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

Go Go Godzilla!

As luck would have it the fates have smiled upon me once again and gifted me a set of passes to the Winnipeg première of Godzilla.  I have high hopes that this incarnation of the giant fire-breathing lizard will be head and shoulders above the craptacular Mathew Broderick version of a few years ago.

From what I have seen so far from the trailers on-line there very well could be a battle royal between Big G and what appears to be a Rodan like creature.  In any case I will have all the goodies in my head as of May 14th with a movie preview post on May 15th.

So grab your dinosaur slippers if you have them and stomp around to the musical madness of Blue Oyster Cult as they sing Godzilla!!

Oh No There goes Tokyo. Go Go Godzilla!

 

 

 

Skyfall premiere here we come!!

As many of you probably know from my exhaustive and often lengthy pieces on the true history of James Bond one William Stephenson of turn of the 20th century Winnipeg that I am both a Winnipeg booster and a James Bond 007 fanatic.  I have been to pretty much every opening night of the Bond saga that I could crawl to since I was a teenager growing up in Fort Frances, Ontario.

Well I am happy to say that the latest James Bond production Skyfall will be no different and even a bit better as Darlene and I will be attending the Winnipeg premiere courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press.

Free Press movie reviewer Randall King recently published a Bond trivia challenge in the pages of the weekend edition of the Winnipeg Free Press and I am the happy winner of that competition.

Even though I am a geek of some long-standing, I must freely admit that I found the questions very challenging.  I first probed my mind for the easy questions, the song whistled by the janitor in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the theme from Goldfinger);  to the most obscure asking about James’ witty comeback lines and motivations for the femme fatale bond girls. YIKES!

In any event I must have scored well or been given extra points for showing my work, as I included not only the movie but also character names and actors names for all that I could uncover.  In all it probably took me longer than the movie to come up with the quiz answers but being able to count myself among the first in North America to see Skyfall is priceless.

PLUS as readers of my blog you all will get a great review on Thursday so you all can judge for yourselves if you want to plunk down some coin and see Daniel Craig as James Bond shoot up the silver screen in his 23rd film.

So stay tuned same Bond time, same Bond Channel people.

Here’s a taste to make sure you come back for more.

 

Related articles

• ‘Skyfall’ star Naomie Harris on joining the world of (and shaving) James Bond (insidemovies.ew.com)
• Skyfall premiere before Royals (bigpondnews.com)
• Product placement in pictures: Skyfall (brandsandfilms.com)
• SKYFALL Trailer 2012 – James Bond 007 Movie – Official [HD] (wealth-structuring.com)
• LISTEN: Adele’s Skyfall Song Is Here, In All Its Big, Brassy Glory (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
• Double O Seven (fakethemoment.wordpress.com)
• James Bond Skyfall Distressed Leather Jacket (unfinishedman.com)
• Get to Know the New Bond Girl: Bérénice Marlohe (fabsugar.com)
• Ben Whishaw on playing Q in Skyfall: ‘I don’t even have a computer’ (telegraph.co.uk)

 

Steampunks, Pirates and Knights….Oh My!

Just by chance today I happened on a most enchanting little festival happening almost outside our door.  Coronation Park in the Norwood Grove area of St. Boniface was playing host to a gathering of creative thinkers and free spirits.

As you all should know by now that I am a proud card-carrying geek of some renown and am always ready to explore what ever festival or convention comes my way.   Today’s gathering had three main themes bringing many different classes of geeks, costume players and costumers together.  Steampunk, Pirates and good ol’ fashioned fantasy enthusiasts.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time mingling in the steamy afternoon heat in between the hourly thunder storms that have been passing though the area today.  Mosquitoes and rain can’t keep a good geek down for long and as soon as a shower had passed everyone seemed eager to mingle about again.

Normally as a blogger I try to stay a fly on the wall, just observing and not really becoming part of the action.  But today was one of those rare opportunities where I got to mingle and talk with people about their motivations and great costumes.

Here in pictures is a bit of what I saw this afternoon.

Entering Coronation Park in St. Boniface. Everyone seems to be coming back out after the clouds have passed.