Batman Vs Superman: The Dawn of Justice. Bob’s Review

I’ll try to stay relatively spoiler free, but read at your own risk.

I know that he critics have been slagging this movie without mercy and believe me it does have its flaws without a doubt. But I did find it enjoyable if tedious.

This movie picks up where Man of Steel left off in a battle royal between Superman and Zod that leaves Metropolis in ruins. Thousands die, and one Bruce Wayne is severely pissed off.  Having witnessed the destruction of his metropolis office tower and collateral damage along with most of downtown.
He vows to eradicate the menace that the Kryptonian poses to all of humanity.

Enter a very unlike Lex Luthor Jessie Eisenberg, blond flowing locks, and hardly a hint of menace.  Naturally Luthor plays the eternal foil, and is driving things behind the scenes.  Cue the betrayals, the inevitable kidnapping of Lois Lane and some Singing in the Rain ultra-violence. More of Gotham and Metropolis are destroyed and I’m sorry to say to those of the female persuasion Superman gets his ass handed to him again, and again, and yet again.

It was almost comical to see Kal-El puff his chest out turn his eyes red with rage and then fight like the cub scout he really is and fail in tactical thinking or even rational thought.  I hate to say it but it was like watching Batman and Lex Luthor playing Lucy to Superman’s Charlie Brown. Yanking out that football from out of his ever trusting toes.

In the movie they keep referring to Superman as a God on earth, yet he is soundly fucked up by both friend and enemy alike.

But my real sticking points lay in cinematography, in 3D much of the action is so close up and fast it’s impossible to follow.  Pull out, give us some wide-angle shots. I don’t need to see every pore on every face, or bead of sweat.  When the action is fast and furious I found myself guessing as to what happened.

Also the dream sequence mid first act unless the viewer knows a great deal about the powers of yet to be properly introduced concepts and characters is just in my opinion a waste of time and the audiences patience.  It served no measurable purpose to me at least.

The first act jumps willy nilly from location to location, and the final sequences drag on like a plantation scene of Apocalypse Now.  On, and on and on.

Having said that though the Wonder Woman scenes were succinct and interesting.  Watching the demigod Amazon in action was one of the highlights in my viewing experience.

All in all I would agree with others that this is a hot mess of jumbled celluloid, but it is big dumb popcorn movie fun.  Expecially if you’ve always wanted to see Batman kick Superman’s spandex ass into the ground.

MY RATING: 6.5 out of 10

Nobody Does it Better: Daniel Craig kills it in Spectre.

I don’t know what the formula is that keeps me coming back to 007.  The Sean Connery years are definitely period pieces by today’s standards.  Roger Moore as James Bond was cool and campy.  Almost like watching Adam West as Batman.  Timothy Dalton was too hard-edged and unforgiving playing the role and for me personally Pierce Brosnan was perhaps channeling a bit too much Remington Steele for my liking.

The series could have continued down that make-believe path of vaudevillian villains with the mega-lair that Dr Evil would be drooling over.  Then came along Daniel Craig, who essentially rebooted bond, and brought a healthy dose of reality and consequence to the character.  Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace changed the game for Bond and upped the stakes to unto before seen levels.

Then Sam Mendes turned the amps up to 11.  I loved everything about Skyfall, the cinematography was beyond anything that had ever graced the world of 007.  The story line actually meant something, the movies dovetailed together.

Spectre brings everything together, including the sins of the past.  The gritty reality of Craig’s bond hits home in ways that have never been explored and only hinted at in Skyfall.  James Bond was once a boy and that boy has a dark past.

Pictures and documents from James’s childhood are recovered from his boyhood home of Skyfall, things he would rather have left behind.  One burned photo from the movie trailer shows two boys and a man standing together in the snow.  Does James Bond have a brother?  And if so how does he fit into the larger picture of the cabal of lies and the shadowy organization that is behind all of it?

Spectre brings the Daniel Craig story arc into sharp focus and ties the clues together.  Who was ultimately behind the deaths of Dame Judy Dench’s “M”, and his love interest Vesper Lynd for whom he was willing to give up his service to crown and country?

Once again Sam Mendes ups the action to almost hyperactive levels in the opening scenes but with the artistic flair very few directors can match at this level.  This is not a CGI slug fest but a film in which a reported 36 million dollars worth of high performance supercars were destroyed in filming.

The Daniel Craig story arc for James Bond has delivered a character examination of a lifestyle that has consequences.  People die, new relationships form and villains have real world ambitions.  The situations depicted in Spectre are going on in the world today.  Intelligence agencies collect data on the population at large in increasing levels.  Phone calls, video surveillance and data transfers are being monitored in real-time but who ultimately controls that information and to what end?

If you love the world of Ian Flemming’s most potent creation do yourself a favor and go see this movie.

My rating for Spectre is 4.5 out of 5.

Authors Note: If you want to learn the real life inspiration for James Bond 007 please use the links below.

William Stephenson the quiet man that would inspire 007

James Bond, Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler: The Canadian Connection

William Stephenson, Roald Dahl and Ian Flemming: The Birth of James Bond 007

Guardians of the Galaxy: Heavy Metal meets Star Wars.

What do you get when you take a handful of gritty science fiction, the mostly unknown misfits of the Marvel Comics universe, and toss in a bucket load of comedic action?  Well, in this case you get Guardians of the Galaxy.  Marvel Comic’s latest and possibly most genre mixing film to date.

The story unfolds as a young terran boy loses his mother to cancer, abducted by aliens and is thrust into a world of interstellar thievery.  Growing to be a competent grifter and all round scoundrel in the vein of Han Solo circumstance throws Peter Quill into an adventure that places the very existence of the galaxy into jeopardy.  A ragtag band of outlaws and killers that form the group of heroes drives the action with a non-stop vibe pulsing with the sounds of a funky 70’s soundtrack.

Godzilla: The Good, The Bad, and The Very Ugly.

Godzilla Movie Poster

I must admit something straight away, I have been a Godzilla fan for as long as I can remember.  Running home to catch the Matinee Money Movie on WDIO television out of Duluth, Minnesota.  They would play classic movies throughout the week.  Abbot and Costello, and the Toho movies were mainstays in my childhood film education.

Godzilla Roars

 

Over the years I learned that Godzilla was a metaphor for the horrors of nuclear war.  A creature spawned from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In that sense the first half of Godzilla 2014 works.  The film opens with an imaginative set piece showing nuclear testing in the 1950’s with documents being censored as the opening credits.  We also  learn that the so-called tests were actually trying to destroy the monsters that had been awakened from slumber at the dawn of the nuclear age.

Movie Review: Skyfall is simply the best Bond film ever.

Ok, I am admittedly a huge Bond fan going back to as far as I can remember.  I loved the camp of the Roger Moore years before I knew any better and then I learned to appreciate the fierce ruggedness of Connery as I grew to learn the earlier films.  Hell I even appreciated Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

I loved the back to basics Bond that Dalton created on screen, even if the stories were a tad weak given the political climate at the time.  I did struggle with the Brosnan editions finding them a bit too close to Moore as I matured.  Yet I was in the theater every opening weekend.

I know I made a bold, almost outrageous statement saying that Skyfall is the single best James Bond movie of all time; but it’s one I am going to stand behind for several reasons.