Shin Super Robot Sunday: Go! Greenman (1973)

Twice I've tried to write this post, and twice the power went out for multiple hours making it impossible. That finally ends today. 

 

Before Zone Fighter, Toho's first tokusatsu superhero was a red and white alien who could grow to gigantic size and defended Earth from monsters. No, of course he's not an Ultraman ripoff, he's Godman. 

He has a blue visor and a giant mane of platinum blonde hair. 

See? Completely different. 

 

Go! Godman ran for 26 episodes comprised of multiple five minute segments segments from October 5, 1972 to April 10, 1973. The plots were simple affairs centered around monsters threatening people, the people calling on Godman for help, and then Godman arrived to pummel the monster into the dirt.

          

 

On November 12, 1973, the spiritual sequel to Go! Godman aired: Go! Greenman (Ike! Greenman). 52 eight minute episodes comprised of 3 parts each ultimately aired, and this time there was more of a plot tying everything together. 

Deep underground, the devilish monster Maoh, the lord of the underworld awakens, learning that God has exiled him below the Earth. Plotting revenge, Maoh needs the blood of children to power himself up, and summons an army of minions to hunt them on the Earth's surface for him. 

Standing in his way is Greenman, an envoy of God sent to protect the innocent children of the world from Maoh's depredations. After losing initially, Maoh escalates things (literally) by turning his minions into stronger minions that can also grow to gigantic size. With the phrase “Greenman Giant Machine Change!”, Greeman himself can grow gigantic and battle the demons on equal footing. 

Greenman is a robot from Planet Green, and can grow to a height of 45 meters (148 ft). Designed by Tsuguo Murase and refined by a committee that included his brother, veteran monster designer Keizo Murase, the costume was modeled after Buddha statues from Southeast Asia. The similarity is most noticeable in the head, and the whole design was intended to be bright and ostentatious. Like most all tokusatsu heroes of the era, Greenman has an array of weapons, including flight, super speed, energy attacks, a staff called the Greenman Stick, Leg Arrow, chest missiles called the Greenman Breaster (probably influenced by Mazinger Z), and Ear Boomerangs (which are self-explanatory). Greenman also gave the children a box called the Green Call with a button that, when pressed, would summon him to their aid. 

 

A notable feature of the show was recycling costumes (and monsters) from Toho movies, including Gaira and Sanda from The War of the Gargantuas, Gabara and Minilla from All Monsters Attack, and the King Kong costume from King Kong Escapes. Kong could only be called “Gorilla” in Greenman because Toho no longer had the rights to the King Kong license. If you ever wanted to see an evil version of Godzilla's son get thrown around and laughed at, then here you go.

          

Go! Greenman had a successful run, but the character went dormant after the show ended. In 2008, Toho released a 22 minute direct-to-video short movie called Go! Godman that brought back Godman to fight against a group of monsters. At a critical moment, one of the human characters finds a Green Call box, presses the button, and Greenman arrives to aid Godman save the day. As a surprising bit of trivia, the Greenman mask and most of the costume remained intact after thirty-plus years and were re-used for this movie. 

 

Next time on Shin Super Robot Sunday: A new sub-feature that looks at some series that aren't about giant robots per se, but are worth mentioning in context. Get ready for Shin Super Robot Sunday Gaiden. 

 

You can blame Space Battleship Yamato getting into a Super Robot Wars game for this.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike!_Greenman

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C%E3%81%91!_%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3

https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Go!_Greenman

https://godzilla.fandom.com/wiki/Go!_Greenman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike!_Godman

https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Go!_Godman_(film)

Stealing from the Best: Dr. Fate and The Ship of Ishtar

I just finished reading A. Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar, and while there's going to be a review for it soon, I stumbled onto something fascinating about it.

The Ship of Ishtar was first serialized in Argosy starting in 1924. Among the most important facets of the story is Babylonian mythology. Indeed, the main character, John Kenton, is described as being able to read cuneiform as well as English. This is impressive, because cuneiform had only really been reliably deciphered by modern scholars in the 1800s. Roughly less than a hundred years before Ishtar was published. Mesopotamian history and culture was new and fresh in the Western world because scholars were now able to actually study more than architecture, pottery, and what their neighbors said about them.

Kenton's most significant mystical ally is the Mesopotamian god of wisdom and truth, Nabu. In the book, Nabu's color is blue, and Kenton makes good use of a sword blessed by the god once the archaeologist returns to the ship to rescue the red haired priestess of Ishtar, Sharane, from an evil priest of Nergal.

In 1940, DC comics published More Fun Comics #55, in which a blue-clad archaeologist named Kent Nelson, who is a champion of Nabu (revealed in issue 67) equipped with his magical items, rescues an initially red haired woman named Inza (who would eventually become his wife) from an ancient sorcerer. 

That can't be coincidence.

Kent Nelson became Dr. Fate, a prominent 40s super hero, one of the first tights-clad “Super Wizards” (as opposed to mystics like Zatara from 1938 who fought crime in their stage regalia). Fate's crimefighting career expanded greatly from his origins, encountering numerous ancient magical threats, being a founding member of the Justice Society and passing down the Helmet of Nabu first to his wife and then a succession of less memorable pupils. There were even a few times when Nabu himself acted as little more than a cape, gloves, and helmet. The Babylonian heritage of Nabu is eventually lost, instead tying him to ancient Egypt to better synergize with the likes of Hawkman and Black Adam.

Unlike Kenton, who is a two-fisted man of action, all incarnations of Dr. Fate are dedicated magicians who sit among the highest spellcasters of the DC universe. Though Kent Nelson was just as happy to throw some punches around in the 40s as he was to cast spells.

Still, the similarities between the two characters can't be ignored. I don't even think that they're a coincidence, since Dr. Fate's creator, the insanely prolific Gardner Fox (1911-1986) said that he particularly liked Merritt in an early 70s interview. There's your smoking gun. A fan of Merritt couldn't have been ignorant of The Ship of Ishtar. Not with it being Merritt's most popular work.

Fox himself would go on to write for pulp magazines in the 40s and 50s and then novels, though his largest body of work was in comics. Like Merritt, Fox himself would serve as an influence on Dungeons & Dragons, appearing in the Appendix N list of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide in 1979.

Does this cheapen Dr. Fate? I don't think so. For starters, Fate's initial design by Howard Sherman is outstanding, and in the visual medium of comics, that matters a great deal. The two characters also diverge considerably, with Fate getting into some truly weird (not necessarily good) adventures in the 80s and 90s. Its derivative in a good way, taking a nugget of an idea (Nabu, god of wisdom selecting a mortal champion) and running with it in a vastly different direction intended for ongoing adventures.

I actually appreciate Dr. Fate a little more now than just as magical powerhouse who makes cool guest appearances, knowing what kind of a literary heritage he has.

Tell me, do you bleed? You will.

So I recorded something off-the-cuff for this, but it ended up being an incoherent, rambling, overly-long thing that would have been unpleasant for an audience to sit through.

Much like Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. ZING!

I'm partially kidding. Batman V Superman is Warner Brothers and DC's attempt at jump-starting a Justice League Movie Universe so that they can chase that Avengers movie cash cow, which is something that's been tried before with Green Lantern (and failed).

Actually, I saw the almost universal panning of the film by the media as a curious thing, especially when a couple people I respect on film/story opinions recommended it. This made me curious enough to see it myself to form my own opinion. Well, I have, and its complicated, and that's why I spent my Sunday night hammering this out.

Short and spoiler-free take? Its a disjointed mess with flashes of goodness but loaded with bloat and inconsistencies that ultimately frustrate the viewer with wasted potential.

From here on out, we're going into spoiler territory.

No, seriously. HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD.

Bats V Supes is a direct sequel to 2013's Man of Steel, which was directed by Zach Snyder and starred Henry Cavill as Superman. That was a deeply divisive movie that garnered tremendous amounts of criticism, but did well enough to warrant a sequel, and with Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy wrapping up, meant that the time was ripe to open up the DC vaults and get a good ol' fashioned crossover going. Two superheroes are led by misunderstanding to fight each other, resolve that conflict, and team up to take down the REAL villain. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.

Except Bats V Supes is something of a bloated mess of a movie that has multiple ideas, plotlines, and even tones jockeying for the limelight.

The plot of the movie, such as it is, follows Superman trying to find his place in a world that is now in awe of his godlike power, and sometimes fears him. Rightfully so, as the opening sequence features Bruce Wayne rushing to Metropolis during the climactic battle of the last movie and trying to save people's lives while building an understandable resentment for the carnage caused in Superman's wake.

We skip ahead to where Bruce Wayne's hatred of Superman festers into a two-year obsession with finding a way to stop or even kill the Kryptonian while Superman struggles with trying to do Superman stuff like saving Lois Lane from bad guys and being inspirational in a movie that wants to punish him for doing Superman stuff. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is trying to get the U.S. Government to fund his attempts to experiment on Kryptonian technology so that he can find a way to kill Superman. And Wonder Woman shows up occasionally to justify her being in the climactic fight scene with Doomsday.

Is it a total mess worth 29% on Rotten Tomatoes? No. Zach Snyder continues to have a flair for shot composition, and that's something I think people miss. Hell, during Man of Steel, the movie goes from a washed out and gray color palette that increases in colorfulness as Superman begins doing more and more Hero stuff, so that by the end of the movie, its bright and colorful. Which is not something I ever saw mentioned in Man of Steel reviews.

Action sequences are generally well put together. When Batman fights goons, there's a visceral speed to how he takes people down. When you get to the Main Event between Batman and Superman, its a brutal slugging match as Batman has to keep finding ways to hamstring Superman in order to be able to hurt him.

Ben Affleck is great as an older, more jaded Bruce Wayne who's been doing the Batman thing for two decades. There are hints at the cost of being Batman, such as the dead Robin costume with Joker graffitti and the burned out husk of Stately Wayne Manor. This is an older, wiser, but deeply flawed Batman who, refreshingly, makes mistakes and gets outwitted occasionally. No Batgod here.

Instead of Batgod, we get Bat of Murder. This is terrible, because in just about every Batman story out there that isn't a movie version (*cough* Tim Burton *cough*), Batman has two simple rules: No killing. No guns. What does he do here? Kill people with guns. Quite a lot. Even in his dream sequences. Which makes him a hypocrite when he criticizes the destruction that follows Superman. It makes them both hypocrites. Its a horrible mis-characterization that mars an otherwise fantastic Batman.

Wonder Woman is played by the Fast & Furious' Gal Gadot. The whole “she's too skinny to play Wonder Woman” thing before the movie came out was dumb. She looks fine enough and there are worse problems with the movie anyway. Acting-wise, there's not much to evaluate her on. She shows up to be mysterious in the first half, and then shows up for the big team up. The biggest problem with Wonder Woman in this is that she's unnecessary. The movie could've happened without her with minimal changes. “Wonder Woman: International Woman of Mystery” isn't a bad hook for the character, but I doubt the movie in the works will take that direction.

I maintain that Henry Cavill is a good Superman. He's got the face and can sell the earnestness of the character, but both Man of Steel and this seem hell bent on not letting Superman feel good about helping people. Yes he saves people, but its in a slow motion montage that shoots for profundity and misses. Part of the appeal of Superman is that he is always going out of his way to help people, even if its for fairly mundane stuff, like stopping car accidents, foiling amateur bank robberies, or talking a suicidal person off a ledge. Showing Superman fix a spare tire or save a cat from a tree would have gone miles to helping his character in this. They mention this this kind of behavior, when Bruce Wayne accuses Clark Kent of writing puff pieces for Superman, but this is a direct reversal of the SHOW, DON'T TELL rule of storytelling.

Instead we get a sort of dream sequence where the ghost of Pa Kent tells a depressing story about how he helped his farm in a flood but in doing so caused the neighbors' horses to drown and some offhand lines about how he's trying fly Doomsday away from a populated area to minimize damage. Instead of Superman going to Congress and giving an inspiring speech about the infinite potential for human goodness, we have an explosion go off before he can say anything at all in his defense. Hell, the speech he gives to the UN in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is a more effective moment, and that movie is all kinds of dumb.

Its enormously frustrating because the movie is hell-bent on turning Superman into a Christ-figure instead of turning him into Superman.

Amy Adams' Lois Lane is fine. She snoops around doing reporter stuff, gets in trouble, Superman rescues her. Classic Lois stuff. I still feel that she would make a better Lana Lang, but oh well.

Jeremy Irons is amazing as Alfred. He's got the right mix of paternal admonishment and encouragement for Batman. Its great. More Alfred, please.

Holly Hunter plays Senator Finch, a character who doesn't really bring much to the table outside of being part of a SHOCKING PLOT TWIST that lands with a thud. It involves a jar of piss labeled peach juice because of a comment made to Lex Luthor. Because scatological humor, am I right folks? 

Speaking of Lex, Jesse Eisenberg's version is just...bizarre. He's very young, very clearly Lex Luthor Jr., and has a mop of unruly hair and twitchy mannerisms that jump all over the place. Sort of like those insufferable millennial hipsters that infest San Francisco. An SJW hipster is a neat concept for a villain, except at that point he's no longer Lex Luthor. Part of Lex's character through his various incarnations has been the projection of strength and control, even when its just a front. This Lex can't even make a speech to a charity event without losing track of what he's saying. He's a creepy weirdo, but unlike Gene Hackman's clownish sociopath or Kevin Spacy's charismatic megalomaniac, this Lex doesn't have that edge of brilliance lurking underneath that justifies his arrogance. Instead, he's pretty much the Joker without the greasepaint.

“But its a false front! He's a master manipulator and he's just fooling everyone into thinking he's a wuss!”

Again, that's not Lex Luthor. Part of the reason he hates Superman is because Lex wants to be strong while Clark Kent IS strong. Lex will never be that kind of strong because Superman's strength comes from his selflessness and Luthor is deeply selfish.

Its a pity, because Eisenberg gives flashes of the real Lex here and there, but again, the movie doesn't let the character be the character.

Adding to the bloat of the film are all the teases for the Justice League. Batman has a dream sequence where he's in a post-Apocalyptic world with a giant Omega symbol and he gets attacked by evil army people, and he starts murdering the hell out of them until he gets overwhelmed by goons and full-blown Parademons. As a tease for Darkseid, its kind of interesting, but it grinds the movie to a halt and doesn't add anything other than a blatant “WE'LL GIVE YOU DARKSEID PLEASE KEEP WATCHING THESE MOVIES.” In that same vein, we get a "thrilling" scene as Wonder Woman receives an email from Batman with data on other metahumans and she opens up video clips of the Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. Its hokey, especially Aquaman spending thirty seconds going Grrrrrr at the camera before destroying it, and it could have worked if the movie would have let itself be hokey. 

Which comes down to the fundamental problem running throughout this movie. It feels like there is a constant struggle between the whether or not the characters should act like themselves. When they do, the movie is better. More often than not, they don't for the sake of fitting into the plot's demands.

A strong character can completely derail a scene or plotline simply by acting in character, spoiling the writer's outline and taking it in a different direction. This movie feels like the characters are trying to do that, but editorial/studio intervention is constantly trying to clamp down on them so that the officially mandated plot can assert itself. Because we have to force nods to The Death and Return of Superman as well as The Dark Knight Returns regardless of them making sense.

Much like that jar of peach juice, the label on Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice tries to tell you its a fun superhero movie about how Superman and Batman met and planted the seeds of the Justice League, when its actually just a bloated mess of conflicting plotlines, characterizations, themes that reminds me more of X-Men III than either the Justice League or even The Avengers.

Its a huge letdown, made more so by the flashes of quality gasping for air. If it was a smaller movie simply about Lex Luthor manipulating the media into getting Batman and Superman to fight each other for his own amusement/ambitions, it could have been fantastic. The climax of the film was and should have remained the fight between the title characters and the realization that they're both good men who've been played. Instead we got a pointless fight with Doomsday for the sake of a fight and Superman's death for the sake of an obvious resurrection down the road to save the Justice League at a critical moment. 

If we're lucky he'll have that 90s era mullet.

Not recommended.

“Hey, its wet-willy time”

1993 brought about one more Turtles movie. Only this time, the Jim Henson Creature Shop was not involved. And… Well… nobody really likes it. Like, at all. Sounds like a good enough reason to take a look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

Story
April O’Neil (Paige Turco) visit’s the Turtles spacious underground digs and tells them she’s going on vacation. She also brings some gifts for the gang and an antique scepter that for some reason, starts glowing and April gets thrown through time to Feudal Japan and replaced with Kenshin (Henry Hayashi), the son of a powerful daimyo with daddy issues. Why? Through the age-old storytelling crutch of an ancient prophecy, of course!

Anyway, our heroes Leonardo (Mark Caso & voiced by Brian Tochi), Raphael (Matt Hill & voiced by Tim Kelleher), Donatello (Jim Raposa & voiced once more by Corey Feldman) and Michaelangelo (David Fraser & voiced by Robbie Rist) resolve to use the scepter to go after April and bringing four samurai warriors to New York in the process. Can Splinter (voiced by James Murray) and Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) keep these five samurai out of trouble? Hilarity of course is supposed to ensue (and well, kind of does, since Koteas’ Jones is a welcome return to the series)

Moving on, the Turtles end up in Japan circa 1603 and find out that April’s been captured by the daimyo’s men because of the whole magic thing. The Daimyo, Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) is apparently a bad dude, since his army is putting down a rebellious village for…being rebellious I guess. It’s really vague, but it’s the kind of movie where “rebels = good because that’s what Star Wars did.” Anyway, Norinaga forms an uneasy partnership with a much more clearly bad guy: the Englishman Walker (Stuart Wilson, who was the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 3) and his thugs. Walker’s a bit of a dandy and a gun for hire that is really in it to make a profit. He’s got a crew of thugs, led by Niles (John Aylward as one of the funnier characters) and there’s Whit, a dissenting member of the crew that kind of latches on to April that reminds her of Casey Jones (and happens to be played by Koteas as well). The Turtles (who are regarded by the Japanese as fearsome kappa demons, which actually makes a fair bit of sense) rescue April, escape to the village and team up with the rebels and their leader Mitsu (Vivian Wu) who is also Kenshin’s lover. And you can see where the plot goes from here.

There aren’t any really terrible performances, but there aren't any really good performances either.  You can kind of tell that there’s not much heart being poured into it. There aren’t even that many fight scenes compared to the first two films. Still, Michaelangelo & Raphael get some character development spotlight, which is not a bad thing.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Stuart Gillard, you can tell the budget was much lower than the previous outings. The animatronics and Turtle costumes are a definite step down from the Henson creations. There’s also the infamous falling scene from the end of the movie where a character drops off the fortress into the water below and simply vanishes through the miracle of bad editing (though there is a splash sound).

Writing
Characters created by Eastman & Laird and screenplay written by Stuart Gillard. The story runs along on rails rather predictably and the Turtles’ schtick is wearing kind of thin at this point. Some of the comedic bits hit, but more often than not they don’t. Such as all of Donatello's increasingly grating catchphrases and one-liners.

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez yet again, which amps up the Japanese musical cues and the soundtrack also includes ZZ Top’s “Can’t Stop Rockin.”

Conclusion
There’s no way I can ever call Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III a good movie. HOWEVER, it isn’t really as bad as people say it is. It’s bad, but compared to dreck like Robot Holocaust, it’s totally watchable. I will admit that part of it might be nostalgia goggles (I did watch this one quite a few times as a kid), but honestly, I don’t hate it at all, but it does get quite annoying at times.

“First, we must observe the ancient ritual of the, uh, uh... traditional pre-fight donut!”

Turtle Power was still in really high gear in 1991 and a year after the first movie, there was a second: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze.

Story
Now that the characters are established, we can get into the meat of the plot. The Turtles are regarded as urban legends in New York City, still doing random delivery work and eating pizza, rescuing a delivery boy/martial arts enthusiast Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr.). After their home got trashed in the last movie, they’re staying with April O’Neil (Paige Turco) and the apartment is a little crowded for six people/mutants. April covers the story of a company, TGRI, and its efforts to clean up some of their old radioactive messes, led by Professor Jordan Perry (David Warner in a surprisingly non-villainous, non-sinister role) Splinter (voiced by Kevin Clash again) informs Leonardo (Mark Caso & voiced by Brian Tochi), Michelangelo (Michelan Sisti & voiced by Robbie Rist), Donatello (Leif Tilden & voiced by Adam Carl) and Raphael (Kenn Troum & voiced by Laurie Faso) that TGRI was the company that created the Ooze that made them. They set out to discover the secret of the Ooze (DUN DUN DUN!) but so does a revitalized Foot Clan, led by a returned and decidedly un-squished Shredder (François Chau & voiced by David McCharen) who gets some Ooze for himself and uses it to make some new mutants, Tokka & Razhar (both voiced by voice over legend Frank Welker).

Like the first movie, this one throws a LOT of plot at the audience and manages to keep things moving. Since its Science oriented, Donatello gets a lot more character development as he & Dr. Perry swap techno babble.

Oh yeah, and wrestler Kevin Nash is in it as the Super Shredder, for all of 30 seconds.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Michael Pressman, the movie lacks some of the visual “edge” of the first one. This one’s cleaner, more polished, less gritty. A bit goofier than the previous one, though the fight scenes remain one of the high points, though its more fist fighting than using weapons.

Writing
Eastman & Laird get creator credits and screenplay by Todd W. Langen. The script really amps up the more cartoony aspects of the series than the comics to be more in line with the target audience. But here’s the rub, we seven & eight year olds at the time liked the first movie because it was gritty. Because it was, by our standards, “hardcore.” Sure, we still liked the sequel because it was the Turtles, but we all noticed the toned down violence and wondered “what the hell?”

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez again, but really, what’s going to stick out in your head is the on-screen “impromptu” rap performance of “Ninja Rap” by Vanilla Ice & Earthquake. And it will Never. Ever. Leave you.

Conclusion
Eh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze is, ultimately okay. It’s not great. Not even as good as the first one. But it’s kind of charming in its harmless stupidity.



And because YOU DIDN'T ASK FOR IT, NINJA RAP:

“Wise man say forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.”

1990 was Twenty Years Ago. Which just makes me feel old and arthritic just thinking about that tidbit. But there’s a bright side to this trip down memory lane, since it gives us a chance to look back at the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a film that was essentially tailored to my seven year old movie going self. That’s right kids, I saw this beeyotch in theaters. Let’s see if it’s aged well.

Story
To those of you not clued in to just how big of a phenomenon the Turtles were in the late 80s-early 90s, the premise revolves around this radioactive stuff called “Ooze” presumably a byproduct of nuclear…scientific…sciencey…things. Anyway, this Ooze is capable of rapidly (and nonlethally) mutating anything that comes in direct physical contact with it into some kind of anthropomorphic creature/monster. Because comic books, that’s why.

Anyway, it also involves the backstory of a guy named Hamato Yoshi getting killed by Oroko Saki and Yoshi’s pet rat getting covered in ooze. The rat mutates into a human-sized puppet named Splinter that’s voiced by Muppeteer Kevin Clash (the voice of Elmo) who takes up residence in the New York City sewer system. Some time later four baby turtles were abandoned and exposed to the Ooze and Splinter adopted them, taught them, trained them in ninjutsu and named them after famous Renaissance artists: Leonardo (David Foreman and voiced by Brian Tochi), Donatello (Leif Tilden and voiced by Corey Feldman), Raphael (Josh Pais and voiced by Josh Pais) and Michaelangelo (Michelan Sisti and voiced by Robbie Rist). Because comic books, that’s why.

Anyway, this all leads up to 1990, where a crime wave of theft & burglary has the city paralyzed and the police stymied. The thieves strike and vanish without a trace, and there’s only one reporter in town willing to ask the hard questions and get to the bottom of this: April O’Neil (Judith Hoag).

Yadda yadda yadda, turns out the thieves are a legion of maladjusted teens that are taken in by the Foot Clan, a criminal group of ninjas led by the Shredder (James Saito). April runs afoul of them, is rescued by the Turtles, they eventually get joined by a sports themed vigilante named Casey Jones (played by a gloriously hammy Elias Koteas) and ADVENTURE! ensues.

So the plot is complicated and out of the Turtles, it’s really Raphael that gets the most development. He’s angry. A lot. Which causes him to go off on his own and get his ass kicked by the Foot (ba-dum-tsh). After clashing with Leonardo (who’s the Responsible One), Raph ends up learning more self control and how to play better with others. It’s actually fairly well done. The cast all handle their roles pretty well and despite the really cluttered plot, it stays coherent.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Steve Barron, the film is competently shot, but the art direction does end up straddling that line between “realistic” and “cheesy” with some of the sets (like the Foot Clan’s ludicrous-but-awesome-if-you’re-seven indoor arcade & skate park). However, the movie moves along very quickly and the fight scenes are generally pretty good. The most pleasant surprise is that the special effects have largely aged well, and I credit this entirely to the Jim Henson Company for their work on Splinter & the Turtles. Again, it’s all fairly well done.

Writing
Characters created by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird, story by Bobby Herbeck and Screenplay by Todd W. Langen & Bobby Herbeck. It manages to juggle the origin and a surprising amount of plot quite well. The characters are all recognizably so and (having never read the comic so I’m not 100% sure) but it seems to blend the catchphrase spouting style of the cartoon with the darker visual look of the comics. Which sounds like it shouldn’t work, but kind of does. The movie is not starved for one-liners and a surprising number of them are pretty good though there are also quite a few stinkers that are heavily dated to the period. And Raph screams out “DAMN!!!” at one point, which, when you’re seven, leaves an impact.

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez (UHF), and the score, while heavily influenced by digital touches, does work well and there are some eastern influenced “ninja” style cues. There’s also a licensed soundtrack that includes “This Is What We Do” by M.C. Hammer and “T-U-R-T-L-E Power!” by Partners In Kryme as the end credits song. It’s cheesy, but catchy.

Conclusion
While the nostalgia goggles probably helped in watching this, I have to admit I was a little afraid to revisit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m glad that it still holds up pretty well on its own merits. Yes, it’s extremely cheesy. Extremely cheesy. But that’s kind of the charm of it too. It’s not great, but its definitely way better than it could’ve been.


And yeah, the dubbing on the trailer doesn't match up the finished movie. It's likely the trailer was cut before all the voice over work was done.

“Let this remind you why you once feared the dark…”

Hellboy was awesome. More Hellboy should continue to be awesome, yes? 2008 seemed to think so, because that’s when we got a sequel. It promised more “fairy tale adventure” than “Lovecraftian action flick,” but when that’s filtered through the mind of Guillermo del Toro, you’re definitely not going to get the sanitized, Victorian notion of fairies. It's time for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

Story
So Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) are conducting business as usual with the B.P.R.D. They stumble across a scheme of the elven prince Nuada (Luke Goss) to activate a mythical force of invulnerable clock punk golems called the Golden Army. Unfortunately for Nuada, his twin sister Nuala (Anna Walton) steals an item vital to that scheme and runs off.

Now, Hellboy is chafing under the policy of staying under the radar and his boss Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) calls up to Washington DC for another agent. That agent turns out to be Dr. Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) a German ghost in a pressure suit and a stuffy, by-the-book attitude that naturally chafes with Hellboy in suitably amusing ways. (man, no wonder you non-comics fans don't find this stuff accessible).

Nuala runs into Abe, Nuada’s henchman Mr. Wink (Brian Steele) runs into Hellboy and things build to a head where the Golden Army is confronted, Hellboy has a close encounter with the Angel of Death (Doug Jones again) and things get…interesting.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Guillermo Navarro on cinematography, so we continue with Double Guillermos again. The movie looks great and there are a couple of really nice set pieces that fill out the action quota nicely. Of particular note are the Troll market, the fight with the Earth Elemental, the Tooth Fairies and the fight with the Golden Army. Del Toro continues to use practical effects with computer graphics to supplement things.

Writing
Hellboy created by Mike Mignola and adapted by Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola. The story builds on the previous movie in some interesting ways. The franchise is clearly building toward something…apocalyptic, but until a third movie gets made, that’s a big question mark.

There’s also a strong theme of the death of magic and wonder in the world. Nuada even tells Hellboy as much during one of their confrontations.

Sound
Original score by Danny Elfman this time. The music works well for the movie and Elfman’s signature oddness is a perfect fit for a franchise about a demon that fights for the good guys, smokes cigars and says “Aw crap” a lot.

Conclusion
Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a fine sequel. It embraces the mystical and mythical elements of the premise and expands the world in some very ambitious ways while keeping the humor and general eldritch feel of the series.

“Look, Sammy, I'm not a very good shot but the Samaritan here uses really big bullets.”

Greetings, boils and ghouls. So glad to see you’ve survived another year to return this October to Castle RMWC. This year’s event promises to feature all manner of new and horrifying sights for you to lay your eyes on. I hope you can survive the experience.

Let’s start with something big, shall we? A confluence of monstrous, demonic and eldritch forces. Oh, and there’s Nazis. Here’s 2004’s Hellboy.

Story
Back in WWII, a secret Nazi project attempted to make contact with…things that exist outside the purview of our reality in an attempt to get a leg up in the war. Things that words like “gibbous” and “squamous” apply to. The Allies put a stop to it, but something still came through the portal. That something was a little red baby that was taken in by a guy named Dr. Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm (played in the modern day by John Hurt)

Fast forward to the modern day and there are countless rumors circulating of a secret government department that deals with all manner of monsters and abominations. Agent John Meyers (Rupert Evans) is transferred to this secretive Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.) where he meets the staff, including telepathic fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones & voiced by David Hyde Pierce) and our hero, a big red stogie chomping demon with a giant stone right hand who goes by the name of Hellboy (Ron Perlman under a hell of a lot of makeup). Hellboy ages differently than humans, so by the modern day, he’s only just into his twenties and kind of has the personality of a High School senior. He’s even pining after his ex girlfriend, the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) who once worked for the Bureau but quit. It also doesn’t help that Hellboy isn’t exactly keen on staying in the shadows, much to the chagrin of the high ranking Agent Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor).

Myers’ job is simple: babysit Hellboy and kind of steer him in a direction that is more…responsible. Of course, this wouldn’t be a comic book movie without villains to smash in the face, which is provided by the resurrection of the guy who brought Hellboy into the world: Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden). Now, the Mad Monk’s gone through some…changes since he teamed up with the Nazis back in WWII and is trying to summon those same eldritch horrors with the help of the still young and beautiful Ilsa Haupstein (Biddy Hodson) and the crazy awesome clockwork powered, gas mask wearing Nazi ninja Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beran) and the recently released demon Sammael, the “hound of resurrection.”

You bet your ass its going to be a bumpy ride.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Guillermo del Toro and cinematography by Guillermo Navarro. Double Guillermos, all the way. The movie has an energetic pace and some really slick visuals thanks to del Toro’s commitment to using as many practical effects as possible. CGI is kept to a minimum and the action scenes where Hellboy and Sammael trade blows are a hell of a lot of fun. Color is also used well, with the bulk of the movie taking place at night, so the cool nocturnal tones are contrasted nicely with our hero’s bright red skin.

Writing
Original comic book by Mike Mignola and adapted for the screen by Guillermo del Toro and Peter Briggs. Mignola also worked with del Toro extensively on the adaptation. The result is an adaptation that is respectful to the source material, but also unafraid to go off onto its own direction. Storywise, it is a bit standard issue with the plot points (gang of misfits have to save the world from unspeakable evil), but the real charm comes from the characters NOT being standard issue. The hero is a devil who saws his horns off and carries a crucifix, his best buddy is a telepathic fish man, his girlfriend can make fire and the bad guy is Rasputin himself trying to summon a Lovecraftian Horror. It’s a great comic book adaptation, and it’s a great urban fantasy.

Sound
The original score by Marco Beltrami is moody, atmospheric and creepy, soaring to big action cues at appropriate times. Then its supplemented by some good songs by Tom Waits, Al Green and Pete Yorn.

Conclusion
Hellboy is a great way to kick off this year’s Octoverride, because Halloween isn’t just about being scary. It’s about being creepy and weird and mysterious and often hilarious. Last year I think I called the Octoverride a “Cavalcade of Weird” and I’m sticking to it.

“Talking man hurt Hulk! Hulk rip off talking man's head!!”

Okay, I feel the need to preface this with something of an apology. The way the Octoverride worked out, a lot of stuff got bounced around. So while in real-time, I may have thrown in 2009’s direct-to-DVD animated Hulk vs. in to take a break from Dracula movies back in late September, you get a face full of Superheroes in January.

Plot
This actually is two short films. In the first, Hulk vs. Wolverine, we find the Marvel U’s most over-exposed mutant sent back home to Canada to investigate a Hulk who rampaged through several towns. And by “investigate,” I mean stab a lot. This only makes the Hulk madder, then both he and Wolverine get captured by the Weapon X Program, a shadowy Canadian government organization that was responsible for giving Wolverine his adamantium skeleton and is now staffed by superhumans that want to see Logan dead.

In Hulk vs. Thor, we get some Asgardian politics where the trickster God Loki summons Bruce Banner to Asgard, magically manages to separate Banner and the Hulk, then sends the Hulk to break stuff in Asgard while Odin is in the middle of his “Odinsleep” (essentially a long nap that leaves the rest of the gods vulnerable). Its up to Thor to put a stop to Loki’s machinations. And by “put a stop to” I mean hit things with a hammer.

Characters
Bruce Banner: The Hulk’s human form is voiced by Bryce Johnson, and puny Banner doesn’t show up much in these. When he does, its mostly to plead with people not to agitate him/the Hulk.

The Hulk: Fred Tatasciore (from Mass Effect and the animated Iron Man movie) is great as the perpetually angry big green guy. Basically, this hulk is the “dumb but talkative” version (which is  a personal favorite) which leads to some good comedy. Of course, the Hulk is also a monster when it comes to fighting, and the battle with Wolverine is particularly brutal.

Wolverine: Steven Blum, who’s one of the big names in voice acting for the last decade, and the current official “voice” of Wolverine, plays…wait for it…Wolverine. Wolvie’s the grumpy, short, nearly impossible to kill Canucklehead we’ve all grown to love through overexposure, and the PG-13 rating of the movie means that he and the Hulk can just go nuts on each other.

The Weapon X Department: There’s a bunch of them, so let’s work our way through the list.

The Professor: Tom Kane is the bald, sinister director of the program, and has a claw for one of his hands.

Sabertooth: Mark Acheson is Wolverine’s arch-nemesis with almost comparable healing and no Adamantium skeleton. He’s embraced the feral side of his personality and, well, he’s always been boring.

Lady Deathstrike: Janyse Jaud is a Japanese lady with some creepy cyborg arms who’s had a messy past with Wolverine.

Omega Red: Colin Murdock is a Russian Super-Soldier/mutant with a pale complexion and two energy draining tentacles.

Deadpool: Nolan North steals the show as the completely insane Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool. And unlike that terrible Wolverine: Origins movie, he has the powers, personality, motormouth and costume of Deadpool. Possessing a healing factor even more powerful than Wolverine’s and a complete lack of inner voice or restraint, Deadpool is awesome for his one-liners and the fact that at one point the jumps onto the Hulk’s back and shoves a live grenade into the big guy’s mouth. It doesn’t work, of course, but major badass points for trying. This is Deadpool done right, and for that he’s the badass of both films, even though he’s only in one.

Thor: Matthew Wolf voices the Asgardian Thunder God who’s got to keep things together when Loki brings the Hulk to town.

Loki: Graham McTavish voices the always asshole Loki who really just wants to see his legitimate half-brother Thor suffer and/or die. Unfortunately, letting the Hulk loose in Asgard isn’t a good idea.

Amora the Enchantress: Kari Wahlgren voices a sorcerers who was spurned by Thor a while ago and kind of has a love/hate thing for him going. She teams up with Loki to get Hulk there.

The Asgardians: Okay, the film really throws in a lot of surprise residents of Asgard into the mix.

Lady Sif: Gray DeLisle voices Thor’s lover and second in command in the defense of Asgard.

Balder the Brave: Michael Adamthwaite voices one of Asgard’s more steadfast warriors and a good buddy of Thor’s.

The Warriors Three: Holy Shit! They actually put the Warriors Three into this. Fandral the Dashing (Johnathan Holmes), Hogun the Grim (Paul Dobson) and Volstagg the Voluminous (Jay Brazeau) don’t do a whole lot, but damn, they’re actually in this. Major props for that. If it weren’t for Deadpool, they’d be the collective badass just for being put in.

Hela: Janyse Jaud voices the Asgardian goddess of the underworld who’s also Loki’s daughter. She’s not a nice lady.

Visuals/Effects
Frank Paur directed Hulk vs. Wolverine and Sam Liu directed Hulk vs. Thor. Both are well animated and heavily action-oriented. Actually, they’re pretty much all action oriented. And the action is nice. The Thor one does go a little bit long at about 40 minutes, but nothing game breaking.

Writing
Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost do a solid job of hitting all the right character notes quickly then getting to the “Hulk Smash” parts. Nothing complicated, but solid nonetheless.

Sound
The original score by Guy Michelmore is appropriate and fitting.

Conclusion
There’s really not lot to either of these short films. Hulk Gets Mad. Hulk Smashes Things. Deadpool Behaves Awesomely. Simple, but with an animation style that is very conducive to fluid and surprisingly brutal action scenes, it’s a really fun dose of straightforward power fantasy.

“If it's a woman you're calling, then you say: You're good woman. I'm good man.”

Spider-Man was two for two going into the 2007 release of Spider-Man 3. Then 3 was released and fanboys raged across the globe. Let’s take a look at why, shall we?

Plot
Peter Parker’s life is looking up. After saving New York from Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man is lauded as a hero, he’s getting ready to propose to his girlfriend, Mary Jane, he’s doing all right, he’s got good grades, his future’s so bright that he’s got to wear shades. All of this starts going to his head and he starts turning into an neglectful jerk. Then Harry Osborne decides he’s had enough, takes his dad’s Green Goblin serum and some equipment, picks a high flying fight with Peter, loses and gets a nasty bump on the head that is entirely Peter’s fault and gets amnesia.

Meanwhile, an escaped con who’s trying to get some money for his sick daughter gets caught in a SCIENCE experiment in the middle of the night and gets atomized (he gets better) and reforms himself from sand (told you). Turns out he was the guy who actually shot Uncle Ben (yeah, I know, it’s a pretty lame retcon) and once Spidey finds this out, he wants to take the guy down permanently.

Meanwhile(er), a little black glob of glue from a meteorite latches onto Peter’s backpack and follows him home. Turns out it’s a symbiotic alien life form that ends up taking the form of a new black costume for Spider-Man, granting him even greater strength and giving his already inflated ego an even bigger, nastier boost. This leads to trouble with a new freelance photographer at the Daily Bugle, Eddie Brock and Parker basically ruins Brock’s career (which comes back to bite Spidey in the ass later). Peter’s relationship with Mary Jane also hit’s the skids because he’s a negligent, self-centered prick (before the symbiote, actually).

And THEN things get complicated.

Characters
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: Tobey Maguire got a lot of flack for “emo Peter Parker,” and yeah, I can see that. However, Parker’s transformation into a douche bag takes place before he actually gets the symbiote. He almost kills Harry during their fight and he’s so smitten with his own newfound glory that he can’t recognize the fact that Mary Jane is having a really difficult time with her career and he’s all like “gee, ain’t my life great?” all the time. And besides, Peter’s always been kind of on the cusp of becoming an asshole during all three films, the symbiote just makes it official when he wears it.

Mary Jane Watson: Kirsten Dunst actually goes through a lot in this movie. From starting out optimistic about her relationship and an acting gig, to understandably depressed about getting booted off the gig then really angry at Peter for being too self-absorbed to realize that she’s in need of comforting to being comforted by Harry to being utterly devastated by Peter’s infamous “Dancing scene.” She handles it quite well (oh yeah, and there’s another damsel in distress scene for her. Again.)

Harry Osborne/New Goblin (seriously? New Goblin?): James Franco gets some…odd stuff in this movie. First, we get Harry in his dad’s secret stash, kits himself out in a modified version of the Green Goblin gear and a brutal fight scene where he chases Spider-Man through the skyscrapers of New York, then he gets a bump on the head, almost dies, suffers some amnesia (like forgetting how his dad died or who Spider-Man really is) and his life starts improving. I actually really liked the whole “Mary Jane goes to Harry when Peter acts like an ass” subplot because it could lead to interesting story places down the road, but then Harry’s memories and hatred of Spidey comes back and he just turns into a generic bad guy who uses Mary Jane in an evil plot to “destroy Peter’s life,” then he & Pete fight it out, Pete scars his face and, well, let’s just say that by the end of the movie, the Harry subplot is no longer an issue. I’ve gotta admit, the whole Harry plot felt really forced in this and not as well developed as it could have been.

Flint Marko/Sandman: Thomas Hayden Church kind of gets the shaft in this movie. On the one hand, he does a fantastic job as a rather tormented escaped con who just wants to be able to help his sick daughter, but he made the mistake of turning to crime to do that and that leads to him becoming the Sandman and then becoming our Villain du jour. There’s some great potential for exploring the nature of good and evil, and Church is the spiting image of Flint Marko in this film, but all of that early potential gets kind of cast aside and he disappears from the movie for a while we focus on the other two villains populating the screen, both of whom are more connected to Peter Parker. Which is kind of a shame, since Sandman is a really well realized character in this movie, nuanced and sympathetic while still a credible threat to our hero. The only real issue I had (aside from the plot shoving him out of the spotlight) was the retcon of having him be the guy who shot Uncle Ben in that carjacking all those years ago. It kind of forces a connection between him and Spidey, and it also has the unfortunate implication of Peter Parker being guilty of criminal negligence (thanks, Wikipedia!) in letting the hood he thought killed Uncle Ben fall to his death.

Eddie Brock/Venom: Topher Grace has an odd job of being a character who’s in the movie throughout but only becoming a villain near the end. At first, he’s another photographer and actually a lot like Peter, a little hard on his luck, but dating a model and on his way up in the world. He’s a little bit more of a fast talker than Parker and slightly more lecherous, but there’s no indication of him being a bad guy. Then Peter, in the black costume, throws a hissy fit at Brock and breaks his camera and calls him a chump. Then Eddie does something desperate: he doctors photos of Spider-Man to get the scoop. Peter finds out about this, they have it out in the Daily Bugle and Parker does what every fifth grader knows not to: he tattles, getting Brock fired and essentially blacklisting him from any other newspaper. Long story short, a desperate and depressed Brock gets the black symbiote when Peter ditches it, becoming the revenge-obsessed Venom. This in itself isn’t a bad plotline, but considering everything else that’s going on in the film, its just too damn busy and the Brock storyline just feels rushed. It probably would’ve worked better if they spread it out over two movies, but, well, Venom was hella popular with the kids in the ‘90s and is still really recognizable today, so here you go, have some Venom. Now, Venom in the comics is a big dude, but here he’s maybe slightly bigger than Peter, so it loses some of the menacing effect.

Gwen Stacy: Bryce Dallas Howard (yes, yes, I know its ironic that a natural redhead is playing a blonde alongside a natural blond who’s playing a redhead) plays the famous Gwen Stacy, in comics, the “other girlfriend” who (well, its not really a spoiler since it happened back in the 70s) was infamously killed in a fight with the Green Goblin. She’s decidedly less dead in this movie, and is a generally nice girl who also happens to take a liking to Spider-Man after he rescues her from falling out of a building during a construction crane accident. She was dating Eddie Brock, but after Peter ruined his career, that seems to have fallen apart and Peter hooked up with Gwen for a while, but thanks to all the plots being juggled, she feels like a tertiary (Tertiary!!) character.

J. Jonah Jameson: J.K. Simmons is STILL awesome in this series, only now he’s gotten some character development/new gag with Betty Brant (still Elizabeth Banks) constantly reminding him of his blood pressure and not to get too excited/angry/shout loudly at Hoffman (Ted Raimi). While he doesn’t get that much screen time in this, he is easily the film’s most consistent badass.

Visuals/Effects
Sam Raimi still brings a great visual style to things, (montages, transitions, etc) though there is that whole “Dancing Emo Peter Parker” scene that is either intentionally cheesy or unbearably campy. I shall withhold judgment. The action scenes remain inventive, though, and the CGI work still looks very good. The scene where Flint Marko is trying to reform his body from grains of sand and has difficulty doing so until he focuses on a locket with his daughter’s photograph is both convincingly done and incredibly touching. Poor guy just can’t get a break.

Writing
Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi & Alvin Sargent do have a grasp on the characters, but all of the above points to the biggest flaw of the film: Too much plot. We’ve got Peter & Mary Jane’s courtship troubles, Peter trying to avenge Uncle Ben, Sandman’s subplot, Harry Osborne’s yo-yo of sanity, Gwen Stacy’s introduction, Peter dealing with the symbiote, Eddie Brock’s career ruin and then gaining the symbiote, and J. Jonah’s heart rate gags. Individually, these elements are fine, but there’s just too much of them in the air at once to get the attention they deserve, like the symbiote storyline could’ve been extended across two movies just fine.

Sound
Christopher Young replaces Danny Elfman on the score, and does a good job of things. The standard alternative/pop songs are also fine.

Conclusion
Ok. Spider-Man 3 is definitely a flawed film. Very flawed, come to think of it. Too many villains and an outright surfeit of plot threads to keep track of bog the film down, but its not actually an epic failure of a movie (its better than Supermans II, III, & IV combined, and I am willing to stand by that assertion). Compared to those, its actually quite watchable, largely enjoyable on the whole and there are some truly great scenes in it, so I’m going to invite a bit of flack from fellow fanboys by saying that I liked it. 2 and 1 are definitely better (in that order), but it doesn’t deserve the hatewagon its managed to pick up.





Still here?

“Whoa... He just stole that guy's pizza!”

Spider-Man was a success, and success means sequels. 2004 brought Spidey back with a vengeance as sought to up the ante on the franchise now that all that pesky origin story junk was out of the way.

Plot
Life’s not so great for Peter Parker. He’s been pushing his Spider-Man career really hard, completely neglecting his classes, job as a pizza delivery guy and social life. The love of his life, Mary Jane finally gets a break on stage and Peter, shlub that he is, breaks a promise to her to see the play. Oh yeah, and she gets engaged to an astronaut because she’s tired of waiting around for Peter to do something about their mutual feelings. His best friend still blames Spider-Man for his father’s death. On top of that, his powers seem to be shorting out at inopportune moments. Prompting him to hang up the tights to try and figure out his life. About the only bright spot is a potential scientific mentor, Doctor Otto Octavius who takes the kid under his wing, then promptly becomes a super villain in a science experiment gone horribly wrong.

Characters
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: Tobey Maguire is back as the hard luck hero. Throwing himself headlong into superheroics, his health and life are going to hell and he’s about as unhappy as can be. It gets to be too much for him and he decides to hang it up, and interestingly enough, his life improves almost instantly. He starts paying attention at school, gets hired by Jameson to do more than “GET ME PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN!” and even starts patching things back up with Mary Jane. In short, he’s happy, on his way to being successful and responsible. Additionally, and here’s the kicker, he does his most heroic act of the trilogy while he’s de-powered by going into a burning building to save a kid. What was easy as pie in the first movie becomes a life or death struggle, and he pulls off one hell of a heroic rescue. Guess what, though. That guilt complex I mentioned in the last review? It comes back with a roaring vengeance as he starts dreaming of his Uncle Ben trying to talk him into putting the tights back on, and when he sees a police chase drive by him, you can see the wheels of guilt rolling in his head, knowing that “he coulda stopped it himself.” Which, is kind of selfish of him when you consider you can’t throw a rock in the Marvel Universe New York without hitting a cape. Whatever the mundane crises are that Peter feels guilty about neglecting, I’m sure that either the Avengers (New, Mighty, Young, Initiative and even West Coast when they’re in town), Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, the X-Men (and all of their affiliates), the Hulk (when he’s in town), Power Pack, Darkhawk, Blade (with or without the Nightstalkers), Heroes for Hire, Nova, the Human Rocket (when he’s on Earth), the Thunderbolts (okay, they’re iffy at best), and even the New Warriors have the situation under control. And that’s just off the top of my head.

Mary Jane Watson: Kirsten Dunst lends a lot of development to Mary Jane, who’s now torn between love for Peter, but also incredible frustration with his asshatted avoidance of her. She’s still good in the role, though despite Peter’s best efforts to distance her from his hazardous life choices, she still ends up getting kidnapped by the bad guy as leverage against Spider-Man.

Harry Osborne: James Franco glowers and stews his way across the screen as he just spirals deeper and deeper into brooding thoughts of revenge. And booze. He’s been hitting the bottle hard after his father’s death. And this is all because the Green Goblin told Peter not to tell Harry about him being a super villain and all.

Doctor Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus: Alfred Molina turns in an astounding performance as a scientist who loses everything (his wife, sanity and the ability to remove the four mechanical tentacles grafted onto his spine that were intended for the handling of dangerous SCIENCE materials. The root of his success is how kind and friendly he was before the accident, which hammers home the tragedy of his character arc. Post-accident, he becomes obsessed with recreating the experiment (and ostensibly getting it right this time) and will tear the city apart to do so. For making Doc Ock, a villain known for being a fat guy in tights with stupid goggles and a Moe Howard haircut into a legitimately awesome villain, he easily becomes the badass of the film.

Aunt May Parker: Rosemary Harris is still great as Peter’s loving aunt. She’s hit financially tough times and gets some emotional development when Peter finally mans up and admits his inadvertent guilt in Uncle Ben’s death. And still no wheatcakes.

J. Jonah Jameson: J.K. Simmons continues to be awesome as the cantankerous newspaper mogul. When some guy brings Spidey’s discarded costume to him, he feels triumphant, then laments his retirement when Doc Ock starts his rampage. Its great stuff. Also, his son, John Jameson, an astronaut, gets engaged to Mary Jane, which leaves Peter thunderstruck, but leads to a great comic moment at the end of the movie for JJJ. Sadly, John does not turn into Man-Wolf in this movie. Also unfortunately, there is no Ted Raimi death scene, despite bringing back the Bugle’s support staff with the same actors.

Visuals/Effects
Sam Raimi kept the same visual style that worked really well in the first movie and just ran with it in this one. Montages remain good, the CGI characters have improved greatly and the movie strides along at a fantastic clip. Of special note are the fight scenes, which really use both Doc Ock and Spidey’s fighting styles to their best effects. The fight on the L train is probably the best realized superhero fight scene yet for visceral thrills, use of environment and inventiveness. The movie even has a throwback scene to the Evil Dead movies when Doc Ock’s tentacles wake up in the hospital when the staff are about to amputate them. Let’s just say the tentacles don’t take kindly to that one bit.

Writing
This time around, Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and novelist Michael Chabon worked on the story and Alvin Sargent got the screenplay credit. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko still created Spider-Man. Free of the fetters of an origin story, the movie is able to develop characters further while also giving us plenty of slam-bang moments. No complaints.

Sound
Original score once more by Danny Elfman, and once more its very good.

Conclusion
Its not much of a stretch to say that Spider-Man 2 is a better, more satisfying film than the first one. Great acting, directing, and action deliver glorious superheroics. Not much to say in that regard.

"I resent that. Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel."

I’m unabashedly a fan of Sam Raimi’s work and a fan of superheroes. Put the two together and you get 2002’s Spider-Man, the big screen adaptation of one of Marvel’s flagship heroes.

Plot
So a geeky high school kid in a suburb of New York who’s bullied a lot and has a secret crush on his beautiful next door neighbor, gets bitten by a radioactive genetically engineered spider on a senior class field trip, develops super powers and the first thing he decides to do is profit from it and get a sweet convertible. Then his actions indirectly lead to the death of his uncle and he develops an incredible guilt complex, decides to try and make up for it by fighting crime, graduates from school, moves downtown with his best friend, still pines for his love, gets a job photographing himself as Spider-Man for a newspaper and then has to deal with the Green Goblin, a villain that also happens to be his best friend’s dad. Got all that? Good, because there will be a test. And no, he never does get that convertible.

Characters
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: Tobey Maguire is our titular Hero, a smart but bullied, insecure kid who gets superpowers by chance. Naturally, once he gets his powers he exults in them and looks for personal gain to get what he wants (fighting Macho Man Randy Savage in a cage match for a convertible in this case), and basically decides “screw the rules, I’ve got super powers.” Then his uncle is killed by a crook that Peter could’ve easily stopped in an earlier scene. Being responsible for the death of one of the very few people in his life that loved him unconditionally shocks Peter out of becoming a selfish asshole, but he kind of takes it a little too far in the other direction, adopting the Spider-Man identity and treating it with the seriousness and dedication of a job (only without the paychecks involved and at the expense of his college classes and actual jobs). His frequent poor decision making skills are, of course, what make him an interesting character, but its also the root of a lot of problems that will come back to bite him in the ass in later films.

Mary Jane Watson: Kirsten Dunst plays Peter’s next door neighbor (as kids) and is the crimson haired object of his affection. Popular in high school, she hits hard times after graduation while struggling to make it as an actress, but she’s just a sweet, likable girl throughout. And a redhead. Can’t forget that.

Harry Osborne: James Franco is Peter’s best friend, a rich kid with daddy issues, but a decent enough guy all things considered. Peter moves in with him after High School, but Harry remains unaware of Peter’s (and his father’s) escapades.

Norman Osborne/Green Goblin: Willem Defoe turns in an awesomely badass performance as Harry’s dad. An engineer/scientist/businessman who looks favorably on Peter’s scientific inklings, Norman’s back into a corner by the possible revocation of a military contract that could ruin the company and by the board of directors who want to oust him, he makes the poor decision of injecting himself with a body enhancing serum that gives him enhanced strength, but also drives him into a split personality that slowly drives him mad. Dubbed the “Green Goblin” by the press for the green armor that he wears and the mad cackle he delivers in said costume, he’s got a glider, a bevy of pumpkin-themed explosives and a vindictive streak a mile long. He tries recruiting Spider-Man, but when that goes nowhere, he decides to destroy the hero before he can get in Osborne’s way. A great villain.

Uncle Ben Parker: Cliff Robertson has a small, but vital part as Peter’s doomed uncle/father figure. Warm and human, his death is quite sad, even though you know its coming.

Aunt May Parker: I will admit to not liking Aunt May at all in the comics, but Rosemary Harris does an outstanding job of making the character likable and really well rounded. And not once does she tell Peter to eat his wheatcakes.

J. Jonah Jameson: J.K. Simmons is perfect as the muckraking publisher of the Daily Bugle, a newspaper that Peter gets a job with as a freelance photographer (selling them pictures of Spider-Man). Jameson is bigger than life and hams up the screen gloriously, and the Bugle’s support staff are all very solid, with Bill Nunn as the Spidey-friendly Robbie Robertson, Elizabeth Banks as Betty Brant and Ted Raimi as Hoffman, a staffer who pokes his head into Jameson’s office to say some lines, then get shouted at angrily (and it never gets old). Sadly, no Ted Raimi Death Scene.

Visuals/Effects
Sam Raimi has a lot of ground to cover in this movie, and the pacing is nice and tight for 121 minutes. Shots are really well done, color is vibrant (Spidey’s not a particularly gloomy superhero all told) and there are some truly great transitions between scenes. Case in point: When the Green Goblin blows up a test site in his first attack, sheets of paper are blown into the wind and fly past the camera, these then turn into mortarboard hats being throw into the air by graduating high schoolers (among them Harry Osborne). The movie also does montages incredibly well to bridge sections, like when we get scenes of Spidey’s heroics mixed in with reactions from New Yorkers.

Special effects are all still pretty good, though some of the CGI of Spidey swinging around New York is starting to show its age. The Spider-Man costume is fantastically realized, and while the Green Goblin looks nothing like his four color counterpart, Gobby would look…out of place in his original threads on screen.

Writing
Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, with the screenplay by David Koepp. The story is an origin, so its got to slog through all that “getting the powers” thing that every origin does, but it does them all quite well, and throwing in the Green Goblin as his first major foe is a great choice. Characters act like they should and dialog is quite good. There is one scene where a bunch of normally surly New Yorkers band together to throw cans and garbage at Gobby, which is kind of cheesy, but keep in mind, this was released in May of 2002, a mere eight months after September 11, so its forgivable in context.

Sound
Danny Elfman did the original score for the film, and its quite good, though not up to par with his Batman work. The film also brings in the old school “Spider-Man Theme” (does whatever a spider can) along with some early 2000s acts like Sum41, Macy Gray, Oleander, and so on.

Conclusion
Spider-Man is a solidly entertaining superhero movie that proudly wore its heritage on its sleeve. In some ways, it’s a lot like Donner’s Superman in that it’s a mythologizing take on an iconic character that plays its roots straight (we get a full spandex suit, unlike in X-Men). Totally recommended.