The Blog That's Not As Bad As They Say

DC’s first non Superman/Batman super hero movie Green Lantern came out this weekend making a lower than expected $52 million. Most are blaming the large amount of negative reviews for keeping it from becoming a major hit. But are all these negative reviews justified?

I have only recently started reading the Green Lantern comic but I got hooked pretty quick and thus, was rather excited for the movie. Of course before the film even got released, several critics were slaughtering the movie, calling it the biggest disappointment of the summer. I for one am not a guy who let’s critics decide weather I go see a movie or not, but after 30+ reviews giving it a lousy 20% rating on rotten tomatoes, I was a little worried.

Even with those doubts, I still went the the Thursday midnight showing of Green Lantern with all the other nerds, and while I was fairly disappointed in the movie, I didn’t find it to be the worst movie ever made everyone else was saying. I almost feel that critics and fanboys views of good and bad movies leave no room for middle ground. If it isn’t The Dark Knight, then it must be Howard the Duck. Can’t a movie just be good and not great? Sure I was hoping for a little more out of a Green Lantern movie, but it could’ve been a lot worse, and it wasn’t awful enough for me to come out of the theater enraged by what I had just seen.

At the end of the day, I would love it if every movie I saw was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen, but I can’t complain too much if a movie is still entertaining when it’s less than perfect.

The Blog From Childhood

The summer movie season has started, and it looks like yet again comic books and other pre-established properties are the most hyped, and most likely to make money. Now I get why the studios and the public go for these films. These films have a built in fan base, and thus, built in money. But I am surprised that certain other properties from my childhood are not being taken to the multiplex where they can bring in fans both new and old. Here are some of my top pics of old properties that need a cinematic treatment.


DINO RIDERS
Jurrassic park came out in 1993 and the effects in that movie still hold up, so it blows my mind that this 80’s toy line/cartoon series that had humanoid aliens fighting on dinosaurs equipped with futuristic weaponry didn’t get made shortly after. A Dino Riders movie seems like it would be an easy sell to Hollywood. Dinosaurs with laser guns! Done.


VOLTRON
There’s been a Voltron movie in the early stages for the past couple years, so hopefully this one comes true sooner rather than later. If you go back and watch the old show about a team who pilot giant robot lions that connect to become an even bigger robot, you’ll see that every episode is the same. The bad guys come, they try to fight them separately, and then they just form Voltron and take the bad guys down. A Voltron movie plot would follow this pattern pretty closely, just hopefully with a bit more depth.


MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
The 1987 Masters of the Universe movie starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor was the first movie I saw in the theater so I’m a little partial, but most saw it as a failure that didn’t stay true to its cartoon and action figure roots. Right now would be the perfect time to make a sweet movie that would make everyone forget about the old one with the current craze of the new Masters of the Universe Classics action figures selling out every month online. Build a movie universe on the same scale and scope of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, map out the franchise before you start so a trilogy doesn’t just get made as a cash cow, and ‘80s nerds and plenty of others will flock to the theaters.

What other classic properties do you think should be made into big budget blockbusters?

The Blog That Happened Way Back When

X-Men: First Class came out this weekend and everyone’s been asking me what I thought of it and I haven’t quite found the appropriate response. On one hand I was pretty entertained throughout and felt it had strong performances by both Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, but on the other hand I found myself really irritated at all the direct references to the previous films, and then certain situations and plot points that don’t line up in any way shape or form to the same films. This was my issue with the film, and maybe my issue with prequels in general.

Prequels are meant to be an earlier story of familiar characters that show them how they were before and how they came to be the characters we’ve come to know and love. That pretty much means that a prequel has to end in a very specific way or it doesn’t work. You can start a lot of different ways, but you have to end the film in a way that allows the original films to pick up after and make sense. If you don’t line it up that way, then what’s the point of doing a prequel? If you want to change everything, why not reboot it from scratch. That’s what Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins and it worked great. It’s a little sad that I can honestly say that the best made prequel movie in terms of continuity is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

X-Men: First Class suffered from these issues of being a prequel. The writers and director had an entertaining and interesting story of the early years of several X-Men characters but I felt like they weren’t too concerned with lining up their film with the others and being one continuous story unless it was for a quick chuckle or point for nerds to freak out. I say if you aren’t concerned with lining up, then don’t, that’s great but make your own movie and do your own thing, but don’t throw in settings, situations, and cameos that say you are part of the same universe ‘cause then it just doesn’t make any sense, and it kinda ruins it for nerds like me.