I am The Comic Book Guy. As a self-proclaimed expert with exquisite taste in the medium, I am going to give my unfiltered thoughts on this season's slate of comic book films - both already released and those soon to be released. Here we go...
The Invincible Iron Man
Iron Man in the Cold War setting does work. Jack Huston may be no Robert Downey Jr. but he does suit the part as presented in the comics (especially less recent stuff). Denzel Washington was a huge swing and a miss for me as Nick Fury. We already got a black "Ultimate Nick Fury" in Disney's onslaught of Marvel adaptations. Is one comic accurate depiction so much to ask for? Sadly the most accurate screen depiction of the character over the years is still David Hasselhoff (alongside the formerly succulent Lisa Rinna before she carved up her face like a jack-o-lantern). As for the villains... Who was the villain in the end? We had Crimson Dynamo, Lady Mandarin and the little Asian boy, but all three couldn't equal one solid villain. Maybe Billy Zane will make the inevitable sequel more entertaining - or at least give it one good villain instead of three (or two and a half) mediocre ones.
Atlantis: Bloodline
I honestly don't know what the hell these Atlantis films are trying to do. Why can't Jimmy Ellis just give us Aquaman being Aquaman already. Enough with Timothee Chalamet trying to be an underwater Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator and Harris Dickinson meandering around with abs and blonde hair. I liked Gillian Anderson as the villain in this one, although covering her face up with a mask should be illegal (unless she's made-up like Margaret Thatcher). Hopefully Jimmy will start mixing in some more well-known villains in the future to keep things - I mean finally make things - exciting. Black Manta perhaps? Enough with the deep sea politics already. I want action and I want Aquaman!
Titans: Evil Incarnate
Raven was the only character with a story arc, so it was good that Joey King was the best actor in the film. Trigon is kind of goofy in live-action and on a big screen, and his sons were even goofier (and barely could even be called characters with how under-written they are). I'd like to see more Starfire and Raven and less Dick in the future of this franchise. I've had enough Dick at this point. He's been in enough DC Comics Universe films. I don't think there's anything left for him to accomplish (and I don't foresee APJ replacing Jake "The Steak" Gyllenhaal with a shrimp like Taron Egerton as the main Batman ever). The only place left to go for Dick is to adapt Nightwing #93.
Captain America
The decision to split the film into two time periods, while making sense for the character, felt jarring. The ultra-hunky Glen Powell was perfectly cast as Cap though. Lightyears better than Chrissy Evans. I actually liked this film a decent amount. It's easily the best comic book movie of the first half of the season. A lot of possibilities were set up for the future - Arnim Zola, Winter Soldier, SHIELD, Hydra, Avengers, etc. - so I am curious to see which route they go forward with.
Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer
This one could be really good or really bad. The first Silver Surfer was good while the sequel was kind of lame, while the reverse could be said about the Fantastic Four (the first lame, the sequel solid). If Mark Newton can capture an epic tone and action, it'll be good, but Newton's been inconsistent in that regard. I hope Keanu Reeves' appropriately spacey Silver Surfer takes a front seat over the dopey John Krasinski's Mister (kinda) Fantastic.
Green Lantern Corps: Sinestro War
APJ has a bit of a better track record than Newton in the action department. I have pretty high expectations for this one as we will finally be seeing Green Lantern's arch nemesis acting in that capacity - for the first time ever. Don't mess it up, APJ! I think we've all wanted to see Hal Jordan vs. Sinestro on the big screen for a long time now. Tom Cruise may be 60 years old, but he's still arguably the best superhero on the market.
The Hulk 2
The news out of the LRF Comic-Con that HG Hansen was taking over the character from Newton has me quite worried. Hansen's track record on superhero films is pretty poor - with the trend being that the action is unimaginative, the heroes take a backseat to supporting characters that were just introduced, and the running time goes on way too long. Newton set up the character nicely in the first film, so hopefully the quality doesn't nosedive in this one. Even if the film is a dud, at least we'll get to see Bryce Dallas Howard's luscious red locks on-screen again where she isn't running away from CGI dinosaurs.
No comments:
Post a Comment