Monthly Archives: August 2015

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Review

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Close Encounters was a very interesting film. Not literally, (Although to an extent) but it was probably my first roller coaster film. I started out thinking that it was a good movie, it went downhill very quickly towards the middle, but the late middle brought it back up again before the climax dealt the finishing blows to the movie. On the bright side, we actually do get to see one of the aliens at the end so there wasn’t a cop out there!

Roy was just an average dude when he happened to notice a spaceship one day! Its lights mesmerized Roy to the point where he became slightly mind controlled. Now he will stop at nothing to find their home base, even if it means that his marriage may end up breaking as a result! Can Roy really find the aliens and more importantly…does he really want to find them!?
One thing that becomes very noticeable at different points in the film is that the characters constantly overreact to everything. Whether it is crying because of a bowl of mashed potatoes or staring in awe at musical notes, these guys are easily impressed and saddened. It’s certainly a bit much and doesn’t do the film any favors. If I ever actually gave the acting abilities for a film any merit, this is one time where I would give it a thumbs down.

One aspect of the film that had been dicey for quite a while was when the film showed us the bodies of many animals. If they had actually been dead, then the score for this film would have been incredibly low as it would have moved to Ganondorf tier in Melee. Luckily, a twist towards the end of the film occurred so the animals were just sleeping thanks to a sleeping gas attack from the government. That certainly helped the film.

One thing that didn’t help was Roy’s big meltdown outside of his house. He decided to fill his place with dirt and also broke through the property of the neighbors on his way there. It was a very odd scene that really had no place in the film and also made Roy less sympathetic. That being said, Roy was definitely not a good character. He was married, but that didn’t stop him from having a moment of passion with another woman who had been chasing the UFOs. Sure, Roy’s marriage was on the rocks thanks to his meltdowns, but this was still way too soon and he has to wait until he’s available again.

As for the government, they get a pretty big role here. Their part is actually kind of fun as they communicate to the aliens using musical notes. You can see that they’re really invested in this and have practiced a lot. Imagining that in real life is just hilarious and you can see the humor in the film as well. It was definitely an enjoyable scene even if it did go on for a while. It’s always been tough to talk with people who speak a different language so the same thing certainly applies to the aliens.

However, rather than wondering if the aliens are hostile or not, the government should just jump to the hostile theory. They did kidnap several of out officers and a little kid after all. There can be no negotiations with these aliens at this point! All of the human prisoners are also fairly quiet and subdued when they get back so they’ve clearly been brainwashed. Otherwise, their non reactions are completely unrealistic as anyone else would be yelling or at least running.

That final scene does take an incredibly long time though. We get to watch everyone’s facial expressions over and over again as the camera angles change a little bit. I get that the film needed to bulk up on its run time a little, but surely there are better ways to do this than to go all 2001 Space Odyssey right? It’s a little more interesting though because at least the visuals here keep you entertained with the spaceship and it’s still not quite as long as it could have been.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m also glad that we actually got to see the aliens. There were no cop-outs this time folks! The alien doesn’t look very impressive and it’s very much like an ET creature, but at least it appeared so we can know who we’re up against in a possible sequel! Roy basically abandoned the human race so I’m looking forward to seeing a new protagonist take the wheel. He/She would likely be a vast improvement.

One plot that was also a little dull was with these two scientists who were trying to find the aliens. They got very old very quickly and the plot felt like it had nothing to do with the movie. One guy ended up being a translator since one guy could only speak Spanish or French, but again….why is this plot here? Roy would have found the alien base anyway and this may have been the first time that a government related subplot was not interesting. It’s hard to pull that off, but I can’t say this in a good way.

In a way, this film started out better than it ended even if the intro was a little slow. It could have been fun to see the neighborhood try to get to the aliens as they crossed the government lines. Unfortunately, things just got dicey as the film went on. It had its good moments and its bad ones. It was cool to see a random joe try to make it to the mountains too before getting knocked out just to show that this adventure was not for the faint of heart. Even the girl who accompanied Roy decided to give up towards the end. Roy was the chosen one so only he could truly complete this mission!

About the heroine though, her plot was mainly not that good because of her son. As you may remember, I rarely enjoy plots that involve little kids. The kid was about as annoying as you would expect and he makes it very easy for the aliens to abduct him. This was another plot that really had no point being in the film. The aliens could have abducted an adult or a teenager and it would have been a lot more enjoyable for the banter that we could have gotten! “You can’t get away with this you martian!” “Watch me Mortal!” That would have been epic!

Overall, Close Encounters had the potential to be so much more than what it was. Unfortunately, it simply couldn’t measure up to its full potential. The animals twist was great, but the film needed to trim the ending a little and make Roy a better main character. There was certainly no reason to keep in his falling in love with a new person after a day and his early meltdown was terrible. You definitely couldn’t blame his family for heading out of state for a little while so that he could calm down. I can’t really recommend this one, but if you want a trippy adventure with a lot of odd happenings, this could be up your alley. Otherwise, check out the new Dragon Ball Z Resurrection F for a good alien story.

Overall 4/10

Superman Volume 4 Psi War Review

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It’s time to take a look at volume 4 of the Superman series. Unfortunately, it ended up being the weakest one yet and a sign that the series needs to improve and fast. When you have Superman as the main character of a collection, it should be nothing short of amazing! Instead, the poor writing and uninteresting plot just take you away from the adventure.

As the title suggests, there is a Psi War going on between two of the villains. Hector Hammond is duking it out with the Hive Queen as they both want control over all of the humans. Hammond decides to play his trump card by hiding himself inside of Superman while messing around with all of his friends. With everyone acting a little crazy, Superman is not sure of what to do. This is one battle that he can’t punch his way out of. Oh yeah, the Psycho Pirate is also on the loose and he’s the toughest baddie yet!

One of the shining lights that still glimmers through this volume was that the art quality stayed as sharp as ever. The New 52’s always been good with that and I’m glad since the rest of the volume was woefully average to below average at times. Let’s start with the writing as that was one of the issues here. Granted, Hammond and the other telepathy users are making everyone a little crazy, but the lines still come across as off. For example, Superman tells Orion “You can tell me now or through a straw in intensive care!” as he punches the guy. The sad thing is that this isn’t out of character for New 52 Superman, but it’s still one of the issues that I have with the character. Jimmy’s asks Wonder Woman if she could have his babies when they first met and it was a terrible moment. There are sad lines scattered throughout the comic and they could certainly prove to be distracting.

This collection also had one of those generic bath scenes that are always sad and unnecessary. It’s certainly not the way to go to make the villain seem more threatening. The main problem though is the villains. None of them can actually fight so the collection is filled with mind control shenanigans and I still believe that Superman should be completely immune to such techniques given his genius intellect as well as his Kryptonian Strength. I’ll never buy into the “Superman can be mind controlled” theory.

At least one comic gave us a real fight thanks to the appearance of Orion! He arrived to destroy Superman because the hero might bring about the destruction of everything. The poor guy just didn’t realize that he never stood a chance against the Man of Steel! The fight is brief and doesn’t get to end, but I was happy just to see a good punch thrown against someone who could take it! I’m definitely not much of a fan of Orion here so his appearance didn’t do the character any favors. At least Superman got his telepathic resistance up a little thanks to Orion’s tech.

One subplot that’s still entertaining is how Clark Kent has been roped into helping out on a website that an ex employee of the Planet started. Clark’s been pretty aloof and cold to her even though she’s been trying to help out a lot, but he’s finally trying to help with the story. While I wouldn’t trust her and think that this is all some kind of elaborate ruse, it’s good to see him actually helping out with it now.

I kind of skimmed over talking about the villains earlier, but they simply aren’t that good. Hammond is basically a ripoff of Modok. He has a huge head and telepathic powers, but he can’t really move so his followers have to actually lift him up. There’s really not much to like about this guy and I only enjoyed the banter between him and the Queen at times as they keep creating illusions into each other’s mind. That was certainly an interesting concept, but you can only tackle it for so long before it gets old. The Queen’s only notable feature was the fact that her true form looks like the Brood. That was definitely pretty neat and certainly a welcome twist. Beyond that, she was fairly generic.

The Psycho Pirate was certainly much better than those two villains. At the very least, he had a decent backstory and his powers were far greater than theirs. See, experiments had been done on about 100 people by Brainiac, which gave them all telepathy thanks to their newfound mental capabilities. While some used their abilities to help reporters like Lois get a story, others used their powers to try and take control of the situation. The Psycho Pirate is one such guy and he even managed to take out Superman. Naturally, the power went to his head and he turned evil, but at least he was a cool villain.

Lois got a super form out of this as the telepathy transferred to her, which was neat. It came at the expense of her future so it may not have been a big deal, but this is Lois, so Superman won’t let her die. It’s been a while since Lois had anything to do related so reporting so this subplot was neat to have. It wasn’t terribly interesting, but hearing about how the telepathic people infiltrated the world was definitely cool.

Really, it all boils down to the fact that I just wasn’t a fan of this arc. I suppose that it can happen to the best of series, but it will definitely be a bad sign if the next volume is also sub par. I may be getting that at some point in the near future provided it’s up to snuff! (Talking about Superman volume 5 as 4 is mainly a tie in event) I also hope that Superman starts to look a little more like the good ole hero that he used to be!

Overall, Psi War was more of a flop than I had anticipated. Still, despite all of the negativity, I wouldn’t actually call it a bad comic. It’s just bad by Superman standards, but I’ll still keep it away from the negative ranks. Superman and his pals are still interesting even if some of them are out of character. The art is still good and the fight with Orion was fun. We just need the writing to pick up the pace a little and then everything will be all right again. Also, where’s Lex in all of this? Until then, you can expect another DC comic review soon!

Overall 5/10

Dragon Ball Z Resurrection ‘F’ Review

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Well, it’s time to look at the latest DBZ film. I got to watch it dubbed right off the bat, which is great thanks to the limited theater release over here in the US. Battle of Gods was a lot of fun, (9/10) but I still did walk away from it with a lot of mixed feelings. I thought this one ended up being much better and it certainly felt more action packed, which is a good thing!

For the plot, Frieza’s men go to Earth and grab the Dragon Balls in order to awaken Frieza. With their master back, they head out to space so that Frieza can train a little before going back to Earth to fight Goku. Unfortunately, Goku and Vegeta are training with Whis at the moment and are far away from Earth. Can the Z Fighters hold out for long against Frieza’s entire army!?

All right, there is a lot to talk about here so let’s start with the technical factors, move on to the characters, and then wrap up with the power levels discussion. Heh heh, let’s just say that there is quite a lot to talk about on that subject and I even had a member of the audience to back me up on that part!

First off, the animation looks quite good. As you would expect from a modern DBZ film, the fights are very intense and it’s great to see all of the attacks with the modern animation. (Except for the Spirit Bomb, which is still being saved. Probably for one of the final gods) The film still uses that intriguing CGI effect at times for when the characters are clashing. I could honestly do without it, but I’ve never minded having cutscenes in the middle of the epic fights so it’s all good. Would the scenes be better if they were purely animated? Most definitely, but the fights still look great.

One interesting thing to note is that the fights really emphasize power over speed for the most part. Gone are the quick flurry of blows from the older films and I thought that Battle of Gods actually showed off their speed more. Goku and Frieza is actually a slow fight as the film slightly slows the speed in the background so you can focus on each blow. It’s a good effect although I’m hoping for some more speed in the next film since I always love a really fast fight. It’s just epic to behold!

Resurrection F’s soundtrack is one of the big areas where this film beats out Battle of Gods. We had some pretty great themes here while there were no memorable ones in the other film. Frieza’s opera theme is certainly epic to behold and that rock intro to it was great as well. It sounded like Death Note’s second opening. I also really liked the remix of the main DBZ theme even if we only got a short glimpse of it. I guess it’s straight to Youtube for the full version eh?

I’d also say that the writing is good as you may expect from the legendary Akira Toriyama. Even Master Roshi seems like a likable character if you didn’t know any better. He’s portrayed as one of the smart fighters since he quickly estimates how many soldiers need to be defeated and he also looks impressively good at the expense of the other Z fighters as he takes down multiple waves of soldiers with his original Kamehameha and solid fundamentals. That being said, there are still some things that I’m a little iffy on, but I’ll leave that to the individual character pages.

An interesting part of Frieza’s plight is how hell is portrayed. It’s always been a fun interpretation in DBZ world, but Frieza essentially states that Hell is only valid for Earth. If you die somewhere else, then it is a different hell or afterlife so to say. It’s a very intriguing premise and I suppose that it is a little similar to Marvel’s universe where there are many different hells. Hela, Mephisto, and Death all have their own version of the place and that seems to be what DBZ is gunning for. I don’t think it will really be delved into, but that would be an interesting concept to tackle.

Goku is the lead character so it’s only natural that he is a solid character here right? I’ve always liked Goku as he is a great character and he was written really well here. He constantly warns Frieza that fighting him isn’t really the best move. Goku is actually more overconfident, maybe even slightly arrogant than usual, but with his power level, why shouldn’t he be? While his weakness may apparently be that he lets his guard down, I woudn’t call it much of a problem. It doesn’t happen too much and shouldn’t have even happened here except for plot hax and Whis needing to make a point.

Goku still tries to spare Frieza multiple times showing just how heroic he is. However, at the very end, he unleashes a final blast as he makes a critical decision. Considering that hell here is actually quite pleasant and not painful in the slightest, one can argue that destroying Frieza isn’t so bad. It’s still the concept that you should think about, but Goku isn’t a stranger to destroying his foes. Whether accidentally or not, he typically unleashes a final Kamehameha that does the trick. Since a lot of fighters are reincarnated eventually once they turn good, Frieza should be back as well. I didn’t really have a problem with Goku finishing Frieza off though as they can still continue to fight in Hell if Goku so desires. (He probably won’t since he has a good sparring partner with Vegeta!) Since Hell is just a part of Earth according to Frieza, it will be interesting to see if the heroes have to visit the real deal in a future film if one of the gods lives there. The future films have a lot of promise even if I don’t see them getting quite that serious for a few more films as the heroes build up their power levels a little more first.

Vegeta was naturally an exceptional character in this film as always. My one gripe with him was probably that he waited a little too long to do anything while Frieza was messing Goku up. I (Along with the audience who were stating different ways that they thought Vegeta would intervene) expected Vegeta to come in with his iconic neck kick or at least catch Frieza’s punch. While he still did get his turn to fight Frieza, I thought that he could have moved in sooner. His fight with Goku was pretty awesome and his unwavering confidence is back in full force. I’m also glad that he doesn’t want to team up with Goku since a 2 on 1 fight isn’t the Saiyan way.

Whis mentions that Vegeta thinks a little too much before he fights while Goku has the opposite problem and it’s nice to see the film depict this in the fight scenes. Whether intentional or not, you can see that Vegeta fights Frieza in more of a standarized way as he chooses optimal ways to hit the guy while Goku just unleashes on him with a flurry of solid blows. Vegeta uses several of his combat techniques from the video games which was a lot of fun and his personality is still one of the most enjoyable in the franchise. It’s easy to see why Vegeta is such a fan favorite and I still consider him to easily be the best character in the series. I’m glad that they’ve cleaned up his portrayal since Battle of Gods. It’s also worth noting that he continues to show more natural talent than Goku. Goku needed the death of Krillin to make him turn into a Super Saiyan and Vegeta just trained for it. Goku needed the power of 5 Saiyans to unlock God Mode. Let’s just say that Vegeta’s classic approach continues to work wonders for him.

Frieza always was one of the best DBZ villains and it was great to see him return. While Perfect Cell is still the coolest of the big 3 DBZ villains, I do prefer Frieza to Buu. Frieza had a nice amount of arrogance to him and his final form just looks so great. It’s very easy to see why he is such a threat and his theme song in this film is amazing. There’s really not much to say about his personality as it stays very true to his manga counterpart. It’s also nice to see that he was dedicated enough to train to surpass Goku, making him look much better than the average villain. His banter with Goku is one of the better parts of the film and he’s deceptively intelligent at times.

Gohan looks pretty bad as expected since he doesn’t train at all anymore. He really doesn’t care about fighting and just wants to live his life as a normal dude. He doesn’t even arrive to the fight in his full uniform. I do appreciate the fact that the film still showed him to be a bit of a pacifist though as he makes sure to take down all of the minions without actually destroying any of them. That shows a lot of control on his part and also hints at his true power level. If only he could have had more of a fight against Frieza. Since I consider the new films to be the Goku and Vegeta adventures, I’m not sure if this will change anytime soon, but maybe at some point. Gohan getting SSJ God mode as well would be pretty awesome. As a character, he’s certainly still likable.

Piccolo is also a good character and he actually gets his own fight. The only side character to pull that off! He’s still confident in battle while being a nice guy despite his gruff exterior. Unfortunately, he’s the only character who doesn’t use his trademarked attack (Special Beam Cannon) unless I’m missing something. He just uses generic energy blasts against the opponents unless it was supposed to look like his Hell Grenade technique. It’s also possible that he used it in his fight against Tagoma. That was a really enjoyable fight and it was cool to see Piccolo really have to put some effort into his match.

Krillin has a nice role here. He’s now a respectable cop and he even went back to his iconic bald look. Krillin does a good job of weeding out the enemy troops and his confidence is always nice to see. He’s certainly a good supporting character. Jaco got to make his animated debut here and his character was also pretty amusing. His ray gun’s delayed effect is as potent as ever and he’s brutally honest about how he will only help the heroes a little. He’s a nice guy, but he just doesn’t want to mess with someone like Frieza. He would get destroyed in an instant so you can’t blame him there.

Master Roshi got a good role for the first time in DBZ history, which is fantastic for his fans. It’s safe to say that he had quite a few as people cheered and laughed for his scenes. Beerus is still a character that I don’t like. He simply gives himself way too much hype and I can’t stand how everyone is afraid of him and gives the guy so much respect. It’s honestly completely out of character for Goku and even Frieza’s scene will make you wince a little on the inside. Beerus blowing up a planet with a sneeze was cool though as more feats is always a good thing! I could have done without Goku saying that the blast would have destroyed him though. We don’t want anti-feats…granted, he wasn’t in his final form yet. Once Goku and Vegeta inevitably surpass him, that should make things better. That being said…have they already surpassed him. If you remember, God Goku was able to give Beerus a decent fight and SSJ God Goku would likely be 50X stronger thanks to the power boost. That means…Goku should be much stronger, and by extension, Vegeta as well. Good Game Beerus!

Whis also gets a lot of hype, but he’s more likable than Beerus and never tries to get people to fear him. He doesn’t bother with empty threats as he just has fun eating all the desserts that he can stomach. Whis not noticing that he had a phone message was a little….intriguing since his scepter should have let him know immediately, but I’ll assume that he was trolling. He’s not exactly the hero type and just does whatever he feels like doing. His unique ability is certainly handy in a fight although it has more limitations than most other characters who have this kind of technique. Thanks to his high level of hand to hand combat and speed, he should definitely be fine in a fight. It’s hinted that he’s stronger than Beerus and the heroes certainly shouldn’t trust him as I could see the guy ultimately become a villain.

Sourbet is one of the new villains and he’s essentially a Babidi kind of character. He can’t really fight, but he makes plans and gets things done. He’s not a bad villain and I applaud the fact that he went to Earth himself, but he’s not my kind of bad guy. Some more feats would have helped him tremendously. That being said, while his plan worked, it was still a bad plan as it shouldn’t have succeeded. The heroes should have been able to stop him as soon as Shenron appeared thanks to their incredible speed. Ah well, more on plot hax later.

Tagoma is the power hitter of the group and he ends up going against Piccolo in the film. While I think he should have been crushed immediately since that kind of feat would put him on second form Cell, it’s good that at least one of Frieza’s henchmen could really fight. His name is a lot easier to remember than the underlings and as a result, I’ll definitely remember him as the films go by. He made for a good mid-film boss, but I am glad that Piccolo never went down. Had the fight gone on, I’m confident that Piccolo could have made a comeback. (The Gohan fan to the left was panicking during the fight as he thought that Piccolo should clobber the guy so when the fight started to go south, the guy was really going crazy in his chair!)

Shisami had a much smaller role as he got on Frieza’s bad side. It’s safe to say that everyone knew he was doomed from the start once he questioned Frieza. You simply don’t do that! Shenron looked nice and fierce, which is an improvement from his scared days in older films. (As recent as Battle of Gods!) Bulma also got a good role as she assembled the heroes and talked tough to Frieza. Tien’s mostly a nonfactor, but it was still nice to see him contribute to the fight. Pilaf’s crew weren’t even that annoying and they actually did well this time. It’s a little on the plot hax side that the Z Fighters just leave the Dragon Balls lying about, but it works out well for Pilaf. Those 3 were certainly more likable than in Battle of Gods and they even tried to put up a fight!

The audience was certainly very enthusiastic for this film and I’m tempted to say that it was more intense than the Avengers, beating it out for second place. DBZ is a lot shorter than Avengers so the latter had more time for cheers, but DBZ had constant yells and cheers throughout the film. It was great to see the dedicated DBZ fanbase attending the new film. This must have been what it was like in the early 2000’s when DBZ was at its height. People were yelling and making one liners as the film was starting and then yelled a lot with anticipation and tension during the fight scenes. Everyone especially liked Goku’s Ryu inspired backfist hit. It was good to see Goku use an actual advanced martial arts move in that moment!

I have to give a lot of credit to the guy sitting towards the left of the row that I was on. He was really on point for just about every inconsistent power level moment. He was a big fan of Gohan so I knew that he would be pretty upset by the time the film was over since it was already a known fact that he wouldn’t look so good. None of the other Z fighters will ever be acknowledged as a tough fighter who can help out Goku and Vegeta anymore unless something drastic changes. Gohan has a slight chance of improving, but I think that DBZ will just become the Goku and Vegeta adventures for the foreseeable future. The guy had to say “I”m done” about 10 times because Gohan kept underwhelming him with lines like “I can’t win!” or getting one shotted by Frieza in the guy’s first form before Gohan could even turn Super Saiyan.

The thing is, the whole film is built around a plot hole in terms of power levels. Frieza is revived and trains for 6 months. Somehow, this is enough for him to go from being pre Arc 2 SSJ1 level to post Battle of Gods Super Saiyan God mode tier? Seriously? Let’s put this into perspective for a second. Frieza’s final form was on par with Goku’s SSJ1 form and par is a strong word since Goku was clearly stronger at that point. Super Saiyan 2 is around 2-3 times stronger than SSJ1 and SSJ3 is 4x stronger than that. So, if SSJ1 was a 1, SSJ3 Goku is a 8-12 star fighter. After that, we have God mode Goku. Considering that SSJ3 Goku couldn’t last a second against Beerus and God Goku gave him a good fight, let’s say it’s a power boost of about 10x. Then, we have SSJG Goku from this movie, which amps up his strength another 50x. That’s not even counting all of the various zenkai boosts like Base Goku from Battle of Gods easily being stronger than SSJ2 Goku from the older days and maybe even SSJ3. Frieza passed all of that in a mere 6 months? He couldn’t do that if he had 60 years! He is literally making himself hundreds of times stronger just like that. He’s no Saiyan, that’s just not possible. Even for a Saiyan it would be impossible. Remember, Goku had to use the Time Chamber, which turned one year into a day. That’s already more time that he spent training than Frieza.

So, considering that the plot was a power level inconsistency, I figured that there would be plenty more in the film. This doesn’t affect the score in the slightest as the stronger a character gets, the more plot hax there will be, but it’s still worth noting. After all, if there was no plot hax, the planet would have blown up many times over from the intensity of the battles. Goku getting pierced by a random ray gun is also complete plot hax. Granted, Goku let his guard down according to Whis, but even so, in SSJ God form, Goku’s ki should have deflected the blast with ease. There’s no way that it would do any damage to him.

Gohan pretty much deserves his own paragraph. He should be able to wipe the floor with the entire cast. Losing to Frieza in an instant was embarrassing. Now, we can overlook this by saying that Frieza is on Goku’s level now, but then why was Gohan not fighting at full power at that point? Also, if Master Roshi, with a power level of 139 could stand up to dozens of Frieza’s soldiers, then Gohan, Krillin, Tien, and Piccolo should look far more impressive than they did. The fact of the matter is that Roshi should have died instantly when the fight started. Even Frieza’s henchmen aren’t that weak. Saibamen are vastly stronger than Roshi.

There’s no way that the henchmen are that weak. We had one good scene where Gohan moves so fast that it looks like everyone is frozen. The problem is that this should be how things look for the Z fighters the entire time. That’s how wide the power gap is at this point. The minions simply looked too impressive even though they were being crushed the entire time. The heroes should really not need any effort to defeat them. Frieza states that Gohan could take out the entire army if he wanted too…and that’s what should have happened. The gap between the talking and the on screen action was considerable.

It’s interesting to note that Majin Buu doesn’t get to appear even though he was mentioned. That was just really odd and I’m assuming that he’ll be in some kind of Director’s cut. Still, it doesn’t make any sense that he would be out of the picture. This was his chance to shine after all and he blew it! Hercule would have been nice to have as well. At least Shenron finally gets his props here as the villains start to fear him again. He’s probably gotten much stronger since his last fight. It’s a missed opportunity here as the wish should have been to make Frieza stronger than Goku. While that would have to mean that Shenron would be stronger than Goku, it would have involved less plot hax.

One last note on the plot hax side. Aside from Buu not appearing, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, and Android 18 didn’t join the fight either. (Although at least 18 got a cameo) Where’s Android 17 as well? All of these guys should have joined the fight considering what a threat this was and it would have been cool to see the gang fighting. Considering that Roshi could beat the minions, the other fighters wouldn’t have a problem. If you think about it, Android 18 is stronger than quite a few of the fighters who did go to fight Frieza. (Krillin, Tien) It goes without saying that Majin Buu would have been helpful and what about Goten and Trunks? With their SSJ3 Gotenks form, they would have really done well and without power level inconsistencies, they could have probably defeated Frieza. The reasoning for keeping all of these characters out was pretty bad.

So, where did this film rank in the overall DBZ franchise? It goes without saying that it clobbered Battle of Gods and that film was in my top 5! Well, I would actually probably put this as the second best film. It was close, but it barely nudged Super Android 13 out of the spot. After all, Roshi was still being a little dicey here. This film really had no such negatives. Broly will always be the best DBZ film though as I still think that it has the best fight scenes in the series. You want a film where the stakes are real (No Whis and Beerus to keep things light) and the fights emphasize speed as well as power? Broly’s the film to see. While the animation may technically be better in this film on the whole, Broly had more of a theatrical feel to it. The animation just seemed to be on a higher level in that regard and didn’t use any CGI tricks to help itself. I can only imagine how intense seeing that one in theaters would be! It’ll be hard for any film to pass Broly, but if Broly really does return in the next film, that could present a challenge to the classic!

Overall, This was an incredible DBZ movie for sure. It had a lot of great action scenes and a dynamite soundtrack as well. The writing was good and while Beerus annoyed me, the movie did a good job of making almost everyone likable. Even Master Roshi actually acts like a good character, which impressed me. I’m definitely ready for more movies in this series and it’ll be great to see Gogeta appear again as it was certainly hinted at as well as a normal Goku and Vegeta tag team. Considering that they’re both able to fight at such a high level now, it’s easy to see why they would overwhelm any opponent when it is two against one.

Overall 9/10

Justice League Gods and Monsters Review

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It’s time to check out the latest DC film. The company has started to become a trainwreck with their animated films, which is unfortunate since they used to be so good. Yet another thing for us to blame the New 52 on I suppose. Unfortunately, this is actually the worst one yet and it’s horrifically bad. The climax helps it save some dignity as well as a possible choice that could help the sequel, but it’s safe to says that Gods and Monsters is dead before it ever got a chance to truly begin.

The story takes place on an alternate world where there aren’t really any good guys left. Superman was raised by Mexican Immigrants who taught him how to live under a harsh government. Superman has no qualms with murdering all those who stand in his way and will do anything necessary to secure his planet’s safety. Batman is not Bruce Wayne, but Kirk Langstrom and he is a vampire who loves to murder his victims by drinking their blood. Certainly not the heroic figure that you would expect. Wonder Woman is probably the least changed in that regard as she always murdered her opponents while in battle. She is similar to Thor from Marvel from that respect as war takes no prisoners. That being said, the film balances that out by having her flirt with everyone and be willing to allow everyone to be with her at times. It’s a terrible part of her personality.

We’ve already established that the characters are all warped versions of themselves. Don’t worry, if this wasn’t clear to you from the cover, the first scene makes sure to show this off as the heroes brutally murder everyone inside of a building. Their justification is that the people who were murdered were all villains and villains basically have no rights to keep their lives. The Justice League naturally has a very strained relationship with the government and it gets worse when they are framed for killing a bunch of scientists. Can the Justice League clear their name and do we even want that to happen?

As this is an alternate universe story, it allows the writers to kill off as many actual characters as possible since it has nor repercussions on anything else. So, expect a lot of cameos before the characters are blown up in various ways. This film was really a train wreck because it committed just about every big negative that a film could really add, which was quite sad.

First stop on this train is the excessive violence problem that has plagued DC for quite a while. The very first scene with Batman has him immediately snap someone’s neck and then he goes on to do the usual vampire sucking bit. Characters are ripped apart, dismembers, and burned into oblivion. The violence just keeps on coming and a lot of it is just there for the gritty vibe that is unnecessary. DC is basically just trying to counter Marvel’s Daredevil and while this is an improvement, it’s really not saying much.

Another reason why I wouldn’t be able to like this film was the fact that Batman is a vampire. If you recall from some of my earlier reviews, I really don’t like vampires. There are very few vampire films that I could even call good at this point and I’ve never liked the concept of blood sucking. It’s just gross and never adds anything to the story. Batman tries to pretend that he is a hero through it all, but he doesn’t resist the urge to suck blood at all so I really don’t believe him. Even in the end, he is the voice of doubt.

Before I go into more negatives, it should be noted that the characters are all pretty terrible here. I definitely disliked Batman from the start and Wonder Woman’s alternate version is essentially what could have happened if she was introduced to the comics nowadays without an established history. Superman is as far removed from the character as possible. His only good moment is the fact that at the end of the film, he mentions that maybe they shouldn’t kill people anymore. Batman quickly doubts the idea, but If Superman goes through with it, he’ll instantly be a better character. That being said, he’s still not a likable one so he’ll need to improve. Even insulting Lois behind her back just felt really petty.

For the side characters, Lex was decent at least. He was probably the most true to character, which is a good thing. He’s let himself go over the years and he probably won’t last much longer, but at least he was cool. He was constantly one step ahead of the other characters. The main villain was pretty cheap once you find out who the mastermind is. His origin story about how he became evil is terrible to be frank and he never became a cool villain to root against.

The three androids had cool designs and made for good villains. Their final form was certainly powerful and made for a good end boss. That was good because the film had basically had no good fight scenes the entire film. We had a brief scuffle with Batman vs the Robots and that was it. Certainly less action than you would expect from a so called “Justice League” film. The end scene definitely helped to alleviate that. Also, now’s a good time to talk about why the ending gives the sequel some slight hope.

Superman mentioned how maybe they shouldn’t be killing people and that could be a plot for the sequel. If the heroes go through with it, then that will certainly be a good thing. The question is “Will they?” and another one follows. Will this this be enough to save the film? I doubt the latter, but if they do follow through, it would certainly make that one an improvement as these alternate versions would be less of a mockery of the originals.

It should also be noted that there is some unnecessary animal violence here. The film just really wanted to push my buttons didn’t it? A miniature horse is seen getting eaten by a wild animal and we also see some test mice die because the humans were using them as guinea pigs. It’s certainly not an heroic act and it just made Batman look even worse for me. There’s some mild language, but it’s been cleaned up a little since the last film so that’s definitely a good thing. Hopefully the films continue to improve in that area.

This film really should have been called the Justice Lords. In effect, that’s how the team operates. They don’t like to reason and they destroy whoever gets in their way. I’d also like to point to that two part episode in Justice League to show how an alternate universe should be. The team was evil, but they still acted like their original selves and you can see why Superman made the critical choice. It was a dark world, but the show explored that without being over the top with violence and grit. It felt more natural and was much better handled.

Gods and Monsters was treated more like an AU that really had no purpose. A good example of how the movie just doesn’t care is when the scientists are all getting murdered. Once all of them are finished off and Batman is about to be taken down, the Justice League arrives and then the hero music plays. Hero music after literally every one of the targets were killed while Batman was on duty? It just didn’t make any sense and that’s just how the film operates. It doesn’t matter how many innocents die, as long as the League lives, it’s all okay.

On a slight bright side, the soundtrack was good. It had a lot of fast paced themes that helped make the scenes a little more bearable. The animation was also solid although it didn’t get to show us what it could do until the fight scenes finally arrived. More battles with the androids would have been a lot of fun. After all, Androids are just made up of parts and such so the film would have a tough time making it gritty.

Overall, Gods and Monsters is horrifically bad. It’s the kind of film that I actually have less fun seeing than Pixels. At least Pixels gave you a lot of laughs. It’s a slightly better film on a technical scale though and I’m giving it an extra star thanks to the soundtrack/final fight and the promise of the ending. The ending gave the film a glimmer of hope and now I can say that the next movie has potential although I don’t see it being that much better. Hopefully DC steps up its game as Batman Unlimited really looks like the only decent DC film coming up at this point. Maybe the next Justice League film will be good, but I’ll have to see some screenshots or a plot summary before I start getting my hopes up. Until DC’s movies start shaping up, at least I have the classics like Sub-Zero and Starcrossed to keep me busy!

Overall 2/10

The Amazing Spider Man Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 6h
31/47 Trophies
Level 18
400 Tech Parts
Game Completion 44%
Level Completion 100%
Bosses Defeated 100%
Character Figurines Unlocked 41%
Concept Art Unlocked 9%
Antenna Frequencies Traced 100%
Petty Crimes Fought 50%
Oscorp Conspiracy Evidence Gathered 27%
Whitney Photo Articles Completed 10%
Enemy Types Photographed 0%
Sniper Teams Neutralized 0%
Car Chases Completed 0%
XTreme Video Challenges Completed 20%
XTreme Race Challenges Completed 10%
Oscorp Secret Labs Completed 100%
Hunters Destroyed 100%
Seekers Destroyed 70%
Signal Jams Completed 100%
Police Deadlocks Completed 0%
Infected Civilians Rescued 100%
Medical Patients Returned 100%
Upgrades 39/41
Indoor Pick Ups Collected 76/166
Comics Collected 203/600
Flying Comics Collected 8/100
Enemies Defeated 571
Combo Record 247
Signature Moves 247
Stealth Takedowns 70
Webshots Fired 6979
Damage Received 9851
Deaths 13
Web Rush Chains 7
Distance Traveled in Angel Drop 9km
Distance Traveled on Foot 34km
Distance Traveled with Reb Rush 31km
Distance Traveled Wall Running 1km
Distance Traveled Wall Crawling 2km
Distance Traveled Web Swinging 82km
XP Earned 73670
Tech Collected 3925

The Amazing Spider Man Review

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After looking at the cover in Gamestop for a very long time, I finally took the plunge and bought this title. There was no chance that the game would be under a 7 due to the style of gameplay and how fun the Spider Man games are so it was a safe investment. While the graphics and plot may not have been the greatest, the solid gameplay ensured that Spiderman has hit it out of the park once again. Spiderman may not be the best in all forms of entertainment, but when it comes to video games, no superhero consistently dishes out such great titles!

The plot of the game takes place after the first Amazing Spider Man movie. Smythe has taken over Oscorp and is developing a lot of robots to protect the city. Unfortunately, a virus gets out from one of the old human/animal hybrid experiments that had been going on. The city quickly becomes infected and Smythe orders the robots to destroy everyone. The only way to protect the human race is to eradicate it of course! Spiderman breaks The Lizard out of jail so that a cure can be developed. Will Connors be able to make one in time or is the city doomed!?

So, the plot is rather standard and I wouldn’t call it that engaging. It does try to play out a little like a movie, which is commendable, but probably utilizes the first person camera angle too much. We rarely get to see Spiderman on camera except for when you’re doing the Xtreme challenges later on. It’s also interesting to note that most of the bosses have nothing to do with the plot either. Spiderman just randomly runs across them while going from place to place. Just about every boss is a hybrid in this version so they are basically immune to the virus. The other bosses are typically robots.

The cutscenes do provide some unintentionally funny scenes though like when Peter and Connors are yelling at each other after the first cure doesn’t work. They keep spinning each other around trying to be menacing, but failing epicly and then Peter just faints. That was certainly not his best moment although I’m sure that he gave it his all. I felt bad for Stan Lee’s apartment though as Peter allows Connor’s to trash the place and also use up a lot of Stan’s money. The poor guy can’t catch a break right?

As for the graphics, I can safely say that they haven’t aged too well. It’s mostly that I don’t really like the style/colors that were used. Everything looks detailed, but in more of an unattractive/ugly way than the polished Spiderman 1/2/3 games for the Gamecube/PS3. Those games as well as the original PS1 titles just look better than The Amazing Spider Man. That’s just how it goes sometimes I suppose, but I expect better from a PS3 title. The soundtrack is really good though and the fast paced themes will really make web slinging around the city a lot of fun. The bosses and minions are also more engaging as a result. It may have the best themes in a Spiderman game as most of the other games were not that memorable in that respect.

All right, time to talk about the gameplay! That’s the aspect where the game really hit it out of the park. The hand to hand clashes have never been better as you are really in full control of when you want to dodge, web out of the fight, web the opponent, or throw some punches. The way that the controls are set up makes it so easy and so enjoyable. You could really just have fun beating up the opponents for quite a while, but if you are in a hurry then you can just throw something to stun them. Of course, the point is that you will rarely want the fights to end! Naturally, the boss battles are an extension of this and you will have fun laying into them. If you want to crush them all with ease, my favorite strategy is to punch, punch, punch, web away when the spider sense flashes, then immediately web back to them and punch some more. It works quite well for most of the bosses.

The web swinging part got a lot of mixed to negative reception back in the day and it is quite different. I’ll certainly admit that it’s weaker than it was in the older games. Webbing higher and lower is more difficult than it should be here and you also feel like molasses at times. Luckily, that’s what we have Web Zipping for. Also, it’s still not bad though and just doesn’t live up to the older games. I also like the free fall aspect as I have fun free falling for the lolz. It’s a nice effect.

Everything’s just so smooth and that’s a good thing because the game has a very nice amount of replay value. Naturally, collecting all of the trophies ensures that and I am actually aiming for the Platinum in this title at some point. For starters, there are 700 comic book pages to collect. No matter how fast you are at completing the levels, this is bound to take you some time. Playing the game in the night setting is the best way to go about this. There are also 20 Xtreme challenges to complete although those are rather short. There are a lot of people to rescue on the streets, Getaway Cars to snag, Police Copters to Assist, and many other missions throughout the city. We can’t forget the classic “Stop the muggers” missions that are a staple in the Spider Man series. The missions aren’t excessive, but they will definitely bump up the play time. You’ll also need to beat the game on hard mode to get some of the final trophies while also taking a lot of photos. The post game content is long without feeling over the top in terms of how much grinding you will have to do.

While it’s essentially been mentioned, I can’t stress enough how great it is for the city to be back here. Just web slinging across the city for no real reason can be a lot of fun and I missed that feature when they took it out for Edge of Time and Shattered Dimensions. Seeing it back in its full glory was great and the game did a tremendous job of recreating the place. You may even recognize some areas as you explore the place. I also liked the twitter feed that the game added during the loading screen. It’s cool to see what everyone’s saying as the disease spreads. I think it was a bit of a missed opportunity as there were no guest stars there are hidden references, but it was still a blast.

Overall, The Amazing Spider Man is a really good game for the PS3. It really keeps in all of the core Spider Man features that you have come to expect over the years. The plot isn’t as engaging as any of the older games (Friend or Foe not counting) and especially pales when compared to Edge of Time. Still, the gameplay will always be the most important factor for a game and it’s so much fun that the game will really pass by before you know it. The replay value just adds to the excitement! I would have liked some bonus costumes to wear though as those were fun in older games. Maybe I just haven’t found them yet. I highly recommend buying this game and you can experience the city like you used too!

Overall 8/10

Superior Spider Man Volume 1 Versus Review

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It’s time to delve into the world of the Superior Spiderman once more! The concept was certainly dicey for many people as some did not want a new Spiderman and others were willing to give this one a chance. Peter Parker hadn’t been portrayed very well in a long time so maybe the writers would do a better job with Doc Ock. Well, they definitely know how to write him much more efficiently than Peter Parker, but maybe it’s just because they want to stress how much better he is at the gig than Peter. Peter Parker will always be the true Spiderman, but the run was still pretty enjoyable and this collection gives us some nice guest stars.

The first issue brings in the Avengers, which is a good way to start up a team collection! They’ve been on Spiderman’s tail for quite a while since the hero has seemingly turned rogue. He’s been targeting various heroes so the Avengers arrive to stop him. Is Spiderman really off the deep end or is there something to this whole situation that the Avengers just don’t understand?

You definitely can’t blame the Avengers for thinking that Spiderman has turned given what had been recently happening. This was a fun story and easily the best comic in the collection. Hyperion becoming possessed by the galactic virus was certainly cool even if he probably should have won the battle. Yes, the virus is why Spiderman had seemingly been attacking so many heroes, they had not been in control of their actions at the time. The issue is really just a big battle, which works for me. Spiderman also got a lot of hype since Thor and Hulk were both grabbing onto him to make sure that the hero didn’t get away, but they could feel him straining.

Next up was the two part story with the Scarlet Spider! He has come back to town, but was not expecting a hostile reaction from Spiderman, whom he considered to be a friend. Doc Ock does not like the Scarlet Spider since he basically destroyed him back in the day so they come to blows. Meanwhile, the Jackal is also around and he plans on making more clones while destroying the originals. The Superior Spiderman will have to make a decision to team up with the Scarlet Spider or risk his own destruction. It ends up being a tough choice!

This was the weakest story in the collection. Mainly this was because I felt bad for the Scarlet Spider. Spiderman is incredibly rude to him the whole time and openly tries to murder the guy. Not only is this odd behavior from a so called superhero, but the Scarlet Spider’s at a pretty tough time in his life at that moment. He had been looking for words of encouragement, not insults to push him even further down. It’s sad because he doesn’t even get a happy ending and while I’m sure that things ultimately start to look better for him later on, it’s too bad that he got such a bad deal. The character was nice enough and hopefully Peter is able to patch things up with him later on or the Scarlet Spider finds out about Doc Ock taking control.

The art was also intriguing for this comic. All of the issues had pretty good art, which flowed well for the characters and the fight scenes. Almost at DC’s level to be honest as it was pretty smooth although not quite as good at depicting the character designs. However, part two of this saga had a completely different art style due to it being from a different series. It was going for a cell shaded/CGI kind of look similar to the cutscenes from Shattered Dimensions. It was certainly different. To an extent, I think it looked good in some parts and not as good in others. I certainly prefer the regular art from the other issues, but Spiderman’s design looked nice in this set up.

The next saga introduced a new character named Fulmina. Thanos and his forces had attacked the Earth and the Avengers were busy in space trying to deal with the threat. It was up to Spiderman, Luke Cage, and a lot of the other ground threats to deal with the waves of minions that were attacking the world and Spiderman decided to do a little recruiting when a girl obtained powers. Unfortunately, they ended up corrupting her rather quickly and she decided that a world without technology would be great. Can Spiderman show her the truth?

This comic was fairly good. Perhaps a little anticlimactic and light on action for an Infinity tie in, but it was fun to see Spiderman match wits with Fulmina in her mind. He had a lot of good points about her not wanting to accept that her vision of a prehistoric world would leave Earth vulnerable to attack from aliens and any random villain. I thought Spiderman looked great here, but Fulmina ended up not being a great character. She certainly didn’t end up using her powers well and since an alien invasion was occurring, you’d think that she would prioritize that. She corrected her mistakes in the end though even if it may have come at a heavy price. If she never appears again, she certainly had a very short comic life.

For the most part, the Superior Spiderman is a likable character. You just need to keep in mind that he’s no hero. Spiderman tried to destroy the Scarlet Spider a few times and while he convinces himself that he’s a hero, he just does whatever he wants. His desire to turn over a new leaf is half hearted at best. As an anti-hero/antagonist, Spiderman can be fun to have around with his constant sarcastic remarks about the rest of the characters. He really pities everyone and speaks in a very dramatic style that is a lot of fun to read. The only comic I didn’t like him in was the Scarlet Spider issue, which I already mentioned. Beyond that, he certainly works well as the lead character.

Overall, This was a fun volume of Spectacular Spiderman Team Up! The art is solid and the writing is actually good throughout the collection. It can still be a little sad for Peter fans to see Doc Ock messing up his life, but it’s still a fun concept to play around with. I definitely recommend this one if you want to see some fun stories with a lot of superhero action. There aren’t really any high stakes here so it’s really just about popcorn fun and enjoying the fights, but the adventures move very quickly since they’re all 1-2 issues and sometimes it’s fun to just enjoy some one shot adventures between the big events. With this collection done, it’s time to go back to DC for my next comic review!

Overall 7/10

Superman Volume 3 Fury at World’s End Review

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It’s been a while since I reviewed a Superman comic and I believe that this is the first trade paperback of the Superman series that I’ve checked out. I read the first two volumes of Action Comics earlier though. It’s cool how Superman had two series at once for a while like how Batman has his Detective Comics alongside his main title. This volume is an immediate upgrade over the Action Comic titles when it comes to the fights as Superman finally gets to deal with some serious threats, but the portrayals and writing may not be as good.

Superman is starting to realize that the Daily Planet isn’t the paper that he thought it was. They don’t really print the news anymore and Superman blows up at the staff and is effectively fired. He’s also venting because he found out that Lois is now seeing someone. He decides to head home and thinks about what to do when Supergirl arrives along with a Kryptonian monster (Which Superman destroyed) and a mysterious figure known as H’el. H’el plans to eradicate the solar system in order to go back in time and save the Kryptonian race, but Superman can’t let that happen! Along with Superboy and the Justice League, Superman must convince Supergirl to leave H’el’s side or defeat her if necessary!

I definitely enjoyed the fact that this volume has a lot of nonstop action. Superman’s fights against H’el are quite good and even his generic action scenes like fighting the large monster was neat. The rest of the Justice League doesn’t get much action although they fight some minions and Wonder Woman deflects one of H’el’s shots. The stakes are definitely really high the whole time and it’s good to see the League come in to help since the solar system being in danger is certainly something that should capture their attention.

That being said, this volume did have a few weak points, which likely relate to The New 52 status. For starters, Superman is a little out of character. The whole first issue makes him look really bad as he’s very petty in his jealously about Lois moving on. Worse was how he blew up at everyone. He may have had a point, but completely went about it the wrong way. The old Superman would have tried to calmly talk with the managers about getting in some credible articles. Superman is also very rude and condescending to Superboy the entire time, but not in a campy/enjoyable way. He even threatens a scientist depending on how you read the line. To his defense, he didn’t realize it until he was flying away, but he just disregarded the thought as quickly as it came.

He even antagonized H’el a lot before they actually started fighting like turning his back while the character was still talking. Superman essentially showed a lot of characters no respect here. The bright side is that Superman is portrayed as the super genius like he is supposed to be. In an instant, Superman put together all the pieces of H’el’s plan and he may have done it even faster than Lex Luthor although both of their intelligence are roughly on the same level. It’s always good to see Superman be portrayed as more than the stereotypical powerhouse. Of course, Superman’s raw strength also looks good like it should.

It was cool to see Superboy here since his comics have always looked interesting. I like the new neon suit that he has and his version of the Teen Titans also looked cool. Superman isn’t impressed here, but those comics always sounded fun. I also think that Superboy looked fairly decent even if he was a hostage for a little while. (Probably Superman’s best scene though since he immediately rammed H’el to save the kid) He apparently started out evil as we get a quick origin story as well as a new one for Superman, but Superboy is certainly trying to be a hero now. His abilities seem to be far weaker than Superman’s or Supergirl’s, but he’s a clone so that makes sense. Hopefully he is able to destroy whatever code inside of him that gives Luthor the current edge over him.

Lex Luthor’s portrayal was a little on the odd side. The New 52 has always had a lot of continuity issues and I would count Lex as one of them. It’s not totally a plot hole, but his personality is insanely different from any of the other titles. Lex basically tells Superman what the Man of Steel already knows and explains what Superman’s thinking to the audience. The problem is that instead of sounding logical and calculated, he’s a little on the crazy side. He threatens to destroy Superboy for talking to him and the whole plot of Superman tricking him into building a prison was also odd.

Some parts of the New 52 still feel odd and not canon at times, but it’s something that probably won’t be leaving anytime soon. The bright side is that the Justice League as a whole looks good and H’el makes for a good villain. H’el is overpowered though so I’m going to have to take another shot at the comic. H’el is shown to be powerful enough to basically shut Superman down without any effort in their first encounter. Superman bounces back for the final showdown and puts up a decent fight, but he is still outmatched the entire time. Authors love bringing in new characters who are randomly stronger than Superman, but this is still pushing it. H’el is also a Kryptonian, but due to sun exposure while in the ship, he’s far stronger than Superman. It’s not terrible logic I suppose, but Superman’s been fighting for ages so he’s still been exposed to the Sun while also getting combat experience. H’el also has the ability to teleport objects and people, which definitely makes him overpowered since he could just teleport everyone to the sun while they’re in a room or something like that. He doesn’t because the plot demands it, but that’s why a villain should never be given that kind of ability unless the writer has a clear plan for his defeat.

In the end, there is an appeal to his emotional side by Supergirl and his X-Ray vision wasn’t working properly so he didn’t notice that she was holding something. Just his detailed vision should have been enough for that. As for Supergirl, she doesn’t look very good here. We get more insight into the whole thing in her comic series (Which I already read from this arc) but it still doesn’t excuse how gullible she looks. This takes place towards the beginning of her career, but common sense should have still been enough to guide her away from working for H’el. The guy acts openly evil from the start.

The art is solid as I’ve come to expect from DC. The fight scenes transition into each other very nicely and all of the characters look good. It’s been one of the best parts of the New 52 as all of the mainstream DC titles have looked great with the exception of the Batman series, where I have not cared for the art so much. Particularly the Eternal series, but the main ones don’t look great either. The vibrant colors here suit Superman.

I definitely seemed to grab a lot of negatives in this review, but they really all boil down to the writing angle. I don’t think that the writer really understands the characters too well and Superman snapping and blowing up at everyone just doesn’t feel right. The drama between him and Lois is even worse when you consider the fact that Superman had just gotten together with Wonder Woman an issue or two ago. Makes him look even more petty right? That’s still the only real negative here though as besides the portrayals, the rest of the comic was solid. We still had good art and a lot of solid fights with high stakes.

Overall, This is a solid comic to check out. I’m always happy to see another Kryptonian on board even if H’el ends up being just another guy for Superman to fight. He doesn’t really do anything for me on the personality front and his romance with Supergirl isn’t handled well, but at least he knows how to throw a punch. With the solar system in danger, the threat is certainly real. While some plots like the Lex Luthor one weren’t really needed, they weren’t terrible. The writing will never make you cringe, you’ll just shake your head in skepticism at times. I’m looking forward to seeing how the next two volumes handle these issues as I’ve already got them on the shelf. I expect Superman to look better in those even if the action scenes drop a little there. Seeing the Justice League have a cameo was certainly enjoyable and if they fought H’el, I like to think that they could have done a good stopping him. It should be noted that this comic does jump all over the place as DC doesn’t even try to make the comics transition into each other. If you want to really see what’s happening here, you’ll have to buy 2-3 other graphic novels. It’s odd as collections usually try to include everything, but there have been exceptions like Supergirl and New Avengers. It’s not a big deal though as you can still follow what’s happening and enjoy the fight scenes. Of course, if you want to check out a Superman comic that really hits it out of the park, check out Superman Unchained. That’s still the greatest comic book of all time!

Overall 7/10

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation Review

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Mission Impossible has always been a fun series and I was looking forward to this film. It was one of the few films that I thought had a chance to dethrone Pixels. It turns out that this wasn’t a very tough feat at all, but the film did not disappoint. Aside from Age of Ultron, this one’s easily the best film that I’ve seen in theaters this year from the live action titles. Off the top of my head it manages to dethrone MI 4 and the original film as the definitive best title, but it has been quite a while since I’ve seen those.

Ethan Hunt has been helping the IMF for quite a while, but it cannot be denied that there is typically a lot of collateral damage. As such, the organization is disbanded and the CIA claims its assets. Ethan goes off the grid to try and learn more about a shadow organization that has been committing acts of terrorism across the globe. Months later, Ethan has finally gotten a solid link on the adversaries and calls in one of his old partners, Benji, to help him with this fight. Together along with a member of the Syndicate (Shadow Organization) who claims to not be loyal to the cause, the three heroes embark on this perilous journey.

Naturally, this is the kind of film where you don’t really want to trust anyone. The characters could turn on each other at any minute and what’s a Mission Impossible film without a few twists and obstacles? That being said, if you believe in the Hollywood style enough, you should be able to see through most of the film’s deceptions. Now, why was this film a cut above the rest? It all goes down to a few elements.

For starters, the writing is good in this movie. As it’s essentially a battle of wits between Ethan and Solomon, the writing needed to be good or things could have gotten pretty dicey. Both characters try to stay one step ahead of the other, although it’s a much tougher task for Ethan since he has no resources for most of the adventure and has to make do with what he’s got. Solomon also has an entire organization to back him up.

The action scenes are pretty fun. There’s a motorcycle race between Ethan and the villains as they all cruise along at top speeds. Ethan has experience in all speeding vehicles so he’s definitely prepared for such a challenge. It’s definitely the best action sequence in the film and does a good job of showing Ethan’s skills as an agent. There’s also a car chase and then the stunt scenes like Ethan going underwater or hanging onto an airplane. Those were all fairly well done and holding one’s breath for so long is a good feat.

The hand to hand battles are also nice and fast paced. They’re a little more violent than the older films as the heroes literally break their opponents a lot of time. For current fight scenes, the trend is to hear the bones breaking and put a lot of emphasis on when the heroes pull a General Zod moment, but it never gets too over the top and you can still appreciate how skilled Ethan is when he’s fighting off the opponents.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m definitely a big fan of the character. Ethan’s been a consistently solid agent since the first film and his skills have improved. He’s not portrayed as being invincible in hand to hand combat as a random thug was overpowering him in a fair fight, but he makes up for that with his other skills. Like James Bond, Ethan has a license to kill and he gives it a real workout here. He’s essentially a legal assassin so you shouldn’t expect him to take any prisoners. It’s simply not his way. That being said, compared to other secret agents who do whatever they want in the process of completing the mission like James Bond or even Jason Bourne, Ethan is simply better at the job. He’s far more professional than James Bond and I’d say that he’s smarter than Bourne.

That being said, the film probably does rub our nose in it a little too much. I don’t believe that Ethan could successfully follow the Syndicate around the world for months without his government status. He somehow manages to also stay one step ahead of the CIA along the way and makes himself a base filled with lots of high tech equipment. I definitely think that it’s a stretch, but Mission Impossible is all about doing the impossible so it’s not something to think about too much. Plot hax is always around if you know where to look.

While Ethan is easily my favorite character in the film, I also like Brandt. He’s the connection on the government side of things and he almost could have been the main character if not for Ethan always stealing the spotlight. He acts like a leader and he’s quite skilled although he’s no Ethan Hunt. Without Brandt helping with the legal aspects of the situation, Ethan would have likely been doomed. Benji is a big player in this film, but I can’t say that I’m a fan. He’s not a bad character, but I feel like he doesn’t really add anything to the film except to be there for when Ethan needs an extra man. I would have preferred Brandt to have been the co-star, but he was definitely needed in the CIA plot.

Another one of Ethan’s friends, Luther shows up during the film. After the opening scene, he essentially vanished until the halfway point or maybe even later. He’s good and his computer skills are top notch. He doesn’t get much to do compared to the other members, but he helps out when the team is in a pinch. The leader of the CIA was a fairly likable character and you couldn’t help, but root for him at times. He always meant well and looking at things from his perspective, it’s hard to deny that he made some good calls. Destroying the IMF? It’s probably a good idea, but he would need to have a backup squad ready ASAP before the villains got any ideas.

As for the villains, let’s start off with Solomon. He’s actually a good villain who thinks things through and did a good job of outsmarting the heroes for a while. He has one “intimidation” scene that will make you wince and/or roll your eyes, but that was the only scene where he wasn’t impressive. I like how he turned the whole “Should you accept it” speech around on Ethan. He did it twice, but the first time was certainly the best moment. It really came out of nowhere and while we knew that the villain would make a move, it’s safe to say that nobody expected it to be so epic. It made the wait for the rematch that much more epic.

There were other villains like the “Bone Doctor” who gave the film some fights. Beyond them, the other big character would be the heroine, Ilsa. Throughout the film, you have to decide if you will trust her or not. I give the film some major props for not trying to turn her into a love interest for Ethan. That would have been pretty terrible and most films make that mistake, but not this one. Ilsa is used for some slight fanservice in one or two scenes, but it’s slight at least and not played up. (As it would certainly be in a lesser film) Ilsa’s a good character, but at the same time, she doesn’t think about her current situation enough. She takes a whole lot of risks for her country, but it goes into dicey territory with how unnecessary a lot of them are. She should realize that she’s just being used and act accordingly. Ilsa also came close to destroying Ethan on several occasions and you have to wonder if she meant to or not since depending on the answer, it does make her look bad. On the bright side, while it was at the expense of the British, the American Government looks nice and fair by comparison this time.

Rogue Nation has a lot of intense action scenes, but it’s also a lot of fun throughout and has a similar upbeat tone to that of The Avengers. People in the audience cracked up when the M16 chief got shot because of his extremely mild/dazed response. The film also has a good amount of witty banter about it. It never turns into full on comedy mode, but has enough light moments to keep you entertained throughout the film. It’s only around 2 hours, but the film really crams in a ton of content so the movie is always going.

I have to note that the film also uses a retro effect that I haven’t seen some time. Remember a few decades ago when the opening credits of a film would show scenes from the actual film that hadn’t happened yet? This one does that as the credits were rolling and it’s interesting. I’m actually not a huge fan of this since it’s showing you scenes that are about to happen, but I suppose that it could be a good way to generate hype. I dunno, I’m still against it, but it’s worth noting.

One thing that I liked about the ending was who the new recruit to the IMF was. It’s the perfect situation since as long as this person remains in the shadows, the IMF can do whatever they want. Of course, with no one to check on them, the IMF has to be very careful that they don’t go down a similar path like the Syndicate. As mentioned several times, Ethan is a gambler and the IMF takes a lot of huge risks. They will fail sometimes, but at least they still save lives whenever they enter the field.

Finally, I can’t forget to mention that the soundtrack is really good. The opening theme that played sounded an awful lot like a Terminator remix and then we also got the classic MI theme a few times during the film. It was a great selection of themes to be sure and they helped to make the film even more fun than it could have been. It’s safe to say that no other live action film this year will be able to defeat this film except for possibly Star Wars and even that only has a really slim shot. Mission Impossible is just too fun a franchise and can hold its own with any big title.

Overall, Rogue Nation is another win for the Mission Impossible series. On the record, I believe that it is the best MI title to date, but the series has had a good track record of aging well so it’s possible that the older titles will age slower than this one and overtake it. We shall see, but I don’t see myself lowering this score anytime soon so they will have to catch up to it. With fun fight scenes and an epic soundtrack, this film had all the tools needed to be a winner. There are a lot of things that can happen in the next film since it’s essentially a clean slate right now. If you want to check out an action film, this is the perfect one for you.

Overall 8/10