The Crow (2024)

 

So, once upon a time, back in the year of our lord 1989, a comic rose from the earth and went on to become an underground success. As the comics' influence grew, stronger forces were drawn to it. All that gazed upon its dark glory were beholden to its splendour. In time, these stronger opulent and imaginative forces combined to create an even greater story, a mesmerising dark fable of love and revenge, one that had never been told in such manner. Despite the gallant hero tragically slain, over the years, the fable grew even stronger and gained cult status, slaying all in its path. With nothing to stand in its path, the comic was truly omnipotent. And so the comic became legend, set in stone for all eternity.

It was to no surprise at all that Hollywood would try to expand on the 'Crow' franchise, and thusly we were given three further stories. All of which completely failed, despite the second movie actually being okay in my humble opinion. Nevertheless, Hollywood is a ravenous beast that doesn't let anything go if there is any inkling of money to be made. So it was inevitable that eventually, they would try the impossible; they would try to completely reboot the original iconic Crow movie. 

So what have we got here? Eric is a troubled recovering drug addict, of course, and Shelly is now Black, of course. In the beginning, they don't know each other. Shelly is sent some incriminating footage (from a sketchy friend) on her phone and ends up getting pursued by a crime lord and his henchmen. The crime lord has now made a pact with the Devil to supply souls in exchange for eternal life, sure. Shelly ends up getting arrested for possession and sent to rehab, where Eric is. They both fall in love, escape, and then get murdered by the crime lord. And now we have our revenge story.

Yup, they made up a whole new load of guff for this movie. For reasons unbeknowst to most, the folks behind this movie thought the original story wasn't expanded enough, so they fixed it with extra padding. This now means almost the first half hour or so of the movie is all about Eric and Shelly falling in love...and it's boring! They really dig into these two characters to try and make us care, but this fails, mostly because the casting is so bad. Bill Skarsgard as Eric isn't too bad a choice, but his look just feels like Jared Leto's Joker take. They just tried too hard with this character's look. Whilst the connection between Skarsgard and FKA Twigs (eh?) is just poor, they just don't match at all.

I also disliked the main villain here, Roeg played by Danny Huston. This guy has nothing unique about him; he's just a rich suit with a bunch of faceless goons. All the goons are naturally fodder for Eric to chew through, no characters, no originality, just plain goons. These guys could have been in any action flick, stick them in 'John Wick' and they'd be fine. I also felt the supernatural element to this guy was so cliched and unnecessary. I mean seriously, he made a deal with the Devil for eternal life?? Really? It also takes away from the mystique of the crow and its powers. We don't need to know that much about these supernatural forces, and the fact that the Devil exists just goes too far, this isn't 'Spawn'.

Another issue here is the lack of action. Now I'm not saying a movie needs to be balls-to-the-wall action sequences, but this franchise in particular needs action, and to be honest, there is very little here. Eric is mostly quite weak for the most part, even when he's dead, nothing much happens. It is revealed at one point that Shelley had been convinced to kill a woman, by the supernatural powers of Roeg, which puts doubt in Eric's mind. This action leads to Eric getting killed for a second time, and having to convince a spirit in the afterlife to give him another chance. Eh??

Yes, in this movie the power of the crow seems to be handed out, or decided on, by spirits in the afterlife, or this one specific spirit? The entire supernatural scenario is now some kind of deal or agreement between a spirit and the dead person in question. In this case, Eric and Shelley's love had to be pure, that was the deal. When Eric doubted Shelley, the deal was broken, and he lost his power (wut?). I dunno, the entire premise is just too complicated and unnecessary when the original was so simple.

Essentially, nothing much of interest happens until right at the end when Eric storms a theatre and kills all the bad guys. But even that isn't all that great. It's way too slick and relies on CGI blood. Again, it felt like a 'John Wick' movie. The big finale when Eric confronts Roeg in his massive mansion is a total anti-climax too. Obviously Roeg tries to use his Devil powers, but when transported into the afterlife he is easily defeated. The movie ends on such a whimper, then tries to give you something emotional with Shelly that fails, and then tries to leave you open for a sequel! Ugh!

I mean, there is an acorn of promise here, there is a neat idea buried deep within this mess that could have been pretty cool. I don't understand why they had to make this so complicated. I don't understand why they had to add so much unnecessary detail to the supernatural element. What's that famous saying? Less is more...right? We didn't need all this hocus pocus about supernatural deals, spirit guides, deals with the Devil, fight sequences in the afterlife etc...The comic is supposed to be a dark, gritty, gothic, satisfying tale of revenge; whereas this feels like a combination of 'Spawn', 'John Wick', and 'Constantine'.

So the real crime here is the overall lack of gothic visuals, or any decent visuals really. No solid characters, a really lame attempt at recreating a cult soundtrack, bad casting, and no stand-out action sequences. Such a wasted opportunity. The fact that this is the fourth attempt since the original is shameful frankly. It's amazing how the people behind these movies don't understand how or why the original was so good.

4/10

Red Sonja (2025)

 

So this came outta nowhere, literally. I have heard rumours here and there about this movie for years. Talk about directors and actresses for the main role, but nothing ever seemed to happen. It felt like the whole barbarian genre had gone down the toilet, especially after the failed Jason Momoa feature. Then up pops this! Unfortunately, there's a reason why you probably haven't heard much about this.

So the plot, yeah, the plot, oh geez! Sonja's homeland of Hyrkania is invaded by bad guys, and they kill everyone, like bad guys do. This forces a young Sonja to flee into the woods where she grows up alone worshiping the forest Goddess Ashera. Decades later, Sonja is captured by said bad guys and ends up fighting for her life in the bad guy capital cities arena...of death!!! Oh yeah, see there's this ancient mystical book that enables the main villain to energise the city with 'arcane power'. Problem is he only has half of it, luckily Sonja knows where the other half is. I think you can guess the rest.

Right so I'm not really sure what this arcane power was supposed to be. I'm not really up on my Red Sonja lore so I have no idea if this is something from the original comics or whatever. It seems to be some kind of magically electricity of sorts that...powers stuff? I think it allowed Emperor Dragan (the main villain) to control monsters and beasts with these mind control-type devices/implants. Anyway, Sonja destroys this power source midway through, so that put an end to that subplot. But not before we got a semi-action sequence involving a large CGI cyclops. Luckily, like all current invincible female action stars, Sonja merely leapt up onto its back and tore the implant off, hence saving the day.

I did for a minute think that this huge cyclops would maybe rampage through the city and maybe Sonja and co would have to stop it, save the innocent city folk, nope. Or perhaps the cyclops would join forces with Sonja after she saved it from being a brainwashed zombie slave to the Emperor, nope. Said cyclops literally vanishes from the movie in a heartbeat, one minute its there, the next its gone. I mean, really?

Speaking of action sequences, there are a reasonable amount here, but they are all mostly poor. It's quite clear fight choreography was limited, time-constrained, or just not that good. Most battles look really lame, really flat and uninspiring. The actors clearly don't know how to fight properly. The editing is up close and snappy leaving much to the imagination, and the blood we do see was more of an afterthought splashed on after the actual fighting. There are hints at brutal fatalities and more adult content, but clearly they chose the tamer route.

The world we see feels really quite small to be honest. There are some reasonable CGI city and landscapes dotted throughout but that's it, you never feel like you actually see anything. The vast city we see is not explored at all, interior wise. All we get is the battle arena, which in itself was unimpressive. There is no deeper exploration into this fantasy city, its population, culture etc...nothing. All we get are some interior castle sets, camps in the forest, a wooden fortress in the forest, a nice but obvious water shrine set...again in the forest. They clearly wanted to avoid anything involving mass amounts of extras or really big expensive sets.

Essentially, after Sonja escapes being a slave in the arena ('Gladiator' this most certainly is not) and destroys Dragans power source in his castle, the entire rest of the movie is spent in the wilderness with Sonja and her bunch of ragtag merry men fighting Dragan's evil forces of utterly useless knights. Yes all the knights in this movie are merely sword fodder for Sonja to cut down like butter, whilst looking menacing yet amusingly skinny and weak. Of course Dragan has some stronger allies. His second in command is, of course, a deadly ice-blonde bitch femme fatale...of sorts. I mean, that was the gist of it I'm guessing but she does practically nothing throughout. Then there are these Mandril-faced Humanoids? Is this species from the original source material or just made up for the movie? Not very original, and why Mandril faces? They seemed to be the only half-beast Humanoids, although we didn't see much of the population of this world so...

The big finale isn't much to write home about, much like all the other combat sequences, it's crap basically. All the good guys seem to be pretty invincible whilst all the bad guys just get cut down instantly. The armour is not much good in this realm. Emperor Dragan's ending is also weak and somewhat pathetic, much like the route they chose to take with this guy. The character was clearly based around a sort of spoilt wealthy Roman elite type, more of a politician than a fighter. An interesting take but ultimately it comes across as more annoying. They should have had a more imposing character.

End of the day, it's highly evident that this production lacked any sort of proper budget that an IP like this deserves. Everything looks and feels cheap and painfully small in scale. Again it feels like I've gone back to a time when low-budget guff like this was much more common with high-end franchises. Yes the character of Sonja does look better, and more accurate than the 1985 version, but this version looks much worse, very tacky in comparison (the difference a proper cinematographer makes). Bottom line, this looks and feels like a TV series production, maybe they should have gone that route instead.

4/10

Thunderbolts* (2025)

 

So this was the new Avengers team huh, this is how Marvel has progressed since their blockbuster days? Wow! Talk about a downgrade. Honesty, I haven't been so bored in a movie since the last Marvel movie I saw, which was the equally boring Captain America 4, aka Red Hulk movie. 

The generic plot is as generic as generic can be. The neo team have all been lured to a facility somewhere to execute each other on the orders of CIA director Valetina de Fontaine. It is here that they also discover Bob. They all work out what's happening and escape, only for Bob to get captured by de Fontaine, and Bucky Barnes to round the rest up later on. Bob turns out to be some God-like super being that de Fontaine is wanting to become the new face of Earth's defence. Problem is, Bob has inner issues that manifest into a dark version of himself called 'Void'. Bucky realises the threat and teams up with the ragtag bunch of bickering misfit antiheroes to stop Bob. Void pulls a Thanos move on NYC but the new Avengers manage to defeat him and restore Bob back to normal. All in a day's work for this scrappy A team.

So yeah, the plot is cookie-cutter guff. It's literally the plot of any action superhero movie you could think of, but insert a different set of superheroes. In this case the main roster is quite frankly awful. Personally I have no interest whatsoever in any of the Black Widow assassin characters or the somewhat chubby Yelena Belova. Bucky Barnes looks like a poor man's Ethan Hunt (MI:2). John Walker/Captain America? No idea who this was, didn't like the portrayal. Taskmaster is simply a previous main villain character (gender swapped) from an older movie. I like the continuity but using a character that was a main villain in a previous movie, to merely make them part of an alternate team in a later movie, weakens the character (and the previous movie) in my opinion. And finally Red Guardian is a wholly annoying character that isn't funny at all. 

The start of the movie, with the team stuck in this facility, seems to go forever! Jesus it dragged so bad. Once we got away from that, it continues to drag with a whole load of exposition set within dull looking locations with a drab colour palette (this movie looks DRAB!). I dunno, this thing just seems to move from one gunmetal grey facility location to another. There is nothing to look at here, and it's all greenscreen and CGI of course. Totally synthetic and sterile.

Another issue is, despite what the director said, and what Disney said, I can't help but feel I need to have seen the various Marvel TV shows to fully know what's going on here. This movie doesn't feel like it stands on its own; you have the Marvel homework problem. But even if you have seen those shows I doubt that would have made this any better. The final product here just feels totally flat, like behind the scenes they have totally run out of ideas moving forward. There is nothing special here at all, no visual excitement, no exciting characters, a villain that is literally just a moving silhouette, no colour! The movie tries to be its usual funny Marvel self and fails with David Harbour coming across as infuriatingly annoying (for me). The fake crappy Russian accents REALLY grate in time. And was Valentina de Fontaine supposed to look like Republican Tulsi Gabbard? 

Marvel has hit a wall, a creative wall. It seems the ride is over, nothing lasts forever, no matter how many times you dive back into the multiverse well. Captain America 4 felt like the franchise was running low on gas, a generic, somewhat political fluff piece that felt more like an obligation due to the Cap now being represented by a Black character. This continues the trend with a feature that feels like a desperate attempt to reenergise the franchise with a new Avengers team. Unfortunately, I don't think the majority really care anymore with many believing this entire saga ran its course long ago and this merely felt like a halfhearted reboot. The team are uninspiring, the action is lacklustre, the thrills are gone, the spectacle has become pedestrian.

3/10

Kraven the Hunter (2024)

 

So once again Sony attempted to continue their own expanded superhero universe with yet another Spider-Man spin-off entry. The keyword here being 'attempted', as we all know up to this point the results have been pretty bad. Would this rugged-looking safari-type villain change that? (ugh!)

I mean, let's be frank here, this character is just lame, he's a crap character. I don't know a great deal about the history of comicbooks but I've always thought many characters were just blatant attempts to crowbar themselves into other popular genres of the time. For example, 'Blade' was simply Marvel trying to squeeze into the classic horror genre. Kraven seems to be Marvel trying to squeeze themselves into the classic Tarzan adventure type genre. I mean, look at this guy's attire, typical generic leopard print with lion's mane collar and big tash! I'm amazed he didn't have one of those big game safari hats (maybe he did, I dunno).

Look at the basics of the character here, in this movie at least. Kraven's (his original name is Sergei but whatever) father is a big-time drug dealer, because of course he is. They go on safari (ugh!!), and Kraven gets attacked by a lion (of course!). Some of the lion's blood gets into Kraven's blood, I think, but the lion brings Kraven to this witch doctor type woman named Calypso? (oh boy). She heals him with a magic serum? What? And now, low and behold, Kraven has super animalistic superpowers! Because, you know, that's what happens (facepalm). I thought these powers would make him more like a lion or something, which they kinda do, but overall he's just basically semi-invincible (I'm laughing out loud here).

Yeah, so what we have here is Spider-Man, but instead of a spider, it's a lion. That's literally it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is swaggering around acting all tough and cool as this ridiculous muscular Doctor Doolittle type bloke who can leap off skyscrapers, dodge bullets, and has a serious knife fetish. He clearly beefed up for the role, what a waste of time. Seriously it's embarrassing how much this guy swaggers in this, I thought he was gonna tilt over completely his swagger was so hard. As for the villains (I thought Kraven was the villain?), well there's some guy called the 'Foreigner'? Is he...a foreigner? Who is this guy? What are his superpowers? Ocular hypnosis? The power of making people stare? And there's 'Rhino', a guy who was experimented on, and now he turns into a humanoid rhino. It was supposed to simply make his skin really tough, much like rhino hide, but apparently it went as far as to give him rhino horns too, because why now?? When in regular human form he looks like a dorky school kid with a backpack on a field trip.

The CGI effects are top-to-bottom pure garbage. I know this is an old saying but this movie looks like it came out in the early 00's, and had it done so it might have fared better. But yeah, the movie looks like ass, the action is cookie-cutter nonsense that looks like ass, and there are loads of bad looking CGI animals to boot. Wanna see a low-tier superhero (supervillain?) fight a crap looking CGI big cat? You're in luck my friend.

The only single highlight in this entire movie was Russell Crowe as Kraven's kingpin dad. Russell looks beefy and badass as the crime lord. He kinda gave me a South African, Afrikaner, vibe to be honest, a bit like the Ulysses Klaue character. Other than that, this entire venture was a complete generic mess. The plot is simply Kraven having to rescue a family member from the bad guys, but the bad guys have underestimated Kraven on his own turf. The first half is an overly long origins story which is boring. The second half is just bad CGI action and underwhelming action sequences we have all seen before. Rhino looks stupid, really stupid. Foreigner didn't even need to be there, with his ability to make people stare. Calypso does nothing, and Kraven has daddy issues. This movie was offensively bad, harsh? Maybe, but I really can't believe they're making stuff like this still.

2/10

Superman (2025)

Is it a bird?! Is it a plane?! No! It's YET ANOTHER superhero flick and YET ANOTHER attempt by DC and Warner Bros to try and get their DCU started (ugh!!!!!!). Jesus read the room guys!

So after the failure of literally everything else in the DCEU and DCU, the powers that be thought it would be a wise choice to hire James Gunn in order to kickstart/reboot everything all over again. Was this a wise choice? Well this still remains to be seen but going by his previous work, personally, I don't think he was the right choice.

Plot wise, a world where superheroes exist, people know of Superman, and he's been around on Earth for years. So no origins story for Supes...or anyone or anything really. You're just pushed right into the fray, right into the action, this is the world, accept it. Superman is trying to stop a conflict and a mysterious supervillain, at the same time, Lex Luthor is trying to upend and ultimately get rid of Supes in any way he can. Does Superman have too much power? He is a friend or foe? All sounds familiar doesn't it?

So this time around we seem to have been given a real mix of Superman interpretations from various eras. As we know, the bulk is taken from the Silver age era. There is also some 80's influence, 90's influence, current day influences etc...But this leads to the first problem. The Silver Age content is overly goofy and doesn't come across well, in my opinion. The inclusion of Superman robots in the Fortress of Solitude and Krypto the Dog are terrible inclusions. The robots could have been decent had they been realised properly and not like something out of 'The Phantom Menace'. Whilst Krypto just comes across like something from a kids' Saturday morning with all the silly baggage that would encompass.

The bright colourful visuals and overall comicbook appearance do look good (if a tad too CGI, as usual), and come across nicely, harking back to the classic 1978 movies (more so the third). But again I can't help but feel Gunn and co have gone over the top simply trying to distance themselves from the previous Zack Snyder movie which was seen as too dark. Whilst the Donner films were comicbook-esque, they were also grand in scope and dramatic when required. This Gunn movie feels far too cartoonish with little drama and too much quirky, dare I say, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' style tomfoolery. Almost every moment of drama is totally undercut with some stupid joke or visual gag! It's painful to watch.

Another problem is the dicey inclusion of current-day influences. Firstly this will easily date a movie in the future which is never good. Secondly, despite what you may have heard, there is absolutely an obvious reference to a certain Middle Eastern conflict in this movie. The plot revolves around two (fictional) countries, one with superior military might and supported by the US. The other a much poorer, ragtag bunch of people from a clearly poorer war-torn country with no military power, is OBVIOUSLY a nod towards current affairs, come on!

So let's talk about the Justice Gang, ugh! From the get go I always thought this was a mistake, too much pork. For starters we have no explanations as to who these guys are. Why are they around? Where do they come from? If these guys are around, where are all the other superheroes in the world? There should be tonnes flying around. Okay, so most people will know of, or heard of, Green Lantern. But who is Mr. Terrific? What's his deal? What are those flying spheres he uses? Why does he fly around in a flying armchair like a flying Professor X? Turns out he's essentially a Black Tony Stark, pfft! As for Hawkgirl, stupid name, stupid character, didn't even need to be there. Oh, and there's also Metamorpho, another character that Supes eventually gets help from. Who is this guy? Where's he from? What's his deal? (is what regular non-comicbook nerds will be asking). But its characters like this that give this movie an unwanted 'Guardians of the Galaxy' vibe.

Due to the inclusion of the Justice Gang, too many characters, this leaves little time for everyone else. We hardly get any Clark Kent, which also means we hardly get any 'Daily Planet'. In turn this means we get little from Jimmy Olsen, Perry White (race-swapped again), and any other Planet employee or Planet scenes. Superman's parents are there but again hardly used. Any emotional moments with them are undercut as previously said. Let's not forget about Lois Lane, well this movie does. She starts off okay, but past the first act, she is literally of no consequence to the plot.

Bizarrely, Mr. Terrific becomes more of a key figure than the rest, why? Beats me, because he's a Black character? (it is 2025 remember). I still don't even understand why people are raving about this guy. Sure he's a neat character, but nothing special. His main action scene was weirdly unexciting if you ask me as he merely walks along, surrounds himself with a shield or forcefield, and his flying metal spheres take out all his opponents. What was exciting about that?? 

As for the main man Lex Luthor, is it just me or would Nathan Fillion have been better in this role? Fillion's smartass asshole performance as Guy Gardner might have worked better as Luthor if you ask me. I didn't really like Nicholas Hoult as Luthor. He looks too young, too baby-faced, too clean-cut, and he wasn't very threatening (Gene Hackman used to scare me as a kid). Sure he's nicely sardonic but his face just didn't fit for me, needed a bit more gruff, or facial hair. He looked like Agent 47 outta 'Hitman', especially when wielding that gun. Gotta say I didn't really like the choice of David Corenswet as Superman either. This guy just came across to me as wholly bland, like brown bread, vanilla ice cream, nothing special at all. He doesn't even look remotely muscular as Superman either, although that could be the awkward look and fit of his outfit.

Critically for me this whole thing doesn't even look or feel that grand! The 1978 Donner film felt epic in scope, very special in every aspect, it blew you away. This Gunn offering feels and looks like an extended TV episode and small in scope. It comes across as very average, there's nothing grandiose about this at all. The casting, the effects, shots, sequences, dialogue etc...it all feels very generic and no different to a multitude of other similar superhero flicks we've already seen (especially, obviously, previous Gunn offerings). Hell, we don't even really see any proper sequences of Superman flying, or get any sweet flybys. Everything is mostly close quarters and right in Supes face (what's with Corenswet's eyes when he flies? It looks like he has exotropia).

And what did they do with the score here?? What was that terrible song over the end credits? Horrendous decision! Just goes to show you how important John Williams was, in the fact that even to this day, a Superman film doesn't work without his Superman theme.

Look, don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad movie, in fact it's a perfectly solid superhero flick. The main issue here is, this is a superhero flick and not a Superman flick. This is a typical James Gunn team (of smartasses) flick and not a Superman flick. This is not a Superman film for everyone, it's aimed squarely at comicbook nerds and the short attention span of TikTok Gen Z. Whereas the 1978 Donner film felt like Superman was actually set in a realistic place with real emotions and was somewhat grounded sensibly, this is a highly generic movie that looks and feels like a kids' cartoon. There has been WAY too much time and thought in trying to set up a new universe/franchise with multiple characters, and not enough Superman (leave things like that for sequels!). There is FAR too much stuff packed into this movie and overall it suffers.

5/10

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

 

Second reboot for this troubled franchise and this time they finally get the casting right. Ray Stevenson is brought in as the main man, and in my opinion he looks spot on for the role, kudos to the casting team. No makeup applied facial hair this time.

As for the film well, it's a bit weak in plot really. Very straight forward, very basic, how can I put this...it's like Tim Burton's Batman except, replace the Joker with Jigsaw and add extreme violence. Sooo bottom line I fudging like it baby! The origins are skipped for this entry which is good. We get flashbacks but that is acceptable, we don't need all the family massacre stuff again.

The film gets right into the action with easily the best sequence of the film. A mansion full of mob bosses and henchmen cannon fodder, ripe for the Punisher to exterminate. This one sequence is a pure joy to watch for action aficionados. The lights go out and our antihero appears from nowhere. He then proceeds to gun down everyone in sight with a few neck snaps and knife kills thrown in.

From there it's into the more traditional (unoriginal), yet still workable plot-line, of the big mob boss supposedly getting killed off by our antihero. But surprise surprise! The villain re-emerges from the shadows, horribly disfigured, and out for revenge. So it's pretty much the plot for the Joker, you could say the same thing for almost all the Batman villains really.

First impressions for the Punisher are good. His outfit has been changed and upgraded with some serious heavy military police style body armour including, a thick collar section, an arsenal of top-line weaponry, and his skull logo remains intact, emblazoned upon his chest piece. He looks like he's just stepped out of a S.W.A.T. armoury, and it's the perfect look in my view. It's up to date and would definitely be a more realistic take on what someone would wear in a real situation. The black leather biker look is gone, that's the more fantasy based look.

Twas amusing when Castle blasts a bad guys face off with a big shotgun whilst at the same time holding this little girl. If that doesn't mess her up later on in life nothing will.

The main villain Jigsaw is a highly enjoyable lunatic played by Yorkshire-born Sheffield lad Dominic West. I was very impressed with his ''Noo Yawk'' dialect (hard thing to achieve), and with the sadistic humour he gave to his character. I'm trying not to mention a certain Batman villain here, but one does tend to think of him whilst watching this film. I mean let's be frank here (no pun intended), this could easily be a Batman flick. West's performance is incredibly similar to Nicholson's performance as Joker in Batman 89, there I said it. We all knew this deep down. Definitely a fun watch, but maybe a bit too close for comfort?

The film can't quite keep up the pace for the full run time I gotta admit, the finale is a bit anti-climactic. The whole idea is very cliched really. Jigsaw goes off to recruit lots of thugs from various quarters (Chinese, Irish, blinged-up Black gangsters), they all hole up in Jigsaw's hideout and await Castle. It all feels a bit 'Batman Forever-ish' with all these different gangs, half expected the interior of Jigsaw's lair to light up in neon when the battle started.

So yes the whole idea for this film is pretty dated, its very cliche, very 80's, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I still can't quite understand why this flopped as its a fast paced, nasty gunfest with Castle kicking ass, what more do people want? For me this is the best version of the Punisher so far, dark, gritty, seedy...with solid graphic novel/comic book visuals.

Did anyone else think West's performance as Jigsaw also kinda looked and sounded like an Al Pacino performance? Seriously was that just me?? The more I think about it, the more I think Pacino would have been great in this role, Castle vs Scarface. Anywho, yes this is a very unoriginal feature, yes it feels like an ultra-violent copy of a certain Tim Burton flick (I've mentioned this too many times now), and yes this is not an MCU flick. But this is definitely an underrated and forgotten Marvel flick which should be up there with 'Blade'.

7/10

DC League of Super-Pets (2022)

 

So in this era of comicbook movies and the inevitable emergence of comicbook fatigue, what better way to try and suck some originality out of the genre than this, superhero pets.

Yeah so in the absence of any financial success for pretty much any of their movies, DC turns to animation and pets to try and eek out some money from any fanbase or audience going. In this kiddie flick we get some brief backstory for DC's greatest superhero Superman but this time with the added bonus of his pet dog Krypto. 

Old Sups lives as he does on Earth in a relationship with Lois Lane, his jealous preening narcissistic dog, whilst fighting crime with the Justice League. Unfortunately, the Justice League is defeated and captured by Lex Luthor using orange kryptonite, leaving Krypto alone. In a massive case of sod's law one of Luthor's guinea pig test subjects manages to gain superpowers with said orange kryptonite and decides to take over the Earth. Without the Justice League Krypto must save the Earth with the help of a random bunch of local pets.

So essentially what you have here is a standard generic superhero vs. supervillain plot, in animation form, but instead of Human heroes we have animals. The supervillain in question is a tiny pink bald (due to the orange kryptonite) female guinea pig (had to be female) called Lulu which just so happens to be rather annoying. No real idea why this guinea pig is so evil and the fact it's small yet a massive threat comes across as a tired trope. It doesn't help that this character is voiced by the unfunny (in my opinion) Kate McKinnon). The hero team is your typical quirky gang of misfits that really don't look like they would be of any help at all frankly. A dog, squirrel, kitten, fat pig, and tortoise. Yeah it's a kid's animated flick but really? I also found the fat pig a really annoying character. Just annoying visually, mannerisms, speech, and the fact its essentially a useless character.

Naturally these animals eventually all get superpowers themselves which enable them to fight back against Lulu. Naturally each animal's unique superpower is a trait associated with that animal. The fat pig can grow to an even bigger size. The tortoise gains super speed. The Boxer dog gains strength etc...In turn Lulu manages to gain some more guinea pig minions with superpowers to help her. All the superpowers are what you would expect. This all results in the same generic types of superhero battles we've seen a gazillion times before in both animation and live-action. Lots of throwing characters into things and the obligatory comicbook laser bolts/beams and what have you. Obviously no one is gonna die so expect any stakes here.

We do see the Justice League quite a bit in this movie which did amusingly lead me to think that this was almost like a fallback Justice League flick for the DC. Like, they failed with their live-action movies so let's try and kinda do it again in this animated kid's flick but not outrightly admit it. Plus DC gotta be seen to be keeping up with Marvel. DC went all out with this version oh yes, it was almost like they were trying to appease the fanbase. Obviously the look and feel of the characters are way more comedic and silly but visually at least it all looked comicbook accurate to me. Heck they even threw Black Adam in there too! Plus look at that voice cast! Keanu Reeves, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, John Krasinski, Alfred Molina, Keith David, Diego Luna etc...You probably could make a live-action comicbook movie with that line up. It also amused me how they still lean on the joke that Batman is kinda useless in this superhero team because he's just a regular guy in a suit.

At the end of the day I'm not a overly massive comicbook fan and never was. I'm not in the know on everything DC and Marvel so I cannot go in deep detail over little easter eggs or what may or may not be comicbook accurate. I can say that I did always find it utterly hilarious, ridiculous, and kinda desperate that DC superheroes have pets, superpets no less. Always felt to me as if the creators ran out of ideas and just gave Sups a pet dog. I'm also not too sure what the language barriers are in this universe, can all Humans understand animals? Or just superheroes? Is it all animals or just specific species? 

Anyway I'm rambling on about a children's animated movie (secretly aimed at adult comicbook fans). Is this any good? Well I didn't really engage with it truth be told, I was bored. Yeah the CGI is nice but most of the animals were annoying and looked ugly. The plot is generic as hell and the comedy is tired. I mean, this is literally a paint-by-numbers cookie-cutter superhero flick but instead of Humans it's animals, that's it! It does the job but geez! Superhero fatigue is real.

5/10