People Hate "X-Men: Apocalypse" For No Real Reason

"X-Men: Apocalypse" came out last weekend, to a surprising amount of middling reviews from critics and audiences alike. Some of it isn't much of a surprise in all honesty (the X-Men movies have usually wavered in quality ranging from "pretty good" to "pure shit"), but I didn't think "X-Men: Apocalypse" was all that bad. Actually, I thought it was pretty good. It wasn't anything too special, and it wasn't better than the preceding "X-Men: Days of Future Past", but it was pretty good regardless.

Now, in case you haven't noticed by now, it seems any comic book movie not directly from Marvel Studios (yes I know, X-Men is Marvel, but Fox owns the film rights, as they do with Fantastic Four) gets destroyed by critics. How well it does box office-wise is a different story, but critically these movies get savaged. Don't believe me? Look at Rotten Tomatoes; and while you're there, look at the scores for recent Marvel flicks like "Civil War" and "Ant-Man". There's a damn huge difference.

Saying that there's not some kind of bias with critics for anything non-Marvel is saying it lightly. It exists, and we all know it. I watch Marvel movies, and I watch the non-Marvel Studios-produced flicks as well (except Fantastic Four, because I have no desire to whatsoever and never really have). One thing I can tell you is that with "X-Men: Apocalypse", I never felt bored. The stakes legitimately felt high in terms of its story, even if there are plot holes aplenty and non-sensical leaps in logic abound. "Civil War" had some fun moments, but given the gravity of the situation presented in the film's story, the stakes never felt high to me. That however is usually how I feel with all the Marvel movies: there are some genuine shattering events happening, and the stakes just never feel high. Because of that, more often than not, I just get bored to tears. You can shit all over films like "Man of Steel" and "Batman V Superman", but at least the stakes feel high in those films, and one thing they're definitely not is boring.

In terms of the "X-Men" movies though, "Apocalypse" is far from perfect, but it's far from being the piece of shit that everyone is labeling it. I saw some fanboy online saying it "sets superhero movies back 20 years". How do you figure? It does pretty much what every superhero movie does, and it's damn sure better than "X-Men: The Last Stand" or the first Wolverine movie. If X-Men's film rights were owned by Marvel Studios instead of Fox and this movie came out the way it did, everyone would be somehow praising it instead.

In the meantime for you Marvel fanboys that keep your assholes greased up nice for that big fat Marvel cock y'all can't keep off of, try giving something a chance, even if it isn't directly from the studio you all worship.

The Deadpool Movie Might Be Good...Maybe...Probably...???

Everyone seems to be in the camp of “OMG the “Deadpool” movie is gonna be so fucking amazing!” Fans have good reason to be optimistic about this X-Men-related film…while I tend to be cautiously optimistic about it. My reasons being that the character itself, and the actor playing him, causes a bit of a concern.

Now before you all jump down my throat about it, let’s look at a few things. The character of Deadpool himself, when written and used correctly, is a great character. When he’s written poorly, well…he’s just another annoyingly talky and confusing amalgamation of ideas from the 80s/90s era that hasn’t aged all that well. Don’t get me wrong, there’s been comic book writers like Daniel Way, Fabian Nicieza, and Rick Remender that have totally nailed what the character is all about, but for as many writers that “get” Deadpool, there’s an equal amount that don’t. Combine that with a screenwriter that may or may not “get” the character, and that doesn’t sound too well and good does it?

Next is the actor playing him. I have a dislike for Ryan Reynolds for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he’s a one trick pony. Any movie I see him in, no matter who he’s playing, he’s Ryan Reynolds. He never comes off as believable in anything to me…like ever. He’s good comic relief in a supporting role, but as a lead…meh. Remember the “Green Lantern” movie? Now granted that whole abortion wasn’t totally his fault, but he didn’t help matters either. How many shitty X-Men movies have there been now? With every shitty one, we always shit all over it, but we never shit on the performance of say, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Why? Because no matter how bad the movie is, he’s still great in the role. “Green Lantern” was a shit movie, helped made shittier by Reynolds’ performance as Hal Jordan. Now maybe it’s a bad comparison because Hal definitely isn’t the smart ass motormouth that Deadpool is, but it doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of other candidates for the role that could have been better. How about Sam Rockwell as Deadpool? That would be tits.

One good thing about “Deadpool” that compared to other X-Men movies, the film is fairly low budget. That’s a good sign that Fox won’t interfere with it like they have with the other X-Men flicks in the past. Remember: the bigger the budget, the more a major studio will interfere with it. So that in itself is a good sign. What isn’t a good sign to me is his costume. Now I know, “it looks just like it does in the comics”, and yes it certainly does…which to me is why it looks like an above average cosplay. The suit just looks too, for lack of a better word, fake to me. This is really only a minor complaint honestly, since there will probably be some post-production trickery done with it, which tends to happen with movies like this all the time.

Now I’m not forecasting all doom and gloom here about “Deadpool”. After that test footage was “leaked” a while back that got this whole ball rolling (finally), I was happy to hear that it was happening, R rating or not. If the film has the right talent behind the camera (which it might, it might not, it’s honestly too soon to tell), it might be really fucking good.

If it doesn’t, it’ll be another shitty comic book to film adaptation in Ryan Reynolds’ filmography that also includes “Green Lantern”, “Blade: Trinity”, “R.I.P.D.”, and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”. I think I missed one or two others, but I’m too lazy to look it up on IMDB, so fuck it.

Here’s hoping I’m wrong.

Why We Don't Need Any More "X-Men" Movies

Marvel has a number of popular characters, some of which outshine others like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, the Fantastic Four, and more besides. However, there’s one group of Marvel characters that often get thrown into their own mix of stories and continuities outside the rest of the Marvel universe more often than not…

…and I’m talking about Marvel’s merry Mutant cashcow known as the X-Men.

Numerous cartoon adaptations, toys, novelties, and plenty more; the X-Men have been ingrained in our brains as being the premiere supergroup with an ever-growing cast of characters and teams. With all that popularity comes the X-Men feature films, beginning in 2000 with “X-Men”, and continuing in 2003 with “X2: X-Men United”, which remains not only the best X-Men film yet, but one of the best superhero movies ever made. After that, things kind of got a little shitty…2006’s “X-Men: The Last Stand” was unbelievably bad, and 2009’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” didn’t fare much better.

2011 saw the release of “X-Men: First Class”, which detailed the origins of Professor X and Magneto and just how they came on opposing sides. When images and press of the film were first released to the public, many laughed their asses off at how ridiculous it looked and expected something absolutely abysmal, but then something strange happened: the movie really didn’t suck so much. Granted I thought it sucked, but not as horrible as I had guessed it would be. Many others threw undeserved heaping amounts of praise upon the film, but honestly only because they went into it with expectations so low that they were wowed when it wasn’t that much of a steaming pile of dogshit. It made money, so naturally, there’s going to be more X-Men films on the horizon…which leads me to my point…

…we don’t need any more fucking X-Men movies.

A Wolverine sequel is on the way, and they’re about to start filming a direct sequel to “First Class” relatively soon as well. Why? Because people love the X-Men and are willing to lay down their cash to see X-Men movies no matter how fucking shitty they end up being. And Hollywood executives, i.e. Fox (who own the film rights for anything and everything X-Men-related) know this all too well, and will continue to pump out one X-Men flick after another after another.

Being a comic book geek, the one thing I notice about the X-Men flicks is how screenwriters consistently throw in all different brands of X-Men characters (heroes and villains alike) into the plot and use the most basic of an outline of some comic storyline from the past and then try to stir it all together. In “X2”, it worked out magnificently, but since then, every X-Men flick has just been one big fucking mess. Will these upcoming X-Men movies be any different? Probably not…actually, it will be more than likely that they’ll suck just as bad.

So please, for the love of fuck, don’t make any more X-Men movies. I’m at the point that I don’t want any more X-Men movies even if they wind up being good. One thing that attracted me to the X-Men as a kid was that these characters were misunderstood, hated, and reviled by everyone. I related to Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Gambit, Nightcrawler, and the rest of the crew unlike any other comic book character before or after, and the films after the second installment for the most part have never, ever been able to really re-create that feeling of persecuted Mutants protecting a world that hates and fears them.

So please, for the love of fuck, don’t make any more shitty X-Men flicks. We don’t need them, we never really have, and seeing baby-faced, pretty boy actors playing mutant heroes and villains just doesn’t feel right. Oh yeah, and Hugh Jackman ain’t gettin’ any younger either folks.

Green Lantern Shit-Fest Review

So I finally got around to seeing “Green Lantern” since I missed it when it was in theaters…

…and I really wish I didn’t.

Despite all the critical disdain that this big budget, big screen adaptation of the DC Comics character had gotten, my overall reaction is that it isn’t nearly as bad as so many have said it is (in all honesty, I found it way better than say, “X-Men: First Class”, which I still feel only received positive reviews because it wasn’t the shit-fest that so many had anticipated it to be), but what really pissed me off to no extent was the fuck-stickery that happened with the character and the source material in general.

Hal Jordan, played here by a miscast Ryan Reynolds (who I was never that fond of in the first fucking place), is a fearful pilot in this movie. Yes folks, Hal Jordan is a bit of a sissy. Anyone who has read their share of Green Lantern comics with Hal as the main character knows that if it’s one thing Hal isn’t, it’s fearful. That’s the whole point of being a Green Lantern, is having NO fear. I understand how this is changed here for the film’s script to tell an origin story and make Hal look like an underdog, but for fuck’s sake did they have to make so pussified here?

As far as the mythology goes, it was hit and miss. Having Tomar explain the ideas of willpower and the history of the Guardians was cool and relatively faithful, but the fact that there is so little included of Oa, the other Lanterns, and that there is little to no explanation or reasoning of Sinestro’s intentions, that most of the story comes off as being plain old fucking retarded. Oh yeah, and Hector Hammond annoyed the living fucking shit out of me too, and the alterations to the story of Parallax make me want to shit myself in frustration.

All those flaws aside, what I did enjoy about the film was the designs of alien Lanterns Sinestro, Abin Sur, Kilowog, and Tomar; while Oa looked spectacular and the ring-powered constructs designs and effects were really cool to see animated in live-action. The action scenes themselves were mostly well-done, but there’s just this emptiness about the film as a whole that just makes the whole thing come off as being little more than a missed opportunity.

It’s a shame too, because out of all of DC’s characters that aren’t Batman, the Green Lantern mythos is not only the most interesting, but it features one of the most well-crafted characters and heroes in Hal Jordan. Like I said before though, most of this nerd-rage of mine is coming from the fact that I’m a diehard Green Lantern fan, and seeing a mega-budget adaptation of my beloved GL has always been a dream of mine to see. It’s just such a shame that the end result is such a mammoth disappointment.

But hey, it’s still better than any X-Men film since 2003, or “Superman Returns”, so I guess there’s that.

Jack Kirby: the Greatest There Ever Was

When it comes to the medium of comic books, one man is the King. It isn’t Stan Lee, it isn’t Frank Miller, it isn’t Alan Moore, and it even isn’t Will Eisner. The man I’m talking about is Jack Kirby; a creative mind that contributed more to the medium than probably anyone else ever had in the years before and since his passing. Today is August 28, 2011; which would have been King Kirby’s 94th birthday, but alas, the King isn’t here to celebrate it himself, so out of respect to the legendary artist/writer, let’s have a chat about just what all the man contributed to the comic book realm.

What Kirby is most notarized for is helping shape the Marvel universe as we know it today. He created Captain America with Joe Simon, and later with Stan Lee helped create other Marvel icons like Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom, Black Panther, Uatu the Watcher, the Inhumans, Nick Fury, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, Magneto, and the original X-Men lineup just to name a few. He also made numerous contributions to other characters like Spider-Man and Daredevil among others, before leaving Marvel after feeling he had been treated unfairly and poorly compensated.

In 1970, Kirby joined rival comics publisher DC Comics in a much publicized event, and immediately began churning out characters and stories that, like he did with Marvel, made a profound impact that still resonates to this very day. He created the “Fourth World” saga, which introduced The New Gods, including classic characters like Darkseid, Orion, Mister Miracle, Big Barda, Metron, and plenty, plenty more. He took Superman in new and different directions, while also creating a new take on the Sandman character, as well as other titles including “The Forever People”, “OMAC”, “Kobra”, “Kamandi”, and my own personal favorite, the character of Etrigan the Demon in “The Demon”. Most of these titles were fairly short-lived, as Kirby still didn’t get the degree of creative control he had yearned for, which led to a return to Marvel after only a few years with DC.

While back at Marvel, Kirby returned to writing and drawing “Captain America” and “Black Panther” while also creating the classic “The Eternals”, as well as the short-lived series’ “Devil Dinosaur” and “Machine Man”, before once again giving Marvel the finger due to the fact they didn’t want to provide him with a little something called health insurance. From that point forward Kirby dabbled in TV animation, book covers, and more besides while occasionally returning to DC for a “Fourth World” revival in the 80s, and created his own characters for Topps Comics in the early 90s, before passing away at 76 in 1994.

While big comic industry figures like Neil Gaiman, Alex Ross, Kurt Busiek, Grant Morrison, and plenty more openly acknowledge and pay homage to Kirby’s works, mainstream audiences sadly don’t know all that much about him. Stan Lee gets all the credit in the world for the Marvel icons we all know and love, but were it not for Jack Kirby, half of those characters would have never existed and the industry as a whole would not be what it is today. The sad part is that Kirby’s name doesn’t resonate with people like Lee’s does and sadly never has, making it all the more heartbreaking to know that Kirby died practically penniless. While Kirby’s family and estate have taken Marvel and various film companies that own the film rights to Marvel properties to court in an effort to regain control of various characters, Marvel as an entity pulled through victorious like they always do, and continue to make money off of Kirby’s name anytime they release a collection of his work (not a penny of which is seen by his family or estate mind you).

With all this in mind however, today is a day to celebrate the life of a legendary comics author. Jack “King” Kirby, you were undoubtedly the best in the business by far, and those of us who love and respect your work appreciate you all the more with each passing day. So happy birthday Jack, and it’s a shame you’re not here with us today, and if you were, you’d still be the greatest talent the medium would ever have…and you still are the greatest and most missed talent the medium has ever had as well.

The 10 Comic Book Movies I Fucking Hate

Anyone who knows me remotely in the least, or at least has been reading this sorry excuse of a blog of mine, knows that I love comic books, always have and always will. As much as I love them and all the history that surrounds the medium though, there is one thing that is involved with the graphic medium that I absolutely hate: shitty comic book adapted movies.

Yes sir, more often than not, there are all kinds of shitty comic book adaptations that command big budgets, big stars, and wind up being big piles of horseshit instead. In those regards, I now humbly present to you, the 10 worst comic book movies I have ever seen and/or just plain despise because they kill the source material so damned much. They aren’t in any particular order mind you, and some hold some of these adaptations in high regard (for whatever reason, probably because they don’t know how to fucking read but that’s just me), but regardless, do yourself a favor and just NEVER, EVER watch these pieces of cinematic trash. Do something more constructive with your time instead, like try sticking your head up your ass while whistling the theme song from “The Simpsons” or something.

Anyway, here we go:



BATMAN & ROBIN (1997)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman

The granddaddy of all shitty superhero movies, Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin” is so bad I can’t even put it into the right words. No, seriously, if you’ve never seen it, you really don’t know just how fucking bad this movie is. Everything you’ve heard; from the bat-nipples, to the bat-ice skates, to the bat-credit card and more besides, is all so sadly, depressingly true. Atrociously campy acting, a neon colored Gotham City, and some of the worst dialogue in the history of mankind…ALL THAT is what you’ll find here!!! This movie was so bad that there wasn’t even a real attempt to make another Batman movie until 2005’s “Batman Begins” reboot. This movie was so bad that it made no studio ever want to touch another comic book property to make a movie. This movie was so bad that it pretty much effectively killed the careers of Chris O’Donnel and Alicia Silverstone. This movie was so bad that it made little kids who saw it in theaters lead lives of perversion and degradation, committing crimes, wiping their asses with the American flag, and fuck their best friend’s mothers! This movie is nothing more than pure Bat-shit!!! Pure fucking Bat-shit!!! And it makes you be thankful that Christopher Nolan came along and brought respectability back to Batman in film. It makes you thankful that Joel Schumacher is now looked upon by comic book geeks as the Hitler of film directors. It makes you thankful that “Batman Forever” wasn’t even this bad (and that’s saying something). I’d rather go dive face first into a huge pile of bat-shit than sit through this disgrace to comics and film again.



CONSTANTINE (2005)
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LeBeouf

The John Constantine I know and love from the “Hellblazer” comics is a blonde, British, chain-smoking master of bad luck black magic. He conned the devil into curing his lung cancer and when done, looked him in the eye, lit up a cigarette, and gave him the finger. He’s often a reluctant hero, but he’s also a bastard who uses his friends and loved ones as pawns whether he realizes it or not, all in an effort to always wind up on top of whatever bloody situation he finds himself in. The John Constantine found in “Constantine” is in the form of Keanu Reeves, and is a boring old demon hunter who wants to go to Heaven when he dies because he’s afraid of what awaits him in Hell, and he’s kind of a douche bag as well. Granted the Constantine I know and love is a selfish prick, but he isn’t without his charm. So why do I hate “Constantine” so damned much? Because it takes just about everything great about the character and dumbs it down to be digested by a wider audience. John Constantine has had run-ins with Lucifer and demons from time to time, but he sure as fuck isn’t a demon hunter like he’s presented here as being. And oh yeah, the film’s storyline as a whole is so fucking overblown and ridiculous that it causes character creator Alan Moore to shit fire anytime it airs on television. Yes, he hates it probably more than I do.



V FOR VENDETTA (2006)
Director: James McTeigue
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea

Another creation of Alan Moore’s that was dumbed down for mass audiences to digest, “V For Vendetta” either misses or completely disregards the points made by Moore’s original work and instead opts for an action-oriented shit-fest that audiences fell in love with. The moral quandaries of whether or not the Guy Fawkes-masked antihero V is a hero or a terrorist is thrown out the window. The subplots regarding the inner-workings of the totalitarian state that the story takes place in are ignored. Evie’s backstory is altered to the point that you already know everything there is to know about her within her first five minutes of screen time. And the moral ambiguity of V’s actions, as well as that of his identity and ultimate intent of taking Evie under his wing are skewed and flat-out shit all over and instead opts for V doing Neo-esque kung-fu moves in dark alleys (which isn’t surprising, considering the Wachowski brothers wrote the screenplay and produced the film). Do yourself a favor, if you want a truly challenging, complex, deep, and emotional read, pick up Moore’s graphic novel instead; you won’t regret it.



X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006)
Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellan

Bryan Singer managed to work some kind of strange magic with the first two “X-Men” films, “X2: X-Men United” in particular. With the awesome, downbeat ending that was featured in “X2”, X-Men fans across the globe (myself included) couldn’t wait to see what could have been the classic “Phoenix Saga” brought to the big screen. We didn’t get it. Instead, Singer and his team jumped ship to make “Superman Returns”, while the third “X-Men” film ended up falling into the hands of Brett fucking Ratner; the same assclown who helmed the “Rush Hour” movies. The end result was a straight up slap in the face to fans of the X-Men comics and movies alike. We get tons of corny moments, incoherent action scenes, whiny mutants, Colossus looking like he’s wrapped in tin-foil, Cyclops getting unceremoniously killed off-screen (in reality, actor James Marsden, who had a prominent role in “Superman Returns”, was written out early in the film as punishment from Fox), flat out insulting the intelligence of the audience, and nothing remotely resembling the “Phoenix Saga” in the least. True, it may not be the absolute worst superhero movie you’ll ever see, but it’s just so lame and pays little to no respect to the source material that you can’t help but wonder why Fox and Marvel didn’t at least take their time in the film’s overall production, which was notoriously short and hurried. As for Bryan Singer though, he wasn’t quite without sin either in 2006…



SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006)
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey

When “Superman Returns” came out the same summer as “X-Men: The Last Stand”, it had been the first true “Superman” film in nearly 20 years, and it had a lot going for it. Bryan Singer had made the first two X-Men films, and he did quite well with them too. Warner Bros. had given Singer nearly a quarter of a BILLION dollar budget to work with. Kevin Spacey was playing Lex Luthor, and the overall cast looked great as well. What we got instead with “Superman Returns” was an overblown, underwhelming, wankfest that supposedly “pays homage” to Richard Donner’s original “Superman” film, but really just basically plagiarizes it. Instead of Superman, we have a “super-stalker”, who can’t stand the fact that Lois Lane has moved on in his absence and now has a fiancé and a young son (and oh yeah, the son is really Superman’s and he has superpowers too. Nooch.). One last thing, it’s a 2 and a half hour long movie and it barely has ANY action sequences. When I think of Superman, I think of world-shattering action and excitement. Here, we get none of that except for when Superman saves a space shuttle and lifts up a chunk of rock to launch into orbit. And Lex Luthor is still doing the whole “land scheme” from the 70s films. Yeah, Superman in film has really, really come far. Fuck this shit.



HULK (2003)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connolly, Nick Nolte

On paper, a big budget adaptation of the Hulk should have worked, even if it was handled by the guy who achieved worldwide fame for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and would go on to win an Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain”. Why you ask? Because the whole Bruce Banner/Hulk inner struggle and all the emotions associated therein could have been real gold…but instead what we got was a giant green turd. Shitty CGI effects are one thing, but the fact that the 2003 “Hulk” is so mind numbingly slow and boring is absolutely unforgivable. Add to that a scene-chewing Nick Nolte, ridiculous “Hulk-dogs”, and the fact that there is very little action going on in what’s supposed to be a movie about an angry, mutated monster destroying everything in sight; and you have one totally shitty comic book flick. Thankfully, the 2008 reboot was much better, but it sadly couldn’t erase all the memories of green shit that are still in my brain after wasting the cash to go see this piece of fuck.



LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (2003)
Director: Stephen Norrington
Starring: Sean Connery, Shane West, Stuart Townsend

Alan Moore’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” comics were equal parts shocking and exciting, as he gleefully took various literary characters and put them in some fucked science fiction/horror situations. You’d think that a film adaptation directed by “Blade”’s Stephen Norrington and starring Sean fucking Connery would be awesome…and you’d figure wrong! Universally panned by critics and comic book fans alike, this film adaptation was so goddamn bad that Connery and Norrington actually got in an on-set fist-fight, and Connery hasn’t acted in another film since. This is the film that led creator Moore to request that any adaptation of his work not credit him in any way whatsoever. This is the piece of shit that took a serious, horrific take on these classical characters and turned them into nothing more than jokes. This is the shit-riffic fuck-fest that took any original ideas of Moore’s, shit all over them, and attempted to re-package them for dimwitted audiences…but even some people aren’t that stupid. Piss on this fucking turd.



DAREDEVIL (2003)
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan

What can I say about “Daredevil” that hasn’t been said already? Granted I kind of dug how they managed to present how Daredevil “sees” like bat-radar, but other than that we have a somewhat campy and overly flashy take on Marvel’s blind superhero. Those things are bad enough on their own, but the casting of Daredevil, Elektra, Bullseye, and The Kingpin are so goddamn bad that it boggles my mind what the casting company was smoking. Add to that the ridiculous costumes (Daredevil’s looks like an S&M lovers wet dream, while Elektra’s and Bullseye’s just look like garbage) and the poppy-emo soundtrack, and the end result is Fox and Marvel trying to take the noir-ish superhero and turn him into a Spider-Man-esque douche bag for everyone to enjoy. And yeah, you guessed it, nobody enjoyed it.



CATWOMAN (2004)
Director: Pitof
Starring: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone

I’ll be totally honest with you; I’ve never made it all the way through “Catwoman”. It’s just so unbelievably awful that I try to pretend that it doesn’t even exist. Even having Halle Berry prance around in that ridiculous (yet kind of hot) costume doesn’t help matters any, it’s just so bad, “Mystery Science Theater 3000” bad. I remember when the film was coming out, the trailer for it had said something to the effect of “when a person dies, a cat can bring them back to make the wrong things right”. Wait a fucking minute why does that sound so familiar? Because it’s from “The Crow”, only the word “cat” replaces “crow” in this piece of shit! I’m all for having a legit movie based on Catwoman, because she’s such an interesting character that walks the line between hero and villain and has always been one of Batman’s greatest allies/adversaries. The fact that the character isn’t even the original Selena Kyle from the comics is fucking unforgivable as well, not to mention the fact that the whole affair has the flash and dash of a big budget car commercial. Thankfully it bombed, and Berry has never even been able to live this piece of shit down.



THE SPIRIT (2008)
Director: Frank Miller
Starring: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson

Oh Jesus, I don’t even know where to start with “The Spirit”. I actually kind of had high hopes for this believe it or not, mainly because I knew how beloved Will Eisner’s character was by Frank Miller, himself a legendary comic book visionary who wanted to try his hand at the director’s chair after the success he had with Robert Rodriguez filming “Sin City” in 2005. Instead with “The Spirit”, we get a “Sin City”-ish take on Eisner’s characters and world, and it feels like a watered-down noir that is so overblown, overacted, and overstuffed with all things horseshit and boredom that it instead just flat out slaps Eisner and his work in the face. Miller may have had good intentions (and even that is debatable) but he ended up making his idol and mentor roll over in his grave. What a disgrace.



JUDGE DREDD (1995)
Director: Danny Cannon
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Armand Assante, Rob Schneider

Before the abortion of a movie known as “Judge Dredd” came out, people had no idea who the fuck he was, on this side of the pond anyway. In the UK, Judge Dredd was the flagship character of the “2000 A.D.” comic magazine, so much so that many great comic writers and artists had worked on the character at some point or another. In the comic, Dredd never takes his helmet off, because he’s just that goddamn intense and serious about what he does. Here, Stallone takes his helmet off the first five minutes. Now, I don’t have that much of a problem with that, but the fact that the character and his world are treated like second-rate science fiction knock-offs, it’s no wonder that no one here cared about Judge Dredd then or now. There is a new adaptation in the works right now, so hopefully the second time around will do Dredd the justice (no pun intended) he so deserves…but I doubt it.



Dishonorable mentions:

Howard the Duck (but it’s so bad it’s kind of funny, so it’s worth a look just for that alone)
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (starring David fucking Hasselhoff)
Captain America (the early 90s direct to video piece of shit)
Superman III
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Ghost Rider
The Punisher (2004)
Batman Forever
Wanted
Spawn
Elektra
Barb Wire
Spider-Man 3
The Phantom
Fantastic Four
Steel
Jonah Hex

Uncensored "Wolverine" Review for Sega-16

Here's the uncut & uncensored review for the piece of dung known as "Wolverine: Adamantium Rage" for the Genesis. The edited review written for Sega-16 can be found here:

http://www.sega-16.com/review_page.php?id=981&title=Wolverine: Adamantium Rage


Anyway, here's the full-on uncut & uncooked review, enjoy!



Wolverine: Adamantium Rage (1994)

Published by Acclaim Developed by Teeny Weeny Games/Marvel Software



Marvel’s mutant poster child has had some dubious appearances in video game cartridge form to say the least. LJN was behind Wolverine’s solo outing and his appearance with his fellow X-Men on the two abysmal NES titles, while he also managed to appear in two great side-scrolling X-Men games for the Genesis. Somewhere in the middle of all that falls Wolverine: Adamantium Rage, which finds Wolverine trying to piece together elements of his mysterious past while facing a handful of his own arch-villains in the process. The end result here however is something that may find you pulling your own hair out in frustration and possibly disgust, so strap yourselves in folks; we’ve got yet another unbelievably shitty comic book character-licensed game from the fuckwads at Acclaim.

The game picks up with Wolverine punching, slashing, and brawling his way through various multi-tiered stages, all of which typically end with a boss fight. Such a set up is pretty much standard in the world of video games regardless of the era, but how Wolverine: Adamantium Rage presents this is nothing short of patience-draining. The stages themselves are victims of sloppy level design, leading to constant backtracking and nigh-impossible jumps to make as well. I’ve heard some refer to this game as being a bit Metroid-ish in terms of level design, but while Nintendo’s long running franchise has always been challenging, no Metroid game I’ve ever played has come close to being as frustrating as Wolverine is. Also take note that this is possibly the only time the words Metroid and Acclaim have ever been used in the same discussion. That shit won’t ever happen again in the history of ever, I assure you.

If the overly sloppy and frustrating stage design isn’t enough, Wolverine is a pretty tough game to boot. You don’t have much in terms of health since enemies can drain you pretty quickly, yet they usually take a few good hits from your adamantium claws to go down for good. You can heal yourself however by chilling out for a bit, but you can’t afford to sit and wait to get back to 100 percent health for long though considering you’re on a time limit too. That’s right folks, forget about taking a breather to let your health recharge, you’ve got to get this level beat and you’ve got to do it right the fuck right now, you can’t afford to fuck around. This also kind of kills any ideas of exploring the various levels, not like you’d really want to though, considering that you’d be lucky to navigate yourself through any given stage without having to do any excessive amount of backtracking. There’s occasional puzzle-solving to do too, but combined with the cruddy level design it makes the game feel much less like the action platformer that one would think it would be when looking at the game’s case.

Graphically speaking the game doesn’t look too bad. The animation style is very similar to Acclaim’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series which would be released the following year, and features somewhat similar platforming and jumping mechanics; i.e. annoying and practically fucking broken. The boss villain selection isn’t bad either considering that Wolverine only has so many solo villains to pick from. The ones you’d expect to see like Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike are here, as are others like Cyber and Elsie-Dee, the latter of whom appears and kills Wolverine whenever the time limit expires. The boss battles themselves are very, very hard. In fact, I often feel like my hitting them is having no effect at all on them, but when they hit Wolverine, he loses nearly a quarter of his fucking health! Plus, why is Wolverine presented here as being so incredibly weak? Anyone who’s ever read an X-Men comic, watched an X-Men cartoon, or seen any of the X-Men movies knows that Wolverine is not someone to be taken lightly in terms of combat, he’s like Jules from “Pulp Fiction”, he’s a bad motherfucker. Here he just comes off as close to a fucking little pussy. His attacks look cool, but that doesn’t help when you’re constantly getting your ass handed to you by look-alike droids and having your head shoved up your ass sideways by a douche bag Wolverine look-alike cyborg named Albert.

To close things out here, Wolverine: Adamantium Rage certainly isn’t the worst game to star or feature Marvel’s merry mutant. While it looks pretty good on the surface, its design flaws are what kills the game from being anything close to as enjoyable as it could and should have been. There’s nothing wrong with a good challenge, but what Wolverine offers is so cheap and unforgiving that you’ll probably toss your controller, system, and cartridge against the wall in frustration before you even attempt to take on the game’s first boss. If you want a video game that treats Wolverine right, you’d better look elsewhere, because this piece of shit sure isn’t it.

3/10