Oh man I was worried that I would have to review Pompeii today, but the Fantastic Four came to the rescue! Not having to write about Pompeii, if even for one more day, makes this group my Heroes! Also that being said, it doesn’t look as bad as I was expecting. I mean there has been complete radio silence about this film, and it comes out in August. I really hope this comes together since this is Fox’s other big chunk of the Marvel Universe. Fantastic Four plus the X-Men could be really great. I got my fingers crossed! But with the history of the Fantastic Four movies, I am hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Get Evil With Maleficent!
When Disney decided to make the 2014 movie Maleficent, I was skeptical, but then I saw the perfect casting of Angelina Jolie, and I become hopeful. While Jolie was amazing, I wish the rest of this film could have pulled its weight a little. This movie grinds to a halt when she is not on the screen, luckily since she is the star that is not often, but still it keeps this movie from becoming great.
The film is a retelling of the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, but instead of following Aurora, we fallow the titular Maleficent, and that change of focus changes the story quite a bit. Instead of a villain, Maleficent becomes a tragic hero, and the forlorn King Stefan takes the role of evil doer.
This shift in roles make sense considering following a straight up villain would be a hard movie to write, let alone market to families, but I felt it was unfortunate. Maleficent is one of Disney’s greatest, if not the greatest, villains of all time, so to cast her as a hero made her loose some of that mystique. Now she was simply betrayed and misunderstood not dastardly and wicked.
Still that is not the main strike against this film, no that would be its pacing issues. There is a lot of nothing happening in this film. It takes awhile for Aurora to grow up, and for her and Maleficent to bond. That would be fine if it was interesting, but even though it spends so much time doing it, it almost seems like it is a montage and glosses over it at the same time. It doesn’t dig deep enough to excuse the running time.
The other problem is that beside Jolie, no other character is given anything to do. Elle Fanning as Aurora just gets to be chipper and wide eyed. King Stefan played by Sharlto Copley gets to be crazy and evil. No one is given anything to work with. They are just window dressing for Jolie’s Maleficent.
Jolie was wonderful, so it almost saves the film. It did for my wife, and a few other friends I know, but it didn’t quite do it for me. Maybe I was just hoping for something else. A true villain movie, but whatever the reason this movie could never find its footing. Considering how successful this movie was, I am sure Disney will try again with another villain, and maybe they will figure it all out next time.
After The Apes Rise They Dawn!
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a surprise hit back in 2011, so it was no surprise that Fox green lit a sequel. The question on everyone’s mind though was could Dawn of the Planet of the Apes work without the central relationship between Caesar (Andy Serkis) and Will Rodman (James Franco). The answer is yes, and it could work quite well.
The story takes place ten years after Rise, and the world has been decimated by a virus based on the drug that made Caesar and the rest of the Apes smarter. Only 10% of humans have survived. Meanwhile Caesar and the rest of the Apes have been busy creating their civilization in the woods above San Francisco. They care little of the plight of the humans until one shows up and shoots one of the Apes. Now Caesar will have to do everything he can to avoid war.
This story is really the natural progression of the first one. In Rise we learn how the Apes gain their intelligence, and now in Dawn we learn how they start to take over the world, but I like how that wasn’t the whole story, they also work in few observations about human nature, or should I say Ape nature? Can humans ever truly be at peace? The Apes had a chance and they failed, and the humans obviously failed. It was an interesting look at an old question.
The human cast featuring Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Keri Russell was pretty decent, but they really weren’t given a lot to do. Oldman got to be the power hungery jerk that wanted nothing but to wipe out the Apes, and Clarke just wanted everyone to get along. Russell gets to look sad and pretty. They are capable of more, but they were fine. The Ape actors really stole the show. Serkis’ Caesar was once again amazingly complex, and you could see the stresses of leadership really weighing on him. Toby Kebbell as the rebel Ape Koba was equally excellent. You could see the fear and anger driving him forward.
I also have to give a big shout out to the special effects crew. Everything looked great, and sure every now and then something looked a little off, but it was never distracting. For the most part all of the Ape actors looked real. They earned their Oscar nomination.
If the human actors were as well written and as interesting as their Ape counterparts this movie would have been great. As it is, it was still a good movie and worth watching. Not quite as good as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but Dawn of the Planet of the Apes managed to hold its own. Not bad for a franchise that was once thought of as a joke.
New Avengers: Age Of Ultron Trailer!
The new trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron is out, and while it is not as perfect as the teaser that they released it does give us a better look at the Hulk versus Iron Man fight. It also lets us know that this is all really Tony Stark’s fault. Not that anybody was doubting that, but still. I am ready for this movie. May cannot get here fast enough!
Random DC Comics News!
A couple quick DC Comics things to talk about today. The boys and gals over at Ain’t It Cool News were reporting that the Batman V Superman flick would be split up in to two movies. One would have opened on Batman V Superman’s original date of October 23rd 2015 called Enter The Knight, and the second one would have come out on the new date of March 26th 2016 with the title Dawn of Justice.
Superman himself Henry Cavill shot this rumor down over at Variety, but still it is an interesting idea. My problem with this movie is that they are trying to do to much with one film, kind of the opposite problem the Hobbit movies had. With two movies it would have given the stories more of a chance to breath instead of just being thrown together. Plus October is a month that they could have had pretty much to themselves. Still, there was too much going against this story for it to be true because with movies this big there are a lot of moving parts with distribution, advertising and toy sales, so to all of the sudden announce a new movie for October would be crazy. You move a movie back, not five months forward.
Next up a little TV news. According to Entertainment Weekly the CW is thinking of adding another comic book show to its lineup, and the hero that makes the most sense is Brandon Routh’s Atom. Sure they could pick someone else, but Routh is a great actor with real screen presence, so it is hard to imagine some other hero getting the nod. They could be still trying to startup Hourman, but since I haven’t heard anything about him recently, I am guessing he will not be showing up anytime soon. The other hero they might try is Firestorm recently seen on The Flash, but I don’t think they have invested enough time in him to get audiences to care about him. Yet.
Lastly according to IGN, it looks like Supergirl has a shot of being seen on The Flash or Arrow, or conversely them showing up on her show. Greg Berlanti seems to think it is possible, but he wants to do what is right for Supergirl first. Still at least there is a possibility. If the crossover does happen I can’t wait to see what Earth ending apocalypse the joint forces of Arrow, The Flash, The Atom, Firestorm and Supergirl would have to face.