Shmee.Me

March 25, 2016

Batman v Superman v Story Structure!

People were right to worry that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would struggle because it tried to do too many things. This movie has so many story threads that instead of having a standard plot it is really a series of vignettes, and some of those vignettes are really good, but not enough of them. Plus they are all jumbled together so it is hard to follow.

The main plot, as best as I could discern, is that Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) can’t bring himself to trust an alien that destroyed an entire city including his Wayne Financial building, and every small incident involving Superman (Henry Cavill) only makes him angrier. Meanwhile Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is investigating one of those incidents herself trying to figure out if someone is manipulating the public’s opinion of Superman. Someone like Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) perhaps?

Anyway that should get you started, I am still trying to sort out the rest. I mean this movie has three dream sequences. Three! So an already confusing movie has random stuff thrown in to boot. Then they try and shoehorn in the rest of the founding members of the Justice League. While it is great to see them on screen for the first time, they add nothing to the movie. Well, with the exception of Wonder Woman played by Gal Gadot. She is amazing. Wonder Woman by far is the best part of Batman v Superman. The movie gets better every time she shows up, which isn’t often.

Ben and Henry did a fine job as Batman and Superman, but really they weren’t given a whole lot to do but snarl at one another. I mean after filming their faces must have hurt from all the sneering. They only person that got to smile or show any range of emotion was once again Wonder Woman. She was so good you guys! Then that brings us to Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luther. Again fine, but I am still not sure what Lex’s endgame was. Not to mention I am pretty sure that Lex was insane which was an odd direction to take for the smartest man on the planet.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice needed to be longer and explain everything better, or be shorter and cut a lot of stuff out. At its long two and a half hour running time it was a pile of randomness. There were parts I liked: For instance when we finally got to see Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all fighting together I was the happiest man alive. Looking back they should have just bucked up and made the Justice League movie and forgot all about the Batman and the Superman v’ing each other. That would have been the movie the suits at Warner Brothers obviously wanted, and what the fans wanted too. Plus we would have gotten more Wonder Woman!

March 24, 2016

Lego Batman Is The Batman We Need!

With Batman V Superman getting poor reviews (I am seeing it anyway), Lego Batman is the Batman that we need in these dark times. You deserve your lobster Bruce, today you deserve it!

March 21, 2016March 21, 2016

Daredevil Is In An Enjoyable Holding Pattern!

The second season of Daredevil launched on Netflix last Friday and my wife and I have been doing our best to binge-watch straight through it. We have made it about halfway through, so I figured I would give my thoughts. Which is kind of what I do on this blog, so it would be pretty odd of me not to. While the show continues to be good it is disappointing that the main characters don’t seem to be progressing.

Foggy is still a brilliant layer that continues to doubt himself and his partner’s night job. Murdock still can’t seem balance being Daredevil and a lawyer even though his firm desperately needs him, and Page still has a mysterious past and her relentless digging in to things endangers her and the others around her. In other words they are all doing the exact same things they were doing last season.

Another bummer is that this is all supposed to be part of Marvel’s connected universe, but they can’t seem to say that New York was attacked by aliens, and even more baffling is that the only hint so far in the show that Luke Cage and Jessica Jones even exist in this world is that Rosario Dawson’s Nurse Temple said that she helped out some big strong guy. I mean not to spoil any of Jessica Jones, but it wasn’t like that at the end of her season she kept any of her exploits secret. People should be aware of her, especially red vigilantly ninjas trying to ‘save a city’.

Luckily the fight scenes and the new characters make Daredevil well worth watching. While Jon Bernthal’s Punisher started out looking like an out and out bad guy as the series progresses you start to feel for him and understand his quest, and my wife is now firmly on team Punisher. Meanwhile Élodie Yung’s Elektra is shrouded in mystery. You have no idea what she is up to and whether she is good or bad, and Matt Murdock can’t seem to think straight when she is around. Pretty much she is the Elektra fans have been waiting for.

It is a shame that the main characters don’t seem to be exhibiting any growth, and that Marvel can’t quite seem to figure out how their connected universe fits together even on their Netflix TV shows which are meant to be even more connected, but great fight choreography and wonderful new characters make Daredevil season two well worth watching. I still can’t wait for all the Netflix shows to combine in to The Defenders, but for now I am happy that Daredevil is as good as it is since we know thanks to Ben Affleck and crew that it could have been much, much worse.

March 11, 2016

Thank Spoon! The Tick Is Coming Back To TV! … Well Internet TV Anyway!

There is no shortage of comic book based TV programs these days, but according to Deadline.com it looks like the folks over at Amazon have decided that we could use at least one more! They are bringing back The Tick! For those of you that don’t know The Tick is a superhero parody, and if Deadpool has taught us anything, with all of the ‘serious’ superheroes around, adding a little levity to the mix should be a welcome change.

As you can see from the photo above this isn’t The Tick’s first transition to live action television. 2001’s The Tick was very funny even if no one watched it, but with more people tuning in to the adventures of caped crusaders every week Amazon’s reboot should do much better provided it is as funny as the original, or the comic, or heck the 90’s cartoon even. Actually especially the 90’s cartoon show. Never-mind, what I am saying is The Tick has been consistently very funny. I can’t wait to have one more binge-watchable show on Amazon! Spoooooooooooooooooooooooooon!

February 25, 2016

I Shouldn’t Have Waited So Long To Read Sandman Overture!

Sandman Overture is the six issue prequel to the main Sandman series published by Vertigo. It was written by Neil Gaiman with art by J. H. Williams III and colored by Dave Stewart. It is an amazing piece of work! I wasn’t sure about more Sandman. On one hand the Sandman series was spectacular so of course I wanted more, but on the other it told a complete story, and unfortunately we have learned through recent years that sometimes when they bring back the things we love they don’t come back the way we want them too. I shouldn’t have worried with Gaiman behind the pen. Sandman Overture is just as good if not better than the rest of Sandman.

Sandman Overture tells the story of how Morpheus became so weak that he was able to be captured in the first issue of Sandman. I am not sure how Gaiman does it. He is able to grow Sandman’s Universe in massive ways while still telling an intimate story about duty and pride. It blows me away how good he is.

While the story is always the most import part of a comic book, the art still needs to be able stand up to the story being told, and somehow Williams and Stewart bring everything to life in grand fashion. The art in the main Sandman series was very good, but Overture’s is much better. It is some of the best art I have ever seen in a comic book. Every page had something new and interesting to show me, and the vibrant colors continually drew me in.

While I think you would get the most out of Sandman Overture if you have read Sandman first, I think Overture can stand on its own, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t read it. Sandman Overture is one of the best books I have read, comic or otherwise. So in other words it is right up their with Sandman.