Tag Archives: Thriller

The Indestructible Man Review

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It’s time to look at an old school monster type film. I’m not talking creatures here, but a human monster. It plays out pretty much like you would expect and is essentially like the Electric Monster film. My biggest complaint is really just the fact that they waste Lon Chaney here since you can barely even tell that it’s him with all the makeup effects. They may as well have gotten just about anybody. Chaney is at his best when he’s talking so why give him a role where he can’t speak?

The film starts off with Chasen narrating about how tough things were about to be. He’s a detective and as such he does a lot of monologue scenes. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. A criminal known as the Butcher has been caught at last and is about to die. Before he passes, one of his fellow crooks named Paul tries to get him to spill the beans about where the stolen money is. Butcher doesn’t reveal this, but he does say that he’ll come back from the dead to destroy Paul. Paul doesn’t believe the threats, but Butcher ends up coming back to life thanks to some electricity experiments from a pair of scientists. Now Butcher intends to murder Paul and two other crooks so that he can reclaim the money and his friend Eva. Well, he doesn’t know that they’re “just friends” Eva hasn’t told him that part yet. Chasen is put on the case to stop this guy, but what can he do against a bulletproof monster?

If you’ve seen enough creature features you can probably call this one beat for beat. It doesn’t try to do anything outside the box or anything like that. It just gives you exactly what you’re expecting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but there’s not much to make this a memorable experience either. You could substitute the Butcher for Frankenstein and it wouldn’t make a difference. Still, Butcher’s a reasonably fun villain. I just wish he could talk since he made for a much more interesting villain before he died. If anything he ends up getting out shined by Paul in the present. Paul’s a quick thinker and has some good plans. For example, punching one of the police officers was smart since they had to arrest him for that. Honestly I wouldn’t trust them to keep me safe from the Butcher, but it beats wandering the streets right?

Thing is, Butcher isn’t particularly fast so whenever he catches someone it is only because that person tripped or boxed themselves in. He racks up an impressive body count so people tended to underestimate him. Even several cops were taken down which was a little surprising since usually the villain is taken down a little sooner than that. Trust me, you’ll be surprised at how many guys get bumped off by this character. I guess he earned the name.

As for our lead Chasen, he’s not terrible but he could be better. He’s very overconfident and while he is a good detective, his confidence isn’t always warranted. He takes forever to solve cases and only manages to clear this one because Butcher isn’t exactly subtle. He’s also very presumptuous as he gets Eva fired from her job before even telling her about this. He just assumes that she would want to marry him over keeping her job so naturally that would mean that he made the right call right? It’s the kind of scene that certainly wouldn’t happen nowadays, but in retro films like this one the romance was always super direct like this. They met and the next day it was time to be married. Naturally you can tell that this is not a romance plot I could get behind.

As for Eva, she didn’t seem like a great character. Everyone pushes her around and she may have been rather misleading with the Butcher. She actually left her envelope filled with possible riches in front of a super shady guy while she went off to do her performance. Keep in mind that the door is open so anyone could wander into her room at any time. As a result she doesn’t notice when the guy swiped her treasure map. She’s just not the smartest cookie around.

Meanwhile the police chief was pretty fun. Naturally he is a little out of his depth, but the guy does have good plans and is pretty reasonable. Most chiefs would have just told Chasen no dice as soon as he started talking, but this guy did hear him out which is a considerable improvement. In general the writing was pretty solid here. I’d give the pacing a thumbs up as well. The movie may not have particularly excelled in any areas, but it didn’t really make any mistakes either. The film is consistent and that is always a good skill to have.

Overall, The Indestructible Man is a solid film. It’s a classic monster story even if it never does try to be anything more than that. My main negative would still be the fact that Butcher just doesn’t look enough like Chaney. Imagine how much more humorous the film could be if you had Chaney chasing everyone with his classic monotone voice. It would have likely elevated this film quite a bit. If you haven’t seen the movie yet then I’d recommend changing that. If you’ve already seen a bunch of other films in this genre then there isn’t much of a rush though. It’s not as if this is a film that anyone will ever bring up in day to day life so you likely won’t get exposed for missing it.

Overall 7/10

Need For Speed Underground 2 Review

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It’s time to look at a Need For Speed game that I’ve been working on buying for many years. I beat the first Underground a while back, but I just hadn’t gotten around to buying this one. Well, recently I bought around 6-7 games in the series so now I can go on a little roll. This game was incredibly long so clearing the story was a daunting task, but one that I was prepared for. It’s definitely a great racing game with content that will last you a long time.

The story starts out with a bang as your character is ambushed by someone and your car as well as all of your money is stolen. People don’t remember you without the car so now you’ll have to start from scratch. Fortunately, a rich lady appears and agrees to help you out in exchange for conquering the Underground circuit. You decide to do so with one motive at hand, you want to crush Caleb, the guy who stole your stuff. Can you make it to the top or will he sabotage you before then?

I do like how the game continues from the first with this intro. It’s even a good in universe reason to explain why you’re back at the bottom even if people forgetting your name is a bit of a stretch. Still, the actual premise beats the execution. There aren’t a whole lot of cutscenes in this game and it’s not like the main character ever even appears. The cutscenes are done in comic book format and use moving stills rather than animation. So, the games have some room for improvement in the story, but at least this one did have a real story. I’ll give the title some credit there.

The gameplay is certainly on point. It brings you back to the simpler days of racing as you just drive to the goal using your skills. Eventually you are given the option to add a booster, but that’s as far out as it’ll go. As I’ve mentioned in the past, having a booster isn’t bad. It’s still pure racing and there’s a reason why Need for Speed is so well known. The franchise is just really good at doing what it does best, getting you into the zone. You’ll be dominating the rest of the cars by the end of the game as you master the controls and keep on improving your car.

You better make sure your car is on point because there are over 200 races in the game and if you have to replay all of them a few times to win…then you’re going to be here for a long while. You can clear the game after around 150 races at least, but that’s still a lot. The game is around 20 hours long and 100% completing it will take significantly longer than that. To help ease the repetition you can also go to shops and spruce up your ride a bit. Switching up how it looks should help quite a bit in the long run since it’ll feel like you’re racing an entirely different vehicle.

One thing to watch out for is the game’s visual reputation gimmick. There are 5 stages in the game and to get to the next one you always have to increase your car’s star value. The max is 10 and you typically need to increase it by 2 for every stage. So if you have run out of levels on a stage that is probably why you haven’t been able to go forward yet. Speaking of which, there are several kinds of races. First are the standard Circuit ones. Just drive to the goal to win. Then you have the best ones which are Drift. Just keep on turning to wrack up points and you’ll usually win the races by a rather huge margin to be honest. Street X races are sort of like mini races. You have to out drive the other cars on a very narrow track. Drag races are the toughest ones as you have to manually switch gears at the perfect time to win. The best thing to do is leave these til the end where you can cheese them with your booster.

The races that advance the plot are the URL ones which are typically a series of 2-3 races. Once you beat them then you move on. I do think it’s a little annoying how the game makes the races so long by the end though. Some races can go on for 6-10 minutes straight so when you lose them you’ve just lost a lot of time. I think a good race should always be 3-4 minutes tops. If you get beyond that then the race is too long. It’s almost a case of having too much content, but it’s under the same logic of how save points should be frequent and easy to access.

The graphics definitely look very solid here. It was definitely an interesting move to have the whole game take place at night. Honestly by the end I was hoping for some daylight levels, but the screens still look good. The cars are quite sharp and I always like the boost effect. It’s safe to say that these areas hold up. Unfortunately the soundtrack does not. I ended up having to turn off most of the music themes in the game and the ones that I left on aren’t exactly great. It’s a very weak soundtrack which isn’t all that surprising as EA in general tends to overdo it with their selection. Still, you don’t hear the tunes quite as much when you’re playing Madden and in general I think that series was better at it.

Overall, Need For Speed Underground 2 is a great racing game. You really can’t ask for much more out of the genre. It’s got a story and over 200 races. There is also a multiplayer mode to have fun with. I see this as being the definitive Need For Speed title, but we’ll see if it can hold on to that. Next up is Most Wanted which seems to have a better story and it finally brings in the pursuit mechanics, but it may come at the expense of a multiplayer mode. Either way I’ll start on that one soon, but with Kingdom Hearts III coming out it may take a little longer to complete than I would have expected otherwise. If you haven’t played this game yet then you should change that. It’s definitely a title that you will want up your sleeve.

Overall 8/10

Christopher Robin Review

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It’s time to look at this recent Winnie The Pooh spinoff that came out in theaters. It’s the kind of film where the trailer doesn’t really speak to you as it’s more of a subdued experience. Still, films like this can be fairly emotional if handled right and that’s certainly what you expect to see. This ends up being a good film. Christopher is definitely really annoying though, but the rest of the cast are able to hold their own as they remind him what it means to be a quality character.

The film starts off with a bit of a montage showing Christopher growing up. He used to hang out at 100 Acres with the rest of the animals, but as he grew up he started to forget the place. By the time he was a grown up he convinced himself that they weren’t real and he had simply been imagining them. (That must have taken a lot of self-brain washing tbh) He is now working at a classic 9-5 job where the company is going under. His boss instructs him to fire a lot of his colleagues in order to keep the company afloat. The problem is that this will require him to work the weekend when he had planned to spend it with his family. He also isn’t thrilled about firing everybody, but is ready to make the hard calls if necessary. Will he ultimately choose the job over his family?

It appears so. Fortunately, Pooh is coming home to get Christopher. See, at 100 Acres all of his friends have vanished. He needs Christopher to find them, but the journey will be tougher than he thought possible since Chris has renounced his ties to his friends. Gone is the nice kid who would help out all the time. All that remains is a shell of his former self, a man who is stuck being the Yes Man at his company. Pooh’s going to have to try and teach him what it means to be a good friend.

Well, you can tell that I didn’t like Chris. He’s just really mean to everyone the whole film. The worst part is that he plays the victim card the whole time. He acts like he’s doing this for everyone else when that isn’t the case. One example of this is how he wants to send Madeline to boarding school despite his wife Evelyn pointing out that this will not be for the best. Chris likes the idea since he was sent to boarding school, but look at how he turned out from there? Then he doesn’t stand up to his boss at all and doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. Christopher’s character arc is pretty obvious from the start. You know that he will ultimately see the light so the thing to look for in this kind of arc is how bad the character gets before he starts to turn things around.

Some characters manage to not fall too far down the rabbit hole in the mean time while others really go over the bend. Unfortunately, Christopher is the latter case. It’s impossible to sympathize with the guy since all of his troubles are of his own making. Lets take the weekend trip. Sure, this is important so maybe Christopher should be at the meeting. Well, he still could have gone to the summer house for the first day since the meeting wasn’t til the next day. He could play with Madeline and Evelyn at that point and then work through the night before driving back. Sure, he’ll be sleep deprived, but that’s the kind of sacrifice he should be able/willing to make in order to please his family. What’s a few sleepless nights if it’ll calm down the household?

Throughout the film Christopher acts like he has no choice when there are so many easy ones. Closing the door when the others are trying to dance was also pretty rude. He puts his job ahead of his family with the justification that it’ll make things better once they’re old, but that’s no good. You gotta live life to the fullest now and don’t worry about the future like that. Once you’re old you won’t be able to enjoy things quite as much as you could back in the day anyway so the logic is just backwards. As long as your situation is livable then you’re fine.

Meanwhile, Evelyn and Madeline were all right. They were fairly reasonable characters and were at least here to help guilt trip Chris through his character arc. Without them around his arc wouldn’t really have much of a purpose so they’re definitely necessary. I’m glad they did get to see some action towards the climax of the film at least. If we ever get a sequel where the characters have to fight monsters in 100 Acres I definitely expect them to participate.

As for Pooh and his friends, they were pretty solid as well. Pooh may not be the smartest bear in the bunch, but the guy has heart. Plus, technically none of the animals are all that smart so it’s not like Pooh gets out shined by the others there. None of them are able to come to terms with the fact that they are not supposed to know how to talk in the human world. He does what he can to help instill life lessons in his friends. The voice is also iconic. Then we’ve got his friends who are all nice enough. The best one is the donkey-like creature who is always being a downer. His lines are all pretty genuine and you can’t help but feel bad for the guy. Aside from Pooh I think it’s safe to say that he got the biggest role from all of the stuffed animal creatures.

I’d say that this film shines in its ability to avoid the negatives. There isn’t really much wrong with the film. The pacing is pretty good and the plot’s interesting. Those are the two fundamentals you need for a good film so I could definitely recommend this one. Pretty much anyone could watch this film and have a good time of it. Once in a while you may get a scene that’s a little too silly to take seriously like Christopher fighting off invisible opponents, but for the most part the movie takes itself seriously. You will feel bad for Christopher’s house by the time Pooh is done with it though.

Overall, Christopher Robin was a fun film. The lead did his best to drag it down, but the other characters remained. I do have to say that I was surprised we didn’t really get closure with the neighbor who wanted to play cards. Admittedly that guy did seem a bit iffy, but if Chris had expressed interest in playing in the first place then he was leading the guy on. He should have given a firm “No” and that would have been the end of that. Maybe in a sequel the guy would appear and now they would get along better since Chris is a changed man. If you haven’t seen this film yet and are looking for an emotional experience then I’d recommend checking this one out. You won’t look at Pooh the same way again.

Overall 6/10

Dragon Ball Super: Broly Review

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The new Dragon Ball Z film has been getting a lot of hype so far and with good reason. It brings back the ultimate Saiyan known as Broly and re-imagines his character under the Super banner. As the first two movies came out before Super was even a thing, this is effectively the first film in the series. It’s certainly an excellent starting point as this makes my top 3 films for the franchise. It pretty much does nothing wrong.

The film starts off with a long flashback showing how Broly escaped Planet Vegeta along with Goku, Raditz, Nappa, Vegeta, Paragus, Beets, and other Saiyans. With how these saiyans lived it is feasible that more could pop up at some point which would be hype. Of course you ultimately know how this part of the film is going to end. Frieza wipes everyone out and then we cut back to the present. Pargaus and Broly have survived on their desolate planet for decades until two of Frieza’s bounty hunters show up and recruit them to the cause. Frieza may not like Saiyans but even he will admit that they are useful in combat. He decides to use Broly to finally destroy Goku and Vegeta, but can this Saiyan accomplish such a feat?

Naturally the film excels because of the present era scenes. The flashback part is fun and all, but the whole time you’re just waiting for the big fights. Still, I’ll quickly get this part out of the way. There’s been a lot of talk about how different Bardock is here compared to his original version. That one still has more personality and heart but this heroic one works well enough I suppose. He’s just not going to be the Bardock that you’re used to. King Vegeta is the same as always, he’s as scared and fearful as ever.

In the flashbacks, Paragus is actually the best character. He really wants to save Broly and does a good job of rebelling away from the Saiyans and getting to him. It’s a shame that he ultimately goes kind of crazy and starts resorting to shock treatment. That’s the point where you definitely can’t root for him anymore. He’s simply too far gone by that point. Still, he was cool while he lasted I suppose. There’s not much more to say about the intro. It’s handled as well as a flashback can be.

The film really starts once Goku and Vegeta arrive at the ice continent. Of course Broly is there with the gang and he quickly starts the fight with Vegeta. Here’s where the power levels start coming into play. It’s a good thing that the scanner broke since it seemed to be stopping at a power level under 100,000 for Broly’s base mode which would make absolutely no sense. Considering that his base mode seemed to be above Super Saiyan God level, it would be in the billions/trillions. Throwing out the scouters is always a really good idea if we’re being honest.

So, Broly is so strong that in base form he’s fighting Super Saiyan Blue. You can see how crazy this is. You almost feel like by the time he goes Super Saiyan he should be way above the others. It’s hard to say, but his Super Saiyan does still seem to be different from the normal levels like in the original films. With the way it taps into his primal form it acts like Super Saiyan 4. It’s hard to say what the multiplier on it is, but to be safe we can say it’s a 50X boost like with SSJ1. It makes perfect sense that Goku and Vegeta even while teaming up can’t handle that. It would have made no sense if they could so I’m glad they were getting steamrolled. Throwing in fusion is always a good way to remedy this since it multiplies your abilities which still makes it the strongest option.

As of this movie, it’s fair to say that the power levels play out like this. 1. Vegito/Gogeta 2. Final Form Broly 3. Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku 4. Jiren 5. Broly 6. Kefla 7. Vegeta Super Saiyan Blue Beyond 7. Goku Kaio Ken Blue 8. Toppo, then from there it gets tricky. I think it’s fair to put Beerus somewhere to close out the top 10 I guess. If not, he at least cracks top 20. I’d say that the angels should be around 5-6 level. Still, it’s cool that not counting fusions Broly is the strongest being in the series. This isn’t counting spinoffs like Heroes where he does have some serious competition. I’m sure Broly will only get stronger here although based on the ending I don’t think we’d see Broly at this level again for quite some time.

His sheer durability with how many times he would just get up again was most impressive. The guy just wouldn’t stay down and showed a lot more determination than the other characters. In particular Vegeta didn’t really treat the fight with as much seriousness as you’d expect. He very quickly bowled out of the ring once he was knocked down. I like to think he would be fighting harder if the stakes were higher, but I suppose he doesn’t care quite as much since Beerus and Whis are still here so they could handle things if worse comes to worse.

While Vegeta was ultimately no match it was still nice of him to help Broly get into fighting shape to take on Goku. As always they show that Vegeta seems to be a little weaker in each of his forms in comparison to Goku. Goku just seems to know more hand to hand skills and even other energy abilities that Vegeta does not have a handle on. Since Goku has no Ultra Instinct anymore (At least he can’t activate it at will) I’d give Vegeta the overall edge since I’d consider Super Saiyan Blue 2 to be superior to the Kaio Ken since it has more stamina, but it is close. Vegeta will need a new form if Goku ever masters Ultra Instinct. Overall, Vegeta was pretty solid here. Still the second fiddle and all, but he puts up a reasonable fight.

Of course Goku also does pretty good here. While he’s definitely outmatched, Goku actually does start to hold his own once he enters Super Saiyan God mode. The rest of the forms are so much weaker than Broly’s base that there isn’t much point in using them for long. I also do like that he tries to enter Ultra Instinct even if it didn’t quite work. Had he tapped into that and ended the fight quickly he probably could have won. I think Super Saiyan Broly would be too much for him, but the base mode he could handle. Goku did a good job in realizing that something was up with Broly the whole time. Even if he was a little naive about Frieza, Goku definitely looked solid here.

While Broly stole the show, his two sidekicks were pretty reasonable as well. Cheelai and Lemo are these two characters. Lemo is an old pilot who’s seen his fair share of action. I don’t tend to be a fan of the old character whose only trait seems to be his age, but the guy was pretty reasonable here. Cheelai is also solid as she steals the zapper with ease and is supportive for Broly the whole time. He definitely managed to find two pretty good friends so I wouldn’t mind if they continue to show up. I do hope they don’t get taken hostage in a future film though, that would just be annoying.

Of course Frieza also gets a big role here. He didn’t plan to attack the heroes just yet, but Broly changes things. Still, since Frieza hasn’t trained yet he has still fallen behind the main heroes in power by a considerable amount. He’s honestly not a threat to them as he is now. Still, I don’t get why he didn’t jump in to try and finish the heroes while Broly was fighting. Taking on a weakened Vegeta would have made sense, especially since they had no senzu beans handy. It just seemed a bit odd that Frieza was watching the whole time. I almost feel like it would have been better for Frieza to never have made it to Earth and to just send Broly and Paragus there. It would have made a little more sense. Still, it was cool to see him get to fight Broly a bit so I’m glad that was included.

Of course the animation is top notch. It’s all very smooth and the fights operate at a high speed. I was certainly concerned when the first animated teaser came out for the film because it all looked very off, but the rest of the film looks a lot more traditional. Once the full trailers came out I knew it was going to be hype and the action delivers. It’s all very high end and you can tell that a lot of work was put into it. I’m still not sure about the CGI stuff, but as little clips here and there it’s not bad. I think it would be great if the video game attacks could all look like that. It’s a CGI style that I do like and I wouldn’t mind watching a whole film that way. The hand drawn parts are vastly superior but the CGI is pretty solid.

So there is one slight negative here. It’s not quite something that would hurt the score, but a little noticeable nonetheless. The soundtrack here is considerably weaker than the last few. Battle of Gods had the fun Flow song, Resurrection F had a ton of themes that were all amazing. This one….fell flat by the end. I liked the trailer themes, those were hype when they showed up. Mainly the one from the original trailer is very epic and fits the suspenseful tone. Then for the climax we get an odd rap type song which really doesn’t work.

The lyrics are painful as it’s just the main character names being repeated over and over again. It won’t take you out of the fight as it’s too well animated for that to happen but it doesn’t enhance the fight. A good musical theme should make a fight scene pop out even more or at least keep up the tempo. This one is almost Pokemon level (for some parts of the series) where you just want to mute the music so you can enjoy the fights more. It was really just this theme that fell flat, but since it played for the final fight you’ll remember it a lot more than you would like to.

Considering that this is the only negative you can already see how the film is in a good spot. The writing is on point and the film’s pacing is excellent. While we get some comedy it’s handled pretty well as opposed to the iffy Roshi/Oolong type of scenes. Frieza’s wish is probably stretching it quite a bit, but the sooner we all acknowledge Frieza as more of a comic relief type villain than a serious threat the more it’ll start to make sense. He just can’t hang with the big boys right now, he’ll need some kind of big power up to do that.

Overall, This is exactly what you want to see in a Dragon Ball film. Broly fighting the Saiyans is excellent and the fights are basically nonstop by the end. Keeping Whis and Beerus on the sidelines is always a good idea so they don’t get in the way of the real fighters. As always, it’s going to be very tough to top this one. If anyone can do it, DBZ can but it’ll still be a tough order. How do you top someone like Broly? Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for the next film/TV series.

Overall 9/10

The Ghost of Frankenstein Review

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It’s time to look at another Frankenstein film. This one brings back the classic monster for another round. It’s a pretty uninspired sequel that doesn’t have much going for it, but I suppose it wasn’t quite as terrible as some of the other Frankenstein films. It would have probably worked a lot better if there was actually a ghost rather than Frankenstein;s monster just showing up like normal once again. After all, it’s just like any other Return of Frankenstein type film in this scenario.

The film starts with the villagers still living in fear after the reign of Frankestein. They tell the mayor that he needs to let them burn down the old house so they can be rid of his curse once and for all. He gives them permission but the explosions and fire help wake the monster from his slumber. Ygor manages to help him escape and decides that it is finally time for revenge. To this end he locates a scientist by the name of Ludwig and blackmails him into co-operating. Are the villagers about to go through another dark age? (Well, Frankenstein’s monster isn’t quite that tough so this may be a little overly dramatic.

It’s a little hard to know who to root for here since all of the characters are a bit iffy. While at first Ludwig seems a little reasonable, his mad scientist nature starts to overpower him by the end as he makes some dicey decisions. Even considering dissecting the monster shows that he is not on the heroic side here. His assistant is no better and may be even more corrupt. Then you have Ygor who wants the monster’s power for himself so he can destroy the townsfolk. Even Frankenstein the creator shows up as a ghost to suggest brain transplants. Basically, the monster is just a means to an end for most of these characters. They barely care what happens to him, they just want to achieve their own goals.

That could have ended up being an interesting plot point. Maybe try to get us to sympathize with the monster more than the townspeople that he was supposedly terrorizing. After all, they seemed to be the actual corrupt ones most of the time. In almost every situation in the movie they were in the wrong. Take the early scene where some kids are picking on a little girl. The monster steps in to break it up and also gets her a balloon. The problem is that the townspeople were afraid of him and so they try to stop him. One even comes close to shooting the monster while he was holding the girl. Even if he didn’t hit her directly, the fall would have certainly finished her off. The other people tried to wrestle him to the ground and again…this wouldn’t bode well for the kid. They’re on top of a roof after all.

Naturally the monster doesn’t handle this well and destroys the humans but they put him into a lot of bad spots. Then even once they promised not to hurt him they beat him up as soon as the girl was away. It’s just a very rough film for the monster. Then he ends up effectively being mind controlled by the end. The film gave him a pretty bad hand and it’s just hard to figure out how much of that was intentional. I think it’s fair to say that we aren’t supposed to like Ludwig and the other scientists. The whole town though? It gets tricky.

Ygor also makes for a pretty annoying main villain. He stands out so much, how do the people not realize that he is one of the villains on the outside encouraging the monster the whole time? He has the blackmail on Ludwig, but I feel like the scientist should have been able to turn the tables on him very quickly. Why should anyone believe such a crazed man? That would have been Ludwig’s defense and I think it would have worked.

There’s a lot of story here and yet there isn’t a whole lot of compelling elements. What we do get is pretty by the books without anything to really help it into the next level. There are just no characters to root for and that’s the problem. Even if Frankenstein’s monster isn’t evil like the others, he isn’t particularly interesting either. As a result you end up being by the sidelines as opposed to actually choosing a side.

Overall, I’d give this film a pass. In general I tend to say that for all of the Frankenstein movies. They all suffer from the same issues. Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t have enough going for him to make for a good villain and doesn’t have enough character to be a good hero. The supporting cast are typically pretty annoying and the whole thing ends up being unfair for the monster. It’s not like he can even defend himself in most versions vocally since he can’t speak. As a result, every character can lie or gang up against him and he never even has a chance to prove his innocence. That’s the worst part of this whole arrangement. What helps this film a bit is that it isn’t quite as violent as the early Frankenstein titles. There isn’t really any action until after the court scene and by then you’re around halfway through the film. That actually works in its favor and the first half of the film does beat the second. Still, it ends up falling through the usual Frankenstein plots.

Overall 3/10

Gremlins Review

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It’s time to look at a fairly old film which has become really well known. You’ll likely have heard of the Gremlins even if you haven’t seen the film before. Going into it you may think that this is going to be a pretty intense horror film, but it actually blends together some comedic aspects along with being part parody. It manages the blend fairly well which automatically makes it better than most horror films. It’s so convincing at being a horror movie that it’ll probably take you a while to really establish any kind of opinion on it, but by the end you’ll have to give it some thought. I doubt we’ll see another film blend two genres like this so smoothly again in the near future.

The film starts off with the best character, Randall trying to sell his crazy inventions to more people. The main problem he is having is that aside from none of his inventions working, the buyers just don’t seem interested. That’s when he finds a rare animal that is being kept in a shady shop in China Town. He buys it and brings the creature home. There are only 3 rules that must be kept with the creature. He must not make contact with water, he must not be fed after midnight, and he must not be exposed to bright lights or the sun as that can cause the monster to die. He gives Billy this bundle of responsibility, but can the kid handle it?

As I mentioned, Randall steals the show. He’s a perfect example of a comic relief character who is actually handled well. His humor scenes work quite well and he’s just a nice guy. Randall means well even if his actions don’t always lead to the positive outcomes that he was hoping for. Stuff happens right? He’s part of why the film was able to establish such a good balance. He keeps it from getting too dark or serious. The only downside is that in comparison the main characters just aren’t very good. Before that, we have the other parent who also looks great. Lynn ends up having to defend her house from multiple gremlins and she does a good job of it. She blends one, smashes another, and is basically taking names the whole time. This is where the parody elements really help the film. Typically you’d expect her to just be screaming and running away rather than fighting back. Here, Lynn isn’t playing around. She’s defending her house and doing a great job of it. She’s another scene stealer.

Then we have the actual lead, Billy. Billy can barely hold his own against one Gremlin so right away you know that he is pretty much doomed. He doesn’t do a good job of looking after Gizmo either. He constantly lets things happen to him. How can you mess up not letting Gizmo getting wet or keeping him near bright lights? Billy makes every mistake possible. Part of it can be blamed on his friend Pete who is super annoying the whole time, but you gotta be more responsible when you own mythical creatures like this.

Meanwhile you have Gizmo who is the most heroic of the gremlins, but naturally he is the weakest as well. It’s always an unfortunate trope as you’d like the heroic one to be able to defend himself right? Well, that just wasn’t the case this time. He’s not a bad character but I do admit that he would have been better if he had gotten to fight a little more. Mostly all he does he sit around and watch everyone else. Then we have the heroine, Kate who may not be quite as skilled as Lynn or Randall, but she does all right for herself. Choosing to serve the gremlins was definitely a smart move to extend her life. I didn’t get her whole blowing up at Christmas scene. I’m assuming it has to do with some kind of sob story so I’m glad the film didn’t really elaborate on it.

On that note, the romance with her and Billy was very weak. It doesn’t really have anything to do with anything and just felt rather tacked on. I think the film didn’t need it. What also hurts the film a bit is how the Gremlins go after the dog and Billy doesn’t do anything about it. It’s obvious who the culprit is as the film goes on but he doesn’t put the pieces together. I mean, the old lady is a slight suspect, but how could she pull this off without making a sound? Honestly, it should have been impossible for the Gremlins as well. It’s a pretty bad scene all in all, but at least the dog lived and made it through this film which helps a lot. That saved the film from getting a horrible score.

While the writing is fairly reasonable for the most part, I do think the film dropped the ball with the conspiracy guy. These kind of films love to have one guy who believes in aliens or monsters and is constantly acting crazy. You’d expect him to be prepared when the enemies finally show up since he called it from the start right? Instead he ends up panicking and dies in one of the worst ways possible. It’s a “funny” scene that ends up falling flat. They didn’t need to do him like that. The character could have contributed a lot. The soundtrack is definitely really good though. We get a lot of classic Christmas songs which is always what you want to listen to here. The classics have aged well and giving this film a Christmas backdrop is nice. It helps to make the film more memorable and gives it a nice backdrop.

Overall, Gremlins is an interesting film. It’s certainly not the kind of film you might expect going in. It’s just a very unique blend of horror and comedy. It works reasonably well but there are still enough weak points to probably keep you from coming back to this one. If you really want to see what this blend is like then it’s not a bad film to check out. Otherwise I’d suggest you watch something with a bit more flair and hype like RWBY. That one can pull off any genre and perfect it.

Overall 5/10

Mad Love Review

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It’s time to look at an old horror film with Peter Lorre. You may wonder what this is doing here when I’ve mainly been reviewing Christmas films lately right? Well, basically I saw this film a while back for Halloween and then just never got around to reviewing it. The film’s pretty bad, but it’s also just rather boring so I kept putting it off. Well, this is currently the last review on the backlog so I can hardly afford to keep putting it off now right? Brace yourself!

So the film starts with the ever famous Yvonne finishing another performance. An obsessed fan by the name of Gogol shows up to let her know that he has been watching all of her shows. Yvonne quickly flees the country to reunite with Stephen, but the latter was in a train accident after being in the same car as a legendary knife throwing crook. Stephen can no longer play the piano as he once did. Yvonne feels bad for him so she goes to Gogol who is the utmost authority on this. He is able to stitch together the murderer’s hands on Stephen but pretends that he just sewed them back on. Stephen is as hard of sight as he is lacking in common sense so he doesn’t notice that his hands are different. Things start to get dicey for him though as the hands appear to have a life of their own. Meanwhile Gogol uses the distraction to try to get to Yvonne.

Gogol’s only goal in this whole film is to get together with Yvonne. This does not make for a very compelling villain motivation. In fact, it isn’t interesting at all. He’s just a terrible villain and all of his scenes drag down the film. Yvonne also should have taken his advances more seriously and alerted the cops or Stephen. Gogol gets away with a whole lot as he stalks her during the film and even crashes her party to take advantage of some crazy games they were all playing. Stephen is around but too busy wallowing in self pity to be of any help. In his defense Yvonne should have mentioned something, but I won’t cut him too much slack because he’s just not a good character. He’s too quick to freak out and should try to master his hands rather than let them control him.

In a way it almost makes you think Gogol was right to not tell him where the hands came from since Stephen would not have taken it well at all. At least the knife throwing does come in handy by the end of the film though. By that point the film is just about over so he cut it awful close. Meanwhile you just have to question how Gogol got his license to practice when he is so clearly insane. The guy isn’t even subtle and you have to feel bad for his patients. He gets distracted quite easily after all. Adding to the creep factor is the fact that he also bought a life sized statue of Yvonne to put in his room. His care taker even has to do her hair and everything.

Ah yes, that brings me to the care taker and the local police guy. Both of these characters are very slow on the uptake and don’t contribute a whole lot. The care taker does a lot of grumbling and snitches on Gogol a lot, but doesn’t do it in a very safe way. She puts her head on the line so many times. Then we have the police guy who isn’t all that interested in doing much. His “sleuthing” if you can call it that basically revolves around chatting with the Gogol’s maid. When it comes time to check the room out he takes so long that the villain gets to return. I usually like the police/detective characters but this guy just wasn’t effective at all. Take him out of the movie and I don’t think a whole lot would change. It would effectively still be the same film and that’s an issue.

At least we can take solace in the fact that this film’s plot would be a little harder to do nowadays. Since Yvonne is a famous singer/performer I expect she would at least have some bodyguards so they would notice a stalker. Even if she does not, security should be a bit tighter at the events and someone should realize that this guy is always around. His only defense is that he’s a world class doctor and that wouldn’t hold much water next to a celebrity. Yeah, I’m sure this plot is still being done regardless, but it’ll be so contrived that maybe the film wouldn’t take itself seriously and it would still be better than this one…maybe. Also, Peter Lorre wouldn’t be in it and he’s probably one of the worst actors I’ve seen so that’s already a plus.

Overall, Mad Love isn’t a good film. The title is pretty much a tip off to that. Films about villains who eagerly want the main heroine to appreciate them are often doomed to fail. This one sided romance breaks the villain instantly. You just can’t take him/her seriously after that. Then you also get mad at the main character(s) for not calling in backup right away. They wait until it is too dangerous or too late to call for help before thinking of it. The film’s fairly short, but even so I would recommend giving this one a pass. There just isn’t much to be salvaged or learned from this film. If you want a good thriller, watch something with a little more pop like the Yugioh films. This movie is best left forgotten.

Overall 3/10

Bumblebee Review

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It’s time to look at the new Transformers prequel/reboot that came out. I’ve never been a big fan of the live action Transformer films. The franchise is still awesome and the G1 animated film was excellent, but for some reason it just couldn’t make the jump to live action. A large part of this could likely be blamed on Michael Bay and the Transformers not getting enough the respect a franchise of its caliber should have. A good adaption should be amazing. This one isn’t quite there yet, but Bumblebee is certainly an improvement and is actually a good film overall.

The film starts with a really nice action scene on Cybertron as we see Optimus Prime and a lot of the classic Autobots dealing with a Decepticon invasion. They are being pushed back though and Prime decides that they have to fall back. He sends Bumblebee to Earth to protect it and ultimately they will all converge on the planet to set up a counter strike. Bumblebee manages to make it to Earth, but a Decepticon follows and breaks his voice box. He has also lost most of his memories. We then cut to the main heroine of the film, Charlie. Charlie’s going through a pretty tough time as her father died and was quickly replaced with a new one. She has yet to warm up to him and has started distancing herself from her family. Her life begins to change when she finds Bumblebee and he becomes her first friend. Can she help him protect Earth from incoming Decepticons or is this all too big for one person?

I can’t stress enough how awesome the first scene is. I would certainly watch a movie all about the Cybertron fights and I think it would very quickly go down as the best Transformers title. It would basically be a CGI film at that point but the human characters really aren’t necessary so that’s not a bad thing. There’s no reason why Transformers has to be live action, especially if it’s a prequel. It’s almost a bit of a tease since you know the bulk of this film will be on Earth, but a strong opener is always a good thing to have for any film so I think this was the right move.

Also, the action does stay at a high level even on Earth. The previous films didn’t really have any choreography. The characters would typically just slam each other with normal hits but there wasn’t much to the fight scenes beyond that. In this film you actually see a lot of good hand to hand combat. Bumblebee is a really small Autobot compared to most of the others so as you would expect he needs to fight with a lot of throws and judo combos. The film shows that to great effect and the fights here have so much more energy than previous films.

The special effects are also much better. The characters actually look like Autobots and Decepticons here as opposed to being generic robots in the last few films. The designs are very faithful to the source material. Cybertron itself looks amazing and all of the visuals are just top notch. The soundtrack is also quite good. A lot of big 80s songs pop up here. Sometimes back to back in the same scene. It’s always nostalgic to hear these tunes. I can’t say that I knew too many of them, but the style itself just feels very nostalgic right from the start. It helps make the human scenes more fun.

Jack steals the show here as far as the human characters are concerned. From the start he suspects that the Decepticons are up to no good and is pretty reasonable about it. As he explains….their name is the Deceptiocns! That should be the end of the story. Unfortunately he is outvoted by the top brass so he is forced to work with the Decepticons, but I like that he voices his displeasure over this constantly. He doesn’t even pretend to play ball with them which is good. If you’re that confident that they’re up to no good you can’t shake on it. I hope he will return for a sequel.

Charlie is the actual main character here and she’s pretty reasonable. Naturally she is going through a tough time so she isn’t in the best of moods, but she isn’t nearly as sour as other main characters who were in a similar predicament. She does a good job of doing what she needs to and even her inevitable blowup moment isn’t nearly as dramatic as you might expect. She also ends up helping during the climax. The only moment where Charlie doesn’t look particularly good involves a diving situation. Granted, she never agreed to anything but the way she handled the situation wasn’t amazing. Also, I probably would have kept the window closed in the next scene. Memo is the next door neighbor who shows up and acts as the comic relief here. He’s not nearly as bad as he could have been, but I can’t say that I was a big fan. He seemed a little too desperate to hang out with Charlie the whole time and I don’t think it was just so they could be friends considering how quickly he was going.

So the film had a lot of positives, but it certainly wasn’t perfect. I do think that some of the humor scenes could drag on a little too long. Bumblebee stumbling through the house and breaking everything is definitely an overdone trope. After breaking a bunch of stuff you’d think that he would learn and adapt quick enough to stop making things worse. That doesn’t happen and he almost completely totals the place. I also think Bumblebee being so scared during his first appearance was a little odd. That subplot seemed to stick around as he didn’t even put up a fight towards the climax. I suppose the damage from the opening scene may have also prevented him from fighting, but I was still a little puzzled the whole time. Other humor scenes worked fairly well though like the Ricky Roll theme getting a quick cameo.

Charlie’s family also wasn’t too bad. I can see why she wouldn’t get along with them, but I thought the parents did a reasonable job of being annoying while still feeling genuine about looking after her. They weren’t trying to be annoying and at the end of the day they were a little helpful. The new dad more than the Mom, she could be a bit much at times since she was more reluctant to help. The bullies were certainly dramatized, but I did like the fact that they didn’t recognize Charlie outside of her job. In movies a lot of time they seem to have perfect memory but realistically I doubt they would remember everyone they make fun of. The revenge against the bully was a bit drastic though and I think that scene could have been cut. I didn’t find it particularly funny.

Overall, Bumblebee was pretty good. It was certainly a lot better than I had expected it to be which helps its case quite a lot. I think it will hold up to repeat viewings as well even though I certainly don’t plan on re-watching it anytime soon. The pacing is on point with an action scene always being around the corner. The film can try a bit hard with the humor at times, but at least it never devolves into dirty jokes like the old film. Whether you find them funny or not, I wouldn’t say that any of them are terrible. If you are avoiding the film because you have had poor experiences with the previous installments don’t let that stop you from watching this one. Bumblebee really feels like a brand new start for the series and if the quality stays at this level then I can finally start looking forward to these Transformer films again.

Overall 7/10

The Princess Bride Review

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The Princess Bride is definitely a classic film that I’m sure you have probably bumped into at least once or twice in the past. Still, I had never actually seen it until now so better late than never right? It’s definitely an interesting fantasy adventure even if the whole thing is just a story so it’s all fake from the get go. I’m cool with that kind of premise except for the fact that the kid can be annoying, but more on that later.

The film starts off with a grumpy kid getting sick again. He’s upset because his Grandpa is coming over to check on him and this kid is as ungrateful as they get. Well, the Grandpa decides to tell him a little story and the kid slowly finds himself getting sucked into the hype of this adventure. Never in his wildest dreams could he imagine that such a story would be so gripping. It’s about a girl whose fiancee was captured by pirates and murdered so now she’s going to marry a random prince because she has given up on life. Well, her fiancee has returned and they decide to escape from the Prince. They’ll have to get through a dangerous forest and 3 powerful fighters, but nothing can shatter their bond! Can they get a happily ever after?

This is definitely a very classic kind of adventure as the heroes talk like in the olden days. It may have one of the earlier instances of the villain string where you have to fight one opponent, then you go to the next room and fight villain #2, etc. Westley has to defeat each of them at their particular strengths so he has to be very quick, strong, and smart. As this was basically Westley’s introduction in the film I have to say that it was quite impressive. He really showed himself to be a very capable main character. I was not expecting him to be quite so tough. It’s almost sad when he takes off his mask as he loses most of his mystique and hype. He ends up just becoming another one of the guys, but after such a strong start he was already guaranteed to be the best character in the film.

I also think Westley had a point in regard to how easily Buttercup moved on from him. Sure, she didn’t like the Prince but she didn’t care enough to refuse him either since she had given up on life by then. She should have stayed strong and waited for Westley no matter how long it took. Of course he was presumed dead, but then you don’t go for a rebound and just stay alone. As it stands Buttercup just didn’t look all that great throughout this and was even kidnapped. It definitely wasn’t her day.

At first you think that the Prince may actually be heroic as he puts up a good front. If you were not aware of story telling 101 he could even potentially fool you. Still, he was ultimately destined to be evil and is essentially the main antagonist here. He’s certainly not my kind of villain as those with romantic motives never tend to rank. Still, I suppose he’s reasonable. I do think the Prince gets off way too easy by the end though. I mean, depending on how you look at it there are absolutely 0 repercussions for him as the film closes.

Now lets look at the trio of danger. Fezzik is the strong but not very smart member of the group. He’s one of those villains who doesn’t think much so it’s easy for him to join the heroes or villains depending on who his boss is. He’s definitely the least likable of the 3 though. He’s not bad, but just not very interesting. Meanwhile Montoya was a lot of fun. He’s a very quick fighter whose goal is to avenge his father someday. He’s trained all his life to accomplish this goal so it’s almost tragic that Westley is still a better fighter than he is. What makes Montoya a good villain is the fact that he has an honor code and actually seems like a reasonable guy. His motives are also quite sound.

Finally we have the leader, Vizzini. Now this guy is definitely really sharp. The scene where he insults a bunch of philosophers and explains why he is smarter than them is quite good. It’s at that exact moment where you realize that this guy is the real deal. He’s not going to back down to any fighter and has the wits to stay on top no matter what the situation is. His mind battle with Westley is exceptional and I wouldn’t have minded having him appear more. His brief role made the moment all the more powerful though.

Speaking of great scenes, I also greatly enjoyed the fight with Montoya and Westley. There was a lot of back and forth in that fight with both fighters being able to use their full skills. Each one starting with their weaker hand also worked as good twists to keep the fight going. It’s a lot better than I would have expected from such an old adventure film. It holds up extremely well and moments like these are what helps the film be so solid. It really is a very solid adventure film.

Really, the only downside to the film is the annoying kid in the present. He’s constantly interrupting and just being a terrible character all around. His character hasn’t aged well and if I was the Grandpa I would have left by the second interruption. The kid was constantly bashing the book and only got back on board once the romance played more of a focus. He kept pulling the whole “It’s not like I like the romance or anything” bit but certainly wasn’t believable about it. Of course having the film be in story mode is part of the point, but cutting that bit out would have worked well.

Of course, it works as the film’s automatic censor to the more violent moments though. I was not expecting the prince to get tortured the way that he was. That was surprisingly dark and some blood is spilled during Montoya’s final confrontation. Still, the story stays within all family friendly territory I’d say. It never feels particularly excessive and will only scare kids like the one in this film.

Overall, The Princess Bride is a pretty fun film. I do think that the first half ultimately ends up being a little more interesting and fast paced than the climax though. Perhaps that’s because the second half is a little more generic while the first half does a lot of fun stuff like giving us back to back battles and keeping the lead mysterious. The second half is still quite solid but naturally as a result it’s just slightly less impressive than the film’s quick start. If you haven’t seen this film yet then I’d definitely recommend checking it out. The writing is on point and the film’s pacing is solid.

Overall 7/10

The Death of Superman Review

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It’s time to look at this recent DC movie. Doomsday already got an adaption a long time ago, but now the New 52 lineup can give it a whirl as well. The animation and fights here aren’t quite as solid as the ones in the original, but I do think Superman got to use his speed a little more which is always cool. It’s a solid re imagining overall and will definitely have a lot of replay value for future watches. However, adding in the League also adds in a bunch of scenarios for the writers to have to deal with which the film doesn’t always put to full use.

The film starts off with a meteor heading to Earth. It busts through a space ship and falls onto Earth. Doomsday walks out and begins his murdering spree. He wants to destroy everything on Earth and slowly makes his way to the cities. The Justice League begin to track him, but this could take a while. Meanwhile Superman is debating on if he should finally tell Lois the truth or not. He better hurry because based on the title he may not have a whole lot of time left to live. Could this be it for the Man of Steel?

Surprisingly the first 40 minutes are used to focus on the Clark and Lois dynamic rather than getting us to the big fight. I think the Lois and Superman stuff have already been done to death, but I wouldn’t fault the film for it too much since I’m sure every writer wants a crack at this. Unfortunately I thought the film made Lois look really bad here. Granted, Clark isn’t in the right at every turn either, but my main issue is that Lois is just rather rude the entire film. She just doesn’t seem like a nice person and given how Superman is all about being nice it just seems a little off.

Case in point, Lois has a co-worker named Grant who is always trying to dig up the dirt on Clark for her. She seems like a really nice friend even if she’s a bit nosy and is just looking out for Lois. She even buys Lois a coffee. I think you’re not supposed to like Grant, but honestly she was just a quality character. Look, the gossip mill at work will always be going. At least she lets Lois know what the others know and gives Lois the option to control the information a little. Lois just brushes her off along with the others in the hopes that nobody will find out but that door has already been slammed shut. She just isn’t very open to talking about it. I also think this is an unfortunate aspect of centering Lois’ character around the romance. It consumes all of her scenes when she is typically supposed to be busy being an ace reporter. It’s probably one of her weakest appearances in the continuity.

Meanwhile Superman is nervous about telling her the truth which makes sense I guess, but if he’s getting serious about her then he should absolutely drop the bomb before the wedding. Doing it afterwards would just be super irresponsible. He was also a little too much at the dinner where he kept trying to silence his parents. The guy’s gotta be able to take a few embarrassing stories better than that. In fact, that would have been a good time to tell Lois that he was Superman. Would have been perfect to be honest. Well, the whole romance stuff certainly wasn’t the best, but the meat and potatoes of this is the fights anyway.

Once the fights start they are definitely a lot of fun. It’s always cool to see Doomsday going up against the Justice League because that isn’t a matchup you get to see often. The fights with them and then Superman are basically nonstop action so the whole second half is just a lot of combat. It all looks really solid and the film doesn’t disappoint. While I did mention earlier that it’s not up to par with the previous adaption I think calling the animation anything less than great would be selling it short. It’s still excellent and the action is enough to recommend the film.

Of course, I do think the Justice League seemed heavily nerfed throughout to make the plot work. That’s why sometimes films just cut everyone else out to avoid this issue. It becomes a case of if you’d rather have the audience suspend disbelief for no other heroes coming to help or having the heroes come and then be completely ineffective. This film chose the latter while the previous chose the former. Some characters like Hawkman are pretty accurate or if anything look too strong. That’s fine, but when we get to the big shots it gets a little tricky.

Case in point, The Flash. We see early on that Hawkman was able to land 2 hits that really sent Doomsday flying. Then Flash comes in and his attacks aren’t leaving a dent. When Flash goes at super speeds his hits actually increase in power tremendously. I think that’s one aspect of the Flash that is constantly overlooked, but at super speed he does have incredible amounts of super strength. That along with the Mace should have done considerable damage to Doomsday. Showing Doomsday taking a pounding and then adapting would have been good to see. Doomsday’s durability along with his regeneration is incredible after all and that would have made the fight so much better.

Then Green Lantern comes in and basically just plays defense. He tries trapping Doomsday and then making a barrier. Both are poor options. Blasting him from the sky and flying around a ton would have been far better options. Then he is knocked out in one hit. Keep in mind that the fight starts off in the early afternoon and doesn’t conclude until late in the evening yet none of the Leaguers wake up. I think the most accurate member was Wonder Woman. She actually gives Doomsday a long back and forth fight where she dealt quite a lot of damage. She showed off her super strength and combat experience. Superman will always be the real power hitter of the League, but I think having the others contribute in a similar way to Wonder Woman would have been good.

Also, the League completely forgot about team work or even fighting at the same time. Every leaguer waits until the other member is down to start fighting. Hawkman comes in first, then loses. Green Lantern then shows up and loses. Then Flash shows up and loses, etc. Martian Manhunter, Cyborg, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, nobody ever teams up at all. They seem to insist on fighting Doomsday 1 on 1 which makes no real sense. It also doesn’t make sense that Hawkman and Green Lantern would both have time to fight Doomsday before Flash arrives on the scene. With his speed even after saving civilians he should have been the first one on the scene. I think the main issue was having Doomsday take down the League while staying believable. Depending on how he beats them you could argue that either Superman has no chance or he suddenly gets power scaled way above the others. I think doing the latter would work just fine. Superman has always been the strongest member of the League and I would argue that typically it is by a fantastically large margin. That doesn’t need to change.

Showing the League hitting Doomsday with a bunch of combo attacks and the beast just refusing to stay down would have been very powerful. The film doesn’t even need to hold back on having him get extremely weakened or losing a limb or two and regenerating. It would show off his healing factor as well as his “adaption” ability. It would work similar to Amazo as their attempts to defeat him would only make him stronger. It’s a unique situation where they could show off all of the League’s talents and skills while still having Doomsday stay on top. I think that would have worked out really well and made the fight more realistic.

Well, that’s enough on the power levels. It isn’t really anything that would hurt the film but always something I need to note. Also, the League took way too long in finding Doomsday. He started murdering people early on and even took out Atlanteans, but it took at least a day to find him. Really? They should have found him within an hour or so after that. Just put the Flash on his trail. By the time they find Doomsday he had already murdered quite a few people. Which the New 52 lineup could be a little off an on with how violent they are. The first installments are quite violent and after that they started to dial it down a bit. This one is a little more on the violent side I’d say. It’s certainly more violent than necessary as we see Doomsday crush quite a few people.

Unfortunately this leads the film into the animal violence territory which was really unnecessary and definitely did hurt the film. A poor bear gets attacked by Doomsday. The scene has no purpose even within the narrative as we can already reasonably assume that he is stronger than a bear. If the film is trying to show that the food chain has been altered, that is rather obvious as well. All a scene like this does is take a star away from the film and lower its replay value. It’s a shame that the film had to mess up here.

There are quite a few after credit scenes here to set up the sequel. Basically each of the Supermen get a scene. I think it would have worked better as one long scene than all of the various cuts though. Just one long scene that sets up the sequel. It’s less jarring than having a quick 3 second scene, cut, 3 second scene, etc. Still, it’s a good attempt though and the sequel should definitely be fun. I look forward to seeing the League deal with these guys. This time they’ll need to be more prepared for the fight though.

Overall, The Death of Superman was a pretty good film, but one that could have definitely been even better. You’ll surely enjoy the big fights with Doomsday and it is nice to have it as part of a longer continuity since you see cameos for the supporting characters like Damian and the Atlanteans. I do think the film may have brought too much baggage with it in the first half though and it should have been trimmed down to get us to the action a little sooner. I definitely still recommend checking this film out though. It’s a good action story with a lot of hype moments. The title basically spoils most of the movie, but I think it’s assumed that you know the plot going into this one.

Overall 7/10