TV show review - X-Men animated series (90s)

    Ah growing up in the 90's. The decade where Yo-Yos were popular. The decade when every disagreement was settled by rock, paper, scissors. The decade of the Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. Ninja Turtles, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, and some of the worst rap music in history. Excessive sports movies, really slow internet and printers that took two minutes to print a single page. OK fine, maybe not everything in the 90's was awesome, but you get my point. One thing I missed out on in the 90's was all the Superhero animated shows though.

    I recently watched through the entire 90's x-men Animated Series for the first time. As this show doesn't have any nostalgic factor to me, I feel that I can give it a fair review.

    Overall, the show is actually really good. It was also revolutionary as it was one of the first animated TV shows to have a continuing storyline throughout the first few seasons.

Movie Review - The Giant Claw

    Today I'm watching, dun dun dun, The Giant Claw! This B-monster movie released in 1957, and even then it was ridiculed for its special effects. According to Wikipedia, the lead actor first saw the movie in his hometown. He left the theatre early because he was afraid that people would recognize him...that's pretty bad. Heh, I'm looking forward to this already.

    I knew virtually nothing about this movie going in. Heck, I still know little about this movie after researching it. All I knew is that it's on numerous lists of movies that are so bad their good. Being the fan of bad movies that I am, I had to check it out, and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest.

Movie Review - Return to Oz

    Did you know that The Wizard of Oz has a sequel? Not only that, but while the original was released by MGM, Disney released Return to Oz. Oh, and they didn't get sued for it either. How is that possible?

    Both movies were based off a series of Oz books. The original series of 14 books was written by John R. Neill between 1900 and 1920. The last was released shortly after Neill died. MGM acquired the rights to The Wizard of Oz, loosely based on the original book. Also noteworthy is that MGM's Wizard of Oz wasn't even the first adaptation of the original book, others being stage adaptations, a Broadway musical and three silent films. Needless to say, this was bigger than Twilight ever will be.

    So how did Disney get away with creating this movie? Oh that's simple, they released Return to Oz the year the series became public domain, 1985. Disney did however pay MGM to use the ruby red slippers, which were created for the 1939 musical that needs no introduction.

    Anyway, Return to Oz is a hybrid of the second and third books in the series: The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. It didn't perform that well originally - receiving mixed reviews and only made $11 million. Heck, Siskel and Ebert gave the movie a rather scathing review and listed it among their "Worst of 1985." It's since gained a cult following, but then again so has Troll 2. Also noteworthy, Return to Oz is not a musical. Is this movie any good though?

    Return to Oz is significantly darker than the 1939 musical. Dorothy, played by a then-young Fairuza Balk, is suffering from Oz withdrawal. Her family is worried about their daughter and they send her to a mental hospital. It's here where she is eventually transported back to the Land of Oz, but not before some rather creepy moments. There's a machine for shock therapy, a nurse that appears rather sadistic to Dorothy’s young eyes. Its way too creepy for a kid’s movie, yet this is just the appetizer.

    After Dorothy returns to oz, she finds that the yellow brick road has been destroyed, the emerald city is in ruins, and all of her friends have been turned to stone. What happened to the magical adventure of the original? What was Disney thinking? If I want to see destroyed beauty, I'll play Gears of War. This is like taking a kid's ice cream cone and covering it in crusty dry mud.

    That's Return to Oz's main problem; it's far too dark and creepy for a kid’s movie, yet way too slow and simple-minded for the average adult. It's not sure what audience it's made for. The worst scene is where a witch, played by Jean Marsh, collects the heads of different women to wear on top of her body, and wants to keep Dorothy’s head once she grows up. What follows is a rather intense scene that even got me on edge a bit, and I usually get bored while watching horror movies. This movie is simply far too intense for little kids.

(This scene will give kids nightmares)

    Another problem this movie has is that it's just slow. It's full of dull talking scenes which over explain things that you could easily figure just by looking at the screen. Scenes that should carry dramatic tension become dull. The slow, quiet soundtrack doesn't help either, only increasing in volume and tempo during the scarier scenes I mentioned earlier. It doesn't help that the movie has very little comic relief.

    That said, it's not necessarily a bad movie. Sure, it's both slow and overly dark, but the visuals are rather strong. The final act involves a creature known as the Nome King, played by Nicol Williamson. The Nome King is basically a moving rock animated by claymation as far as I can tell. It looks brilliant, and somehow both realistic and not at the same time. He bargains with Dorothy, who is trying to restore her friends, and the result is actually really cleaver.

    Dorothy doesn't have the same travelling companions this time around. Gone are the lion, the tin man, the scarecrow and her dog Todo. Instead she's travelling around with a walking clock called Tic Toc, a creature with a pumpkin for a head named Jack, some moose head, and her talking pet hen. You do see her companions from The Wizard of Oz, but save for the scarecrow (whose costume is hilariously cheap here,) none of them have speaking roles.

    It's a fascinating movie to watch if you're a fan of the original or love obscure movies like this, but not necessarily in a good way. I kind of enjoyed it, well...parts of it at least. If a darker, sometimes unsettling take on the Land of Oz If the concept interests you, or you're a fan of the original, check Return to Oz out. If not, don't bother.

Movie Review - Bloodrayne: The Third Reich

    Ah, Uwe Bowl. Do I really need to say anything else? This German director really needs no introduction - he's one of the worst directors of all time. Today I'm reviewing his newest release, Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, his third Bloodrayne movie. While the first two movies had nothing to do with the videogames they were based off of, Bloodrayne 3 has a very strong similarity to the first game - it's about a vampire killing Nazis.

    A year ago I reviewed Bloodrayne 1 and 2, and talked briefly about the video games. It's only appropriate that I review Bloodrayne 3 now that the DVD is finally available. To sum up the first two, Bloodrayne 1 is funny bad at times as it fails on every level of movie making. Bloodrayne 2, while better, is incredibly boring and slow. Which one will Bloodrayne 3 be more like? Let's find out.

Movie Review - Troll

    To celebrate the release of the final Harry Potter movie, I'm reviewing the first movie this week. Troll is...wait a minute, Troll?

    I'm actually not kidding here. Troll was released before the first Harry Potter book, and not only is the main character Harry Potter, but he's Harry Potter Jr. (his dad is Harry Potter Sr.) Oh yeah, he becomes a wizard too.

    Unlike most of my reviews, this will be a real review rather than a semi-comedic plot summary. Why? Because I should do that more often, and because there isn't as much to make fun of as most of the movies I talk about on this blog.

    I've touched on the Troll movies before. Troll 3 aka. The Crawlers was my first review on this blog, and shortly after that, I reviewed Troll 2. Troll 2 is one of the most famous bad movies out there, so much so that it still makes theatrical runs twenty years later. It had a blu-ray release before Star Wars blu-ray was even announced (I even reviewed it before Star Wars blu-ray was announced,) and more people know about Troll 2 than people know about the first one. That's saying a lot for an ultra-low budget movie that has nothing to do about the original.

    As for Troll itself, it's not nearly as funny as the original, but it's not nearly as bad either. In fact, some things actually work about this movie. Sure, it's very silly and strange, but it might actually be worth checking out.

    The premise is that some ancient evil Troll creature called Torok is transforming a small apartment building into a magical realm. Why? To take over the world of course. An ancient witch, who used to be Torok's lover, and Harry Jr. are the only ones in Torok's way. It's a neat concept; it's just too silly and lighthearted to work.

    The movie's biggest problem is that there's a total lack of build up. The first thing Torok does is kidnap Harry's little sister and transforms his body into her shape. That's not a spoiler because it happens 2 minutes into the movie. Torok acts crazy while looking like Harry's sister. If we saw how the girl acted before she was kidnapped, this could have been really neat. Instead we have no idea how Torok acts different from the "pain in the @**" that Harry describes her as. The movie also has the stereotypical jerk character, but he's killed off 20 minutes in. Some big creature is shown off camera at one point, and less than three minutes later, he's shown. As silly as the movie is, it still would have been much better if it had more build up.

    The movie's silly nature kind of works. Sure, the movie is impossible to take seriously because of the silliness, but it still kind of works. It's hard to explain, but the movie has a certain charm to it that modern cinema lacks. Movies these days take themselves too seriously and often forget that they usually aren't supposed to mirror real life, so it's refreshing to see a movie that makes fun of itself every now and then.

    As for the Harry Potter resemblance, the further I got in the movie, the more I was convinced that it actually inspired the series on some level. The movie has a mystical realm within our real world, with a constant struggle between the good and evil witches and troll creatures. Sure, the Harry Potter franchise has little to do with this movie on the surface, but Troll has the same kind of feel as the earlier Harry Potter movies. It's hard to explain, but if you watch this movie you'll know what I'm talking about.

    Would I recommend it? Hard to say; if you can enjoy a silly flick that's not necessarily good, but lighthearted and occasionally funny, you might like this. It's not good by any measurement, but it might interest Harry Potter fans. It's also fascinating to me because Troll 2 is one of my favorite bad movies and I wanted to see how little it had to do with the original. So in short, if you like Troll 2 or you're a die-hard fan of Harry Potter, Troll might be worth checking out. However if you can't stand mediocre movies overridden with silliness, it's probably better to avoid.

internet problems

Due to internet problems galore, I'm not sure when my next review will be. Heck, took me five minutes to load the new post page.

X-Men movies vs comics

    Last week, I ranked all the X-men movies as movies, ignoring the comics as much as possible. Now it's time to get really nerdy as I compare them to the comics as much as possible. Rather than talking about the movies in order this time, I'll just talk about whatever comes to mind. Lots of it applies to all the movies anyway.

    I'll start by talking about the positives, because I don't feel like tearing the movies apart without giving them a chance first.

(Xavior and Magneto in X-Men: First Class)

    Xavier and Magneto have both been portrayed very close to their comic counterparts in the movies. If anything, the movies have portrayed Xavier as more of a saint than in the comics, and Magneto as a more realistic character. Either way, the difference is negligible and I have nothing but positive things to say about how these two characters have been portrayed.

(Xavior and Magneto in either X-Men or X2 - they play chess like this in both)

X-Men movies

    I'm taking a short break from reviewing movies this week to talk about the X-men movies. Why? Because since I started reading comics I've been thinking more about these movies. The more I think about them, the more I don't like them. I'm breaking this up into two different posts. For this post, I'll mostly ignore the comics and just talk about the movies themselves, in order of release. The second post will only compare them to the comics and will be nerd rage.

    Before I start tearing them apart, let's focus on the positive.

    It's easy to argue that the first X-men movie revived comic book movies back when it came out. To the average viewer, it wasn't all that bad. Hugh Jackman was great as Wolverine, Proffesor X and Magneto were perfectly cast, and the rest of the supporting cast was relatively strong, save for a few (I'll get to that later.) Another strong point for this movie is Wolverine's relationship with Rogue. In the comics, Wolverine often hangs out with teenage girls. He's not a pedophile; he acts more like a father to them, because being around teenage girls brings out his better side. He'd be a much more savage man if not for hanging around people like Jubilee and Shadowcat, and this movie does a good job at portraying that.