with his fellow Avengers in the pages of many a superhero comic, the character and the stories in his own title aren't really related to the superhero genre at all. Ever since Stan and Jack introduced Tales of Asgard to the series back in Journey Into Mystery #97, the series has been much more of a combination of high fantasy and epic science fiction than a traditional superhero comic.

All of which makes judging Thor the movie pretty hard to do considering there's not a whole lot to judge it against. As a superhero movie, well, it's downright weird. As an epic fantasy, though, it's almost weirder, because it exists within the framework of Marvel's interconnected superhero universe, meaning film fans will see characters and ideas from the Iron Man franchise pop up right in the middle of what otherwise is a fantasy movie.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Thor can only really be judged under one criteria: how good a Thor movie is it?

The answer? Pretty good.

What Thor gets right outweighs for the most part what it gets wrong. Here's a quick overview that isn't much of a spoiler since it's based very closely on comics that came out nearly 50 years ago: Thor (Chris Hemsworth) gets himself in hot water because of his hot head, so Odin banished him to Earth to learn some humility and prove his worthiness. Once he does so, he regains his godly powers, returns to Asgard and fights some monsters.

And all of that is handled pretty well, though there were a few things I thought they could have done differently in terms of pacing. It was wise of director Kenneth Branagh to begin the proceedings with a quick look at Earth, but I think things would have gone better -- especially for newcomers to the Thor milieu -- if the story had just stayed on Earth for the first half instead of immediately jumping up to Asgard for 30 minutes. Not that I minded what was happening in Asgard, but there's no question that the scenes on Earth, where Thor meets Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), contain much more humor and, you know, fun, than the portentous action sequences in Asgard. As a result, I think the film -- which is inherently harder to get into than most superhero or action films anyway -- becomes even more difficult for newbies to get into than it had to be.

Having said that, though, if the film hasn't lost viewers by the time Thor comes to Earth, then they are likely to really enjoy the film, because it picks up in a big way after Thor meets Jane Foster and begins stumbling around New Mexico in search of his hammer, Mjolnir. Sure, Portman doesn't have a whole lot to do, but what she does, she does really well; she and Hemsworth have pretty good chemistry and once Thor returns to Asgard to deal with Loki (the excellent Tom Hiddleston), you do feel a tug at the thought of the two being separated just as they were starting to dig each other.


There were a few other minor concerns I had about the film as well. For instance, though I love the Warrior's Three in the comic, I'm not sure they really came across on the screen for non comics fans as anything more than somewhat goofy sidekicks. And, like Iron Man 2, some of the action sequences came up a bit short, particularly the big throwdown between Thor and The Destroyer, which was okay but not nearly as epic as it could or should have been.

But those are quibbles. For the most part, Thor is an entertaining, occasionally fun and perfectly competent film that any fan of Thor will enjoy.

And if you're not a fan of Thor? Well... give it a try, because if you end up liking it, there's a half century of cool stories waiting to be discovered. But Thor is just so very, very Thor that's there's really no way of knowing if you'll like it until you try.

My Grades: For Thor fans, a solid B+. For everyone else, a random grade somewhere between A- and C-. The film has good acting and solid directing, so it's not going to go below that, but there's no way of really judging this movie outside of the strictures of Thor itself. The bonus scene after the credits gets an A+ for setting up both Captain America and Avengers at the same time while also giving Marvel fans a major woody.

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The Week in Geek: October 3-9

Sometimes geek news slips through the cracks, and when that happens, I'm here to catch it in a segment I call "The Week in Geek." Yes, folks, hard to believe but it's been an entire week since my last update on everything geeky, which means you're all one week closer to death. And that should be all the incentive you need to check out this latest batch or articles, because seriously, don't you need something fun to at least temporarily distract you from the looming specter of eternal non-existence in the cold nothingness that reigns beyond our world?

Yeah, I thought so. Let's get geeky, friends!

October 6 -- Emma Stone is Having a Blonde Moment: Yes, rehead Emma Stone is playing the blonde Gwen Stacy, a reverse of last time when blonde Kirsten Dunst played the redheaded Mary Jane Watson. Apologists claim that Stone is actually a natural blonde, but whatevs. Stone is cool, but this is weird.

October 7 -- Sam Raimi is The Man Behind the Curtain for ‘Oz’ Prequel: Raimi gets a lifetime pass from me thanks to Evil Dead 2. And if they do get Robert Downey Jr. to play the wizard in this prequel, well, there's at least a small chance I might go see it.

October 8 -- Dan Aykroyd Super Pumped For ‘Ghostbusters 3′: I couldn't care less about Ghostbusters (blasphemy alert!), but you need to check this out if only to click on the link to Aykroyd's new ad for "Crystal Head Vodka," which seems like an SNL skit but is totally real. Maybe the world is the joke.

October 8 -- Noomi Rapace May Become The Girl in the ‘Alien’ Prequel: I'm only slightly more interested in the Alien prequel than I am in the Oz prequel or the Ghostbuster sequel, but this casting choice seems like a great idea.

October 8 -- ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Loses an Entire Dimension: In the best decision of the week, Warner Bros. decided not to convert the new Harry Potter film into 3D because 3D conversion blooooooows. Very smart move, WB, thank you.

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The Week in Geek: September 25 - October 2

And we're back, folks, with another jam-packed week in geek. What kind of jam, you ask? Grape jam, baby, grape jam. Because here at The Vault, we use only the finest ingredients when we whip up our patented recipe of pure, unadulterated awesome.

But enough chit chat, let's get right to this week's highlights:

September 27 -- Mark Ruffalo: My CGI Hulk Will Be Best CGI Hulk Ever Talk about setting the bar low.

September 28 -- ‘True Grit’ Trailer: Truer, Grittier Than Ever: This has the potential to be the awesomest movie of the year, not to mention the rare remake that is better than the original.

September 29 -- ‘Sherlock Holmes 2′ Gets a Mad Man, Er, Villain: I won't feel safe until they announce Rachel McAdams won't be returning, but this sounds fine for what it is.

September 29 -- ‘Lost’ Star Josh Holloway Accepting Impossible Mission: I still think he should have been Hawkeye, but I'm happy to see him in anything. Maybe he can kick Tom Cruise's ass.

September 30 -- Hallelujah, It’s Raining Ninjas in ‘The Warrior’s Way’ Trailer: Oh look, a serious, live action version of Ninja Scroll, combined somehow with both Wild Wild West and Lone Wolf and Cub. In other words, this looks pathetically terribad.

October 1 -- San Diego Defeats Dastardly Plot to Kidnap Comic-Con: Comic-Con is staying in San Diego, which is good. Not that I have a horse in this race, I just loathe L.A. and the Inland Empire. No offense.

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Two Weeks in Geek: September 12-25

Yes, it's a special Double-Sized, 80 Page Giant version of Week in Geek. Unfortunately, last week's geekery was eaten by the technical problems I was having with the website, but now that everything is up and running again I've combined those entries with the all-new batch from last week to bring you a massive data dump of geekdom sure to blow your face off like a pocket atom bomb. Which, in this specific case only, is a good thing.

Here it is, your Two Weeks in Geek:


September 13 -- Noomi Rapace to Play Girl With the Houndstooth Cap in ‘Sherlock Holmes 2′: Yes, the lady from those Swedish thriller movies is going to be in Sherlock Holmes 2. She'll have to be better cast than Rachel McAdams, who was ridiculous.

September 13 -- ‘Resident Evil’ Shows No Signs of Moving Out Any Time Soon: Yes, there is going to be a fifth Resident Evil movie. No, I don't know why.

September 15 -- Ryan Reynolds: Green Lantern Costume Like Wearing Alec Baldwin: A bit of fluff about superhero movies from the man with two trillion abs.

September 16 -- Jon Hamm Tells Kelly Ripa ‘I Could Be Your Man of Steel’: The rumor going around is that Jon Hamm is going to play Superman. He's probably 5-10 years too old, but they might be able to make it work if it's an Earth 2 story. Oh, we could only be so lucky.

September 20 -- Renner Talks ‘Avengers’ Fashion: Is Purple the New Black?: What's wrong with purple, exactly? For some reason Renner doesn't want Hawkeye to wear purple. That's nuts.

September 21 -- True Story: Winona Ryder Joins Tim Burton on ‘Frankenweenie’: Somewhere, The Cure is weeping a single blood tear into their goblet.

September 21 -- Owls, Srsly? Ya, Rly: A 3D animated movie about Nazi owls and the few feathered heroes who oppose them? Say... WTF?

September 21 -- An ‘Inception’ Video Game? We Must Be Dreaming!: I hope to god this is an MMO, because that would just be the tits.

September 22 -- Godzilla’s Climbing in Your City, He’s Snatching Your People Up: The producers of the new Hollywood version of Godzilla swear that they will be faithful to the original. Yeah, sure.

September 22 -- ‘X-Men: First Class’ Threatens to Drain World’s Dwindling Mutant Supply: Unless Caliban is in this, I'm not going to go see it. Or unless I am bored when it comes out.

September 22 -- Scarlett Johansson Spins a Solo Web For ‘Black Widow’: Yes, Marvel is in talks to do a solo Black Widow movie. This could be... okay... maybe. But only if they figure out how to have both Ivan and Winter Soldier in it.

September 24 -- Emma Stone as Black Cat in ‘Spider-Man?’ Sounds Purr-fect: Okay, this Black Cat rumor is mostly one I myself made up, but it sort of fits with what the studio is saying, so I'm going to remain hopeful.

September 24 -- Kate Beckinsale Is Going To Suck in ‘Underworld 4…’ Blood, That Is: No. Just... no.

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The Week in Geek: September 5-11

I know, I know -- you guys want comics! You want to delve into those longboxes face first and come up smelling like old newsprint. I promise, y'all. Soon, very soon. For now, though, I've still been too swamped with actual work to get much writing done on the Vault side of things.

Still, some of those articles are pretty cool and a couple of them are even comic book related. So here' the latest Week in geek so you can get caught up in everything important in the world. And don't worry, comics are coming shortly.


September 6 -- Queue It Up: ‘A Scanner Darkly’ Blu-ray: Dude, I haven't actually seen this movie for some reason, but if you haven't read the book I highly recommend it. And whatever you do, make sure you see this / read this sober. You've been warned.

September 8 -- What If Clint Eastwood Were Superman?: Shocker of the week: Clint Eastwood was once a comic geek! So what classic Golden Age hero did he obsessively collect? Here's a hint: the answer makes beautiful, perfect sense.

September 9 -- ‘Hobo With a Shotgun:’ Brother, Can You Spare a 20-Gauge?: I think the title pretty much says it all, right? The fact that is stars Rutger Hauer is genius; frankly, I can't see how the movie could live up to this trailer.



September 9 -- Nikita Has Company When It Comes to Butt-Kicking Ladies: A video rundown of some of the asskickingest ladies in film and TV history. I totally should have included Gwen Cooper from Torchwood. Darnit, Hindsight Lad!

September 9 -- ‘Captain America’ Proves He’s an Easy Rider: Photos of the stunt double on Captain America riding a tricked out Army motorcycle. Pretty cool.

September 9 -- Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower:’ Just How Much of This Is There?: This is one of the craziest deals I've ever heard of, as Ron Howard is going to adapt the "Dark Tower" serious into a film trilogy and a TV series simultaneously. Good luck with that bro. Seriously.

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The Week in Geek: August 29 - September 4

Whew. It's been a long week, but we here at The Vault have finally shaken off our post-DC Cover List doldrums and are back in the metaphorical saddle, ready to rock your socks off with amazing and astonishing new content. But before we do anything crazy like that, we thought we'd re-purpose some of last week's most interesting articles so that we can spend another few minutes in bed.

Get ready for another Week in Geek!


August 29 -- Comic Book Characters Still Available for Movies: The title pretty much says it all here. I was happy that I got to plus some of my favorite, lesser-known titles, though.

August 30 -- Queue It Up: ‘The Evil Dead’ Limited Edition Blu-Ray: If you're looking for straight laughs, I say skip this one and watch Evil Dead 2 instead. But this one certainly has more serious horror in it.

August 30 -- Talkin’ Bout Willis: Sly Wants Bruce As ‘Expendables II’ Villain Yes, there is going to be a sequel to The Expendables. No, you cannot blame me; I voted against it.

September 1 -- 'The Amazing Race' Season 17 Teams Announced: Maybe this doesn't count as geek, I dunno. But it is the best show in the history of television, so that has to count for something, right?

September 1 -- The Rock Rolling Into ‘Center of the Earth 2′: This, on the other hand, is definitely geek even though it's also a complete crap sandwich. Now who would rather watch Amazing Race? Yeah, that's what i thought.

September 3 -- Excellent! 'Bill & Ted 3' Still in the Works: Hard to believe, but it's true: the guy that played Bill is still alive. Good for him!

September 3 -- New ‘THX 1138′ Blu-ray is L33t: That's my headline, ya'll. Pretty awesome, right? This movie, of course, was the last one Lucas did that didn't ruin your childhood by simple fact that he made it before you were born.

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The Week in Geek: August 15-21

Welcome back to another Week in Geek, where we round up all the geektastic news from around the internet. That is, around my own personal internet; these, of course, are the stories I might have written about here at The Vault if I hadn't already written about them for someone giving me money. So rather than risk having one of you actually miss one of my epic posts, I'm now repackaging them in what is not even a remotely lazy weekly format.

So what might you have missed over the past week? Glad I pretended you asked:

• August 16 -- Is 'The Expendables' Sylvester Stallone's Biggest Opening Ever? : Short answer: yes, yes it is. Of course, that's due in large part to inflation and massively increased ticket prices, otherwise First Blood 2 or Rocky IV would be the answer. Time: the great unequalizer.

• August 18 -- January Jones Cast in New 'X-Men' Movie: I know what you're thinking: huh? What now? But let's face it -- 95% of comic fans just want to know if she's going to be wearing the white leather corset or not. It doesn't even matter who is inside it. Sad but true.

• August 19 -- Seth Rogen to Get Schooled in 'Boo U.' : It's always helpful to be warned of projects like this far enough in advance to make sure you can fully avoid them.

• August 20 -- Tim Burton Reunites With 'Ed Wood' Scribes for 'Addams Family' : This actually could be cool. It's going to be a stop motion feature based on the original Addams Family cartoons rather than the watered down TV show.

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The Week in Geek: August 8-14

Another week, another week's worth of geeky news and views from around, you know, the inside of my own head. Luckily, that outpouring of raw data has an outlet at Moviefone, so you and the rest of the universe can stay up to date on all the info you need in order to plan your life. So, without further ado, here are some of the highlights form the latest Week in Geek.

• Aug 9 -- Cillian Murphy Joins Amanda Seyfried (and Maybe Justin Timberlake) in 'I'm.mortal': This is a sci-fi movie about a future where everyone is immortal but only if you're rich enough to afford it. With maybe the most overwrought title in sci-fi history.

• Aug 9 -- Warner Bros. Hires 'Harry Potter' Scribe to Pen 'Green Lantern' Sequel: Yes, they're already working on Green Lantern 2 a full year before the first one comes out. I guess you gotta stay positive, right?

Aug 10 -- New 'Tarzan' Adaptation to Swing Into Theaters in 3-D: Good news for fans of Tarzan, as a German studio is going to do an animated 3D adaptation. Or... actually, is that good news?

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The Week in Geek: August 1-7

Hey, has it been another week already? Actually, it hasn't, because I was really late posting the last weekly roundup. But despite my attempts to slow time, I apparently don't actually have that superpower, so we do indeed find ourselves at the end of another week, which means another roundup of the best me-centric geek articles from around the interwebz.

Actually, once again, it's a bit of a slow week in the world of geek, so I'm just going to really bend the definition of the term and throw in a couple articles about topics that are only of marginal interest to your average geek: Curious George and Will Ferrell. But not, I want to stress, the Curious George movie that Will Ferrell did. Anyway, read those if you feel like it, but the main thing this week is my rundown of some of the comics I least want to see in adapted into movies. Check it out and see if you agree:


• August 2 -- 'Curious George' to Monkey Around in New Reboot: Yes, for some reason they've already doing a reboot of Curious George even though it's only been like four years since the last version came out. Don't ask me why. I just report this stuff.

• August 3 -- Will Ferrell's Next Comedy Will Be Entirely in Spanish: No, this headline is not a joke. Like most people, I'm a little burnt out on Will Ferrell right now, but I have to give him props for his commitment to a concept.

• August 5 -- Comic Book Movies We Hope Never Get Made: I'm not going to lie: I actually do hope one of these movies gets made. I'm not saying which one, but one of these I would pay good money to see in a theater. This article, by the way, has over 20,000 hits so far and not one person has left a comment. That can't possibly be the internet I know and love so well, can it? Maybe I've just finally written something everyone can agree on.

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Movie Reviews: Inception, Toy Story 3 and More

Hey guys, don't look now, but summer is still going and that means one thing: it's hotter than the devil's toenail. But that, in turn, means a second thing: there's no place better to get out of that heat than at your local, fully air-conditioned movie theater. I myself, as it happens, have been spending some time in those glorious bastions of the American way, so much, in fact, that I've been tardy in actually reporting my findings to you, my eager minions. I mean, readers. So, just as I did yesterday when I cleared out a giant slush pile of comics with brief reviews bordering on the perfunctory, today i will be offering mini-reviews of some of the movies I've seen so far this summer than otherwise have fallen through my reviewing crack. Which, these days, is the least sweaty crack around.

And with that mental image worming it's way into your wincing brain, let's go to the movies, internet style!


Inception

Okay, so I've already posted the link to my mind-bending Inception article for moviefone, which addresses the mind-bending theories of the ending, and ending that will quite literally bend your very mind. But that wasn't really a review. And the funny thing is, I didn't actually think the movie was that difficult to follow; yes, you had to pay attention, but I'm not sure when paying attention to what you're doing suddenly became the benchmark for intellectual rigor.

Actually, I thought the film was just easy enough to follow and just action-packed enough to make it a mainstream blockbuster instead of an arthouse experiment. Which is good because, as it happens, I like blockbusters, particularly the rare kind that doesn't dumb things down to the point of drooling idiocy (see: Transformers). Inception was smart without being impenetrable and had a lot of cool sci-fi theories and effects. Plus, it had one of the coolest set-pieces of the last ten years, the awesome rolling-gravity fight scene featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an ass-kicking ninja version of Fred Astaire.

I did think the film bogged down ever so slightly towards the end, mainly because, once they were operating on four levels of reality simultaneously, director Christopher Nolan had to cut back and forth a little too much in order to maintain the audience's sense of relative time between the different planes of reality. This made it easier to follow but also longer and a little slower than it could have been. But that's pretty much nitpicking. The ending was pitch perfect in every way and for my money, this was the movie of the year.

My Grades: All A's across the board, with an A+++ for Gordon-Levitt's fight scene.


Toy Story 3D

Okay, disclaimer time: I think Toy Story 2 is one of the most perfect movies ever made. So I went into Toy Story 3D assuming that no matter how good it was, it was really unlikely it could ever match the dominant uber-glory of Toy Story 2. And... I was right.

But that's not to say that Toy Story 3D wasn't really good; it was. It had all the elements we've come to expect from Pixar -- incredible animation, humor, action and heartfelt emotion rarely captured in live action movies even by the best casts. Still, it did feel just a little bit rote, coming after Toy Story 2. It's not the fault of Pixar but rather an unavoidable side effect of being the third movie in a well known and already beloved franchise.

I did think the movie was maybe a bit too intense for young kids, particularly the high-octane ending, but my main issue with the movie was simply that the short before it, Day & Night, ended up being the most memorable part of the film. I sense Oscar nods for both, with Toy Story 3 possibly getting nominations in both the animated and best picture fields. but what i really wanted was for this to be the greatest movie of all time and in that respect, I'm sorry to say, it fell a bit short.

My Grades: A solid A, but I was hoping for an A+ just because I am a demanding jerk. Day & Night gets an A++ and is a shoo-in to win animated short -- at least, it would be if the people who voted for that sort of thing weren't a bunch of weirdos.


Despicable Me

Now, here's an interesting movie. Following in the tradition of The Incredibles, this is a comic book movie disguised as animation. The story follows Gru (not Groo, though I had a hard time with that for much of the movie), a supervillain who decides to steal the moon essentially because he wants to prove he's still got the mojo. He ends up adopting a gorup of young girls as part of his scheme and thereby gains redemption, love, etc.


Which, whatever. But it is interesting in that, unlike actual, live action superhero movies based on known properties, Despicable Me has the brains to realize that it doesn't need to try and justify the existence of these characters, because the audience is already familiar enough with superhero tropes to get it without having it all spelled out. Live action films, even now, a decade or more into the big superhero trend, still seem to think they just have to tell an origin story every single time in order to explain how something as silly as a superhero could possibly exist in the "real" world. Maybe this is just a difference in perception between animation and live action, but I think it's totally unnecessary at this point and basically leads to a lot of subpar superhero films wasting precious time on tedious origin stories instead of telling a real tale.

Such as the one in Despicable Me.

My Grades: I liked it. Slight, but entertaining. It should probably get an A-, but I'm going to give it a B+ instead just because. Worth seeing.

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The Week in Geek: July 17-23

Hey there, old friends. Welcome to my newest ongoing feature here at The Vault, The Week in Geek. As some of you know, this blogging thing isn't just a groovy hobby, it's also how I pay the bills (and by "pay the bills" I mean "afford these goofy back issues"). Because I spend so much of my time blogging for money, I don't always have the time or energy to update The Vault as much as I would like because, let's face it, when you finish work the last thing you want to do to relax is go back to work.


Luckily, I've come up with the perfect solution: blatant laziness. After all, many of the articles I write for my day job -- which encompasses such esteemed and wildly popular websites as Moviefone.com, TVSquad.com, Popeater.com and (coming soon)NextMovie.com -- are about the exact same subjects I would be writing about here at The Vault anyway. Okay, maybe I wouldn't be highlighting comic books from the 40's about self-amputation, but when it comes to geeky TV shows and movies, it's pretty much the same thing.

And that's where The Week in Geek comes in: each week I will provide a brief overview of all the cool pop culture and geek-centric articles I've written for these other sites. Don't worry, I'll still be producing comics stories for The Vault as often as my schedule allows; The Week in Geek just allows me to provide you guys with an even larger taste of me, which judging from the slew of emails I receive every day is something I'm guessing pretty much everyone has been demanding.

So let's get right to it with our first Week in Geek, a look back at some of the cool happenings from July 17-23:


• July 19: 'Inception' Ending and Theories: What Just Happened?!

Confused by the end of Inception? No? Well, you will be by the time you finish reading this article. You should only check this out if you've already seen the movie or don't intend to, because there are some major spoilers involved.


• July 21: Original 'Tron' Star Cindy Morgan Talks About the Movie's Legacy and Blowing Up a Golf Course in 'Caddyshack'

Yes, it's true: I had a chance to interview Yori from Tron, who also played Lacey Underall in Caddyshack. What would happen if fans of these two movies got in a fight? Well, I thnk we all know that one side would end up with their horn-rimmed glasses snapped and their pocket protector ripped in two, but whatever. Cindy loves both groups equally for what they are.


• July 21: Cartoon Network Revives 'Hole in the Wall' ... And Other Game Show Mistakes

Don't ask me why anyone would want to revive this ridiculous show, but Cartoon Network must see something the rest of us don't. I took this opportunity to look back at some of the other terrible game show ideas that have graced screens over the past few decades.


• July 23: Working Title Builds 'Astro City'

Official friend of The Vault Kurt Busiek was nice enough to take some time out of his busy Comic-Con schedule to talk to me about the upcoming Astro City movie, which was announced on Thursday. Notice that he's still teasing fans with promises of Loony Leo. You're a bad, bad man, Kurt.


Next Week: That's it for this week, but don't worry, there will be plenty more geekery next week, including my choices for the cast of the Justice League movie. Which we'll probably see about the same time we get that Loony Leo spotlight issue.

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Movie Trailer Special: Space Battleship Yamato

For people of a certain age (that is, my age), the Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato (translated liberally to Star Blazers here in America) remains one of the great sci-fi epics of all time. Indeed, I think it's fair to say that (along with Star Wars on the big screen) Star Blazers introduced a whole generation of kids to the idea of sci-fi. Created in 1974 but not available widely in the U.S. until around 1980, the first season of Star Blazers remains one of the most influential and mature animated series in the history of television, as it told a gripping tale of desperation, romance and even death that has few parallels in the cartoon world even today.

And now it's being turned into a live action film.

Yep, you read that right: Space Battleship Yamato, which fittingly is an all-Japanese production, is slated to hit theaters in Japan on December 1. And while anxious American audiences are still waiting to find out when the (hopefully) inevitable American release will be, fans can now tide themselves over with a look at the first extended length trailer for the film. So grab your wave motion gun, because dude, it is so on right now:





Not awesome enough for you? Okay, well how about this version, which not only has a brief clip of the Wave Motion Gun warming up to fire, but it features the awesome, unforgettable original theme song to boot:





Whew. I need a few minutes to towel off.

Okay then. So how awesome does this look, exactly? I admit that when I first heard they were making a live action version of Star Blazers, I was skeptical to say the least. I especially was unsure if a Japanese production could swing the money necessary for all the special effects. But while this doesn't quite look like Avatar-level CGI, it's perfectly reasonable in a Battlestar Galactica way. So no problem there.

Even better from a fan's point of view, of course, is the obvious devotion to the source material, as it's clearly based very closely on the first season. In the first trailer, for instance we get a shot of Alex Wildstar piloting his doomed battleship at the Battle of Pluto, while in the second trailer we see what appears to be a Gamalon fighter crashing into the side of the Yamato, which is a clear shout-out to one of the most memorable episodes of the original run (where the Gamalon pilot is nursed back to health and returned to his own people, only to be shot down by the Gamalons for being "tainted" by his association with humanity). The whole thing just reeks of authenticity, though it does suffer from Spanish Soap Opera Syndrome, which is the curious phenomenon where actors speaking a language you can't understand always appear to be way overacting.

But, whatever. Just check out this official poster (click on it to make it as huge as it deserves to be):



My Grades: A+. 8-year-old me gives it an A+++++++ times infinity +1. Maybe the coolest thing I have ever seen.

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June Answers From the Vault part 2

Welcome back to part two of June Answers From the Vault, where we provide another batch of questions and another slew of incisive answers designed to entertain, inform and, most of all, give you a way to waste ten minutes of your workday. And today we have a special theme episode, as all of our movie-related questions have been provided by former Marvel Bullpen stalwart Robert Lettrick. So take a moment to familiarize yourself with our last round of questions and answers (displayed here) and dig in with both grubby hands.

Okay, let's go!


1). Which new characters should Nolan bring in for the third Batman movie and who should play them?

This is a pretty tricky question. I'm tempted to say NKVDemon and Bat Mite, but... no. What makes this a bit more difficult than maybe some other comic book movies is the fact that a) the third movie not only comes on the heels of an indelible performance by heath ledger but also has to deal with a specific setup left by the end of the second movie and b) unlike most other comic book franchises, Nolan has figured out that audiences are familiar enough with the trope now that he can just focus on telling good stories.

A lot of studios still haven't figured this out. They think that audiences need origin stories to convince them that characters this crazy can exist. But we don't because we've had two decades of comic book movies to set things up. We get it. And that means that Nolan doesn't have to waste a bunch of time setting up characters like Joker, he can just drop them into the story and count on the fact that audiences will accept him. And that in turn explains why, almost alone among comic franchises, Nolan's Batman stories can handle multiple villains without being overloaded, as we've seen both with Joker and Two-Face in the second film and Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul in the first movie.

So, with that said, and considering how the second movie ended -- with Batman taking the fall and becoming outcast -- what I would do for the third movie is show what happens to Gotham without Batman to protect it. Specifically, I'd have the city be the site of a gang war situations where different supervillains are trying to take over. This would allow the use of all sorts of Batman villains without needing to really spotlight, explain or overuse any specific ones, meaning we can get guys like Clayface and Killer Croc and even Penguin, who I have to say I'm not a huge fan of (in terms of movies anyway), among the combatants.

The lead villain, though, has to be Riddler, but I would use the really brilliant setup DC recently used for Ridder's reappearance in Detective Comics over the last couple years, which is to have him appear not as a villain but as a media-hungry detective who provides more competition to Batman that opposition. I'd have him be a shady, secretly villainous but publicly clean media darling who steps into the gap left by Batman's departure to become the next big thing in Gotham, using his skills to take down crime lords like Killer Croc in order to get more accolades and attention from a grateful city that's he's bilking behind everyone's back. While Batman, of course, does the real legwork to save the town and expose Riddler as a fraud.

Now that I've supplied Warner Bros. with a plot (you're welcome), I guess we have to cast the movie. Riddler is a tough one, as he has to have a certain physical appearance to go with a bounty of style and panache along with cunning and intelligence. A lot of online people are pushing for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which seems hard to fathom since Riddler is supposed to be a grown-ass man. Others are pushing for Johnny Depp, which would be a better choice, if maybe a bit dangerous in terms of putting together a coherent movie. But my choice would probably be David Tenant, who has the brains, the charisma and, I think it's fair to say, a touch of the madcap to boot.

I'd also bring in a real, honest-to-god mature love interest in the person of the incomparable Silver St. Cloud who I guess I would have played by Cate Blanchett; she's maybe not quite as sexy as Silver, but she seems like an adult and that's the really important thing.



2). Why does Nic Cage continuously lobby to taint every super hero movie made with his stink?

Ah, good ol Nic Cage. Actually, I don't blame him for wanting to be in comic book movies, even though I do blame him for sucking in pretty much all of them. Ghost Rider was abysmal and Kick-Ass was a letdown as well. And just think what would have happened if he had been able to get Warner Bros. on board his version of Superman. Yikes.

Still, as I'm sure you know, Cage is without a doubt the highest profile comic book geek in the world. Not only did he name himself after a comic book character (taking the stage name Cage in honor of Luke Cage when he decided to distance himself from the Coppola brand), he also named his son Kal-El after Superman. Now that's dedication. And he also once owned one of the premiere comic collections in the world, including copies of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27, before he was forced to sell his comics due to a robbery. Which is probably for the best, as otherwise they would have been seized by the government during his current bankruptcy woes.

So the answer to your no doubt rhetorical question is that he does this because he loves comics, which I can respect. Why his comic book movies suck so hard, though, I'm not really sure. For his sake -- and ours -- I hope that his next comic book film (which may be, believe it or not, a sequel to Ghost Rider) manages to break the cycle.



3). What are your thoughts on Chris Evans being cast as Captain America? And don't go easy on him because he's from Framingham.

Actually, this may surprise you, but I like it.

For those of you who don't know, Chris Evans is no stranger to comic book movies; in fact, his career no doubt has Nic Cage Hulking out in a jealous rage. Not only did Evans play the Human Torch in both Fantastic Four movies, he also provided voice work for the recent animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature, played Jensen in the adaptaion of the Vertigo Comics title The Losers, and stars as one of the seven evil exes in the upcoming comic flick Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. And that's all before being cast as Captain America for what is likely to be a whole raft of Marvel movies.

So he's got that going for him, which is nice, but nothing in that group suggests for one hot second that he has the chops to play Captain America. So why do I like it? Well, it's because of his role in the almost entirely forgotten 2007 sci-fi thriller Sunshine, which was directed by Slumdog Millionaire honcho Danny Boyle. In that movie, Evans played a no-nonsense soldier named Mace who was selected to lead a desperate expedition to re-ignite the sun before ti went out and destroyed the Earth. I had the pleasure of catching the last half of this movie on TV several months ago and my actual comment during the movie was "boy, they should hire Chris Evans to play Captain America."

Mind you, I couldn't believe I was saying that either considering his portrayal of Human Torch, but apparently the folks at Marvel also saw Sunshine because sure enough, there it is. I understand the skepticism and I still share some of it (specifically, I'm not sure how he will fare when he has to go up against Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark in Avengers) but I urge you to check out Sunshine, because it's really cool (kind of like Alien without the alien) and because Evans gives a real eye-opening performance in it.


4). Why is the Punisher listed as being in Captain America AND Avengers, according to IMDB?

This is a very good question and the answer is, I don't know. The listings, which have since been removed, first appeared just a couple days before your question and showed a dude by the named of Craig Fairbrass as being in both films. I checked around with my numerous industry contacts, but nobody was quite sure why those listings existed, which probably explains why they were taken down.

Which isn't to say that it's out of the realm of possibility. Unlike X-Men or Fantastic Four, the two Punisher films done by Lionsgate were in conjunction with Marvel Studios, meaning that, like Hulk, it's possible that marvel could include him in their own films depending on the language of the agreement between the two parties. Of course, Captain America takes place in World War II, while Avengers takes place in the present day, which would complicate things. However, we've also seen that Marvel has become pretty good at teasing things at the end of each movie in a weay that leads into the next, so here's my guess on how this could happen: Frank Castle would be introduced into the new film Marvel Universe as an agent of SHIELD, rather than as a run of the mill war veteran. He would then appear in a post-credits sequence in Captain America showing SHIELD working on finding the iceberg Cap is frozen in, which would lead into Avengers where Castle would reprise this role in another iceberg related cameo. Thus we end up with "Punisher" in both films, even if not yet in costume -- a decent way to introduce the concept to a broader audience before springboarding him into a rebooted franchise done by Marvel.

We'll have to wait a while longer to see if that actually happens, though.


Okay, that's it for this round of Answer From the Vault. As always, thanks for your questions and keep reading them there comic, y'all.

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Movie Review: The A-Team

A week ago, I went to see the blockbuster, big-screen remake of the 80's cult TV hit A-Team, and now I can barely remember a single thing about it. That makes writing a review of the film both difficult and somewhat unnecessary. But, just as a writing exercise, I'll try to come up with something anyway.

Here are a couple details I do recall. Liam Neeson stars as Hannibal, an Army Ranger who is no relation to the guy with the elephants. In a fairly action-packed if arbitrary opening sequence, we see how Hannibal accidentally puts together his expert squad while battling some evil Mexican druglords, a plot point that I'm guessing only intended about half of the subtext it has acquired since the script was written.

Fast forward eight years (in the movie, I mean -- don't actually jump to 2018 for the rest of the review, it's right here) and we're in Iraq, meaning this movie could take place theoretically at any point in either the last decade or our vast and infinite future. Long story short, the A-Team does some stuff and there's a set-up and Major Dad is involved and then my eyes glazed over as a warm blanket of thoughtlessness swept me away until I awoke, pale and shivering several days later in the shadow of a dumpster behind the local KFC.

That's pretty much what A-Team is like: it's pretty fun, pretty fast paced and entirely unnecessary. Compared to this summer's other big studio releases, that means it's really awesome. Compared to good movies, well, why would you even make that comparison to begin with?

Fans of the TV show will almost certainly like it, as will fans of Bradley Cooper's always-visible abs; and pretty much anyone who doesn't require higher cognative abilities to enjoy a film will at least not regret spending the money on this one. If you're looking for the next Bourne Ultimatum, well, this is not your movie. If you want to see something that's got all the cheese factor of The Expendables but probably only half the suckiness, then go to it, home slice.

My Grades: As far as capturing the spirit of the TV show, the movie version gets an A-. As far as that being a desirable goal for a movie to strive for, this can only get a C at best. Overall summer film grade: B-. Not as bad as it should have been.

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