Justice League Comic Con Trailer - Review/Reaction

Warner Bros. has released a sneak peek of the upcoming movie that unites the DC Comics superheroes.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), the movie stars Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as  Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash and Ray Fisher as Victor Stone/Cyborg.

Newcomers include Amber Heard as Mera, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Kiersey Clemons as Iris West.

Check out the trailer below:

This trailer is not much of an improvement over the previous trailer that debuted a few months ago. Since then, we have had rumors about Ben Affleck wanting to leave the franchise completely. He has officially stepped down as the director and Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes) has taken over the duties. Zack Snyder lost his daughter and has moved away from the production.

Joss Whedon (Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Avengers) is currently overseeing the post production work and has also reportedly done extensive reshoots. Joss was originally hired by the studio to write, direct and produce Batgirl.

Snyder had already completed shooting by the time Whedon took over. We all know Snyder's capacity to deliver a good superhero movie based on his previous two attempts. Snyder's movies boast of great visuals (specifically 300) but severely lack good character development, plot and dialogues. This movie also looks to suffer from the same drawbacks.

The actors strike all types of action figure poses and give reaction shots. The comedy looks forced, which is a surprise given Whedon's natural talent for writing witty dialogues/quips in his movies especially The Avengers. But Even Whedon can only do so much with this sub-standard material that has been forced on him. 




The special effects in this trailer look better than what we saw in the earlier one. Still some do look like taken straight out of a video game. No wonder the movie characters are also two dimensional.

Perhaps, the future of DC Films lies in female superhero led movies. Wonder Woman has been a hit both critically and commercially. Provided the studio does not interfere too much, Whedon will knock it out of the park with Batgirl.

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Image Sources: DC Comics, DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment (as RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC), Lensbern Productions, Warner Bros.

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Supergirl Season 2 Episode 18 "Ace Reporter" - Recap and Review

Jack Spheer (Rahul Kohli), an old flame of Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) arrives in National City. His company is launching a nanotechnology based solution that can cure any known human afflictions.

Lena attends the launch function with Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist). Kara tries to grill Jack on the safety standards of the product.

After the function is over, Kara is approached by Joe (Andrew McNee). Joe is a whistle-blower and tries to warn her about the lack of records about the human trials that were supposed to have been completed before releasing the product. Even as he is providing her with the details in his car, a swarm of nanobots attack the two and the car goes up in flames and Joe is killed.

Kara realizes that something is seriously amiss with the way Jack has developed the product. Snapper Carr (Ian Gomez) meets Derrick Simmons (Johnny Ghorbani) who had volunteered for the human trials but was never actually tested. Once again a swarm of nanobots attack them but Supergirl saves Snapper but Derrick is gone.

Driven by guilt over her failure to save two lives, Kara desperately tries to warn Lena about Jack and gatecrash Lena's dinner with Jack. Mon-El steals Jack's security badge and subsequently he and Kara obtain data from Jack's laptop at his office.

The video shows Jack performing the tests on himself. This explains the lack of records in the company archives regarding test trials. Kara shows the video to Lena and pleads with her to stay away from Jack.

But Lena being a Luthor does exactly that and confronts Jack. Turns out that it is Beth Breen (Claudia Doumit), the company's CFO, who has got total control over Jack after his body has transformed after the tests. She made him commit the murders.

Beth once again takes control of Jack and forces him to kill Lena. Supergirl arrives in time to save her but is overpowered by Jack. Lena has no choice but to shut down Jack permanently.

A subplot involved the tension between James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) and Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan) over the unnecessarily brutal tactics adopted by Lyra Strayd (Tamzin Merchant) when she roughs up a kid while helping James in his vigilante work as Guardian. Finally, things are patched up between James and Lyra after she agrees to his rules.

This was a good episode. Most of the focus was on the friendship between Kara and Lena. Katie McGrath is good as Lena and shows spunk. Katie and Melissa share an excellent chemistry.

Melissa seems to have regained some of her enthusiasm for the role. She also showed good chemistry with Chris Wood and Ian Gomez as Mon-El and Snapper respectively.

Speaking of Snapper, his comments about the new generation of reporters using social media really tickled the funny bones. Ian Gomez brings some much needed humor to the show. Hopefully we will see more and more of him in the future episodes.

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Hank Henshaw (David Harewood) and Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) were absent for most of the episode. With Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) also gone, this episode showcased the new set of actors delivering some solid work. Let us see if the show can maintain this tempo.

And the excellent Teri Hatcher makes a brief cameo in the closing scenes to make an offer to Lena. In an earlier scene, Lena confesses to Kara about her fears of going bad like her more famous brother: Lex Luthor. Lena's character arc shows a lot of promise.

Recommended watch to fans of DC Comics.

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Image Sources: Berlanti Productions, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Television, The CW Television Network (The CW)

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Supergirl Season 2 Episode 17 "Distant Sun" - Recap and Review

This review contains spoilers. Readers who are yet to see the episode are recommended to skip this post.

Supergirl/Kara Zor-El (Melissa Benoist) and Mon-El (Chris Wood) are still together much against the wishes of his parents: Lar Gand (Kevin Sorbo) and Rhea (Teri Hatcher). Supergirl runs into an alien destroying National City and subdues him.

Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan) then informs her that he is one of the bounty hunters out to get her for a princely sum has been offered to anyone who takes her out. Mon-El suspects his parents as the ones who ordered the hit. They deny the accusation.

J'onn J'onzz (David Harewood) and Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) request Supergirl to lay low till they figure out who is after her life.

A secondary plot involves Alex running into Emily (Hayley Sales), an ex-girlfriend of Maggie Sawyer (Floriana Lima). Maggie tells Alex that she and Emily had a bad break-up. Alex is shocked to learn from Emily that it was Maggie who was cheating on her during their relationship.

The next bounty hunter is an expert in mind control and he uses Mon-El to attack Kara. Kara is hesitant to attack Mon-El who is unable to resist the alien's control over him. Finally Winn brings the fight to an end by using a stapler.

This bounty hunter refuses to name his employer(s). Martian Manhunter uses his powers of telepathy and forces the failed assassin to reveal that it was Mon-El's mother, Rhea who ordered the hit.

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Supergirl and Mon-El meet Rhea to sort out their differences. Rhea is hell bent on destroying Supergirl and wounds her using a Kryptonite weapon. Mon-El agrees to leave Earth with his parents in order to protect Kara's life.

But Kara decides to rescue Mon-El from his parents. J'onn J'onzz is initially hesitant to this idea as he is under orders from the President Olivia Marsdin (Lynda Carter). Olivia is actually an Durlan alien masquerading as a human being.

J'onn finally relents to help Supergirl. Seeing his son in love with Kara, Lar lets him stay with her on Earth. But this proves to be a fatal mistake as Rhea murders him shortly thereafter. She promises that she is not done with our planet yet.

Acting wise, Teri Hatcher was good as the determined lady out to achieve her goals at any cost. She was having fun playing the antagonist and the episode benefited a lot. Kevin Sorbo was just adequate looking either sad or lost for the most part.

Melissa Benoist has been giving a distinct impression of being disinterested in her titular role. Chris Wood is wooden as Kara's love interest. The two have nearly no chemistry together. Thankfully, Chyler Leigh and David Harewood are professionals and save the show again and again.

Most of the humor comes from Jeremy Jordan's Winn Schott. He manages to bring two pop culture references. First was the Star Wars reference through the Stormtrooper comment from Mon-El. The other was the reference to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. The way Winn fooled the mind-controlling alien into submission by using stapler was a nod to Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) using the same instrument to force Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) to listen to his plans for Gotham.

My one complaint would be that Martian Manhunter continues to be de-powered significantly just to let Supergirl save the day every time. I am all for female superheroes ruling the roost and I think it can be done without making Manhunter weaker in comparison.

Recommended watch to fans of DC Comics.

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Image Sources: Berlanti Productions, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Television, The CW Television Network (The CW)

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Justice League (2017) Trailer - Review/Reaction

The first trailer for the long awaited movie has finally been released.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), the movie stars Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as  Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/ The Flash and Ray Fisher as Victor Stone/Cyborg.

Newcomers include Amber Heard as Mera, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Kiersey Clemons as Iris West.

Check out the trailer below:

From what I have seen in the trailer, I am guessing that this movie is based on story Justice League: Origin by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. That story features an invasion of earth by Darkseid and the heroes forming a team to stop him.

The DC animated movie Justice League: War is itself an adaptation the same story. I am quite sure that this live action movie will not measure up to the animated version.

The trailer is not as exciting as the trailer for BvS: Dawn of Justice was. Considering the quality of BvS, this does not bode well for the movie. The movie seems to suffer from the same shortcomings as the previous two Snyder movies: weak character development, weak dialogues and the most damning of all - special effects that are not worthy for a video game.




Even video games have better detailed locations than this movie does. Like BvS, this one too has been shot extensively in the studio against green screens. Instead of filling the background with details, the lazy director and his crew have just opted for darkened visuals to hide the fact that they have zero imagination.

Considering that this is a superhero movie, at least the special effects must be good if not excellent.

Even the great J K Simmons looks bored. He was on fire as J Jonah Jameson in the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies. Here he just looks lost. I think this has to do with the general lack of vision and direction about the DC Films at Warner Bros. The standalone Flash movie lost not one but two directors and is now headed for a complete script rewrite.

The Batman standalone movie is in a slightly better situation: after Ben Affleck quit as director, the studio managed to hire Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes). The movie is also undergoing a complete script rewrite after the previous script credited to Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns was discarded.

If the rumors are to be believed, Affleck completely wants out of the role. It is understandable that his retirement from the role will be officially announced after this Justice League movie will be released. Given this state of affairs, it is obvious as to why he too looks bored in the trailer.

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The rest of the cast do their best with the weak lines. But none of the so-called humor works. The actors just strike action figure poses and have minimal dialogues. Further it does not help that some of the footage are reused from the character spots the studio has been releasing for the past couple of days. I think the best shots in the movie are in this trailer.

But not all hope is lost for DC Films. In addition to hiring Matt Reeves, the studio is reportedly in talks with Mathew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) to direct the sequel to Man of Steel. That does raise my hopes. Point of interest - Vaughn's Kick-Ass had a Batman knockoff character in the form of Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage in one of his better performances in the recent past).

Clearly, Warner Bros have acknowledged the negative feedback about Snyder's “vision”. If only they had not hired him in the first place....

Coming back to this movie, I am predicting that it will earn around the same amount of money as BvS: Dawn of Justice did. Just as that movie had the novelty factor of the two heroes appearing first time onscreen, this one too has the famed DC team coming to life. Once the opening weekend is over and the hardcore fans are done with the movie, the movie should drop like a rock. Yes, pretty much the same trajectory as what BvS took before falling well short of the coveted 1 Billion USD benchmark.

The critics will no doubt be tough on the movie and I expect the Rotten tomatoes rating to fall below 30%. The hardcore DC fans will take up arms and demand the site to be closed. They will be interested to know that Warner Bros. owns the Rotten Tomatoes site.

Ben Affleck's Batman says at one point in the trailer: “My turn”. To see the same line delivered by an actor invested in his character, check out this scene from V for Vendetta:

Unless Zack Snyder has improved his sensibilities and directorial skills dramatically, I would expect this movie to be another missed opportunity.

Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

 

Image Sources: DC Comics, DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment (as RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC), Lensbern Productions, Warner Bros.

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Wonder Woman (2017) Official Origin Trailer - Review/Reaction

The origin trailer for the upcoming DC Film has been released.

Directed by Patty Jenkins (Monster), the movie stars Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Robin Wright as General Antiope, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta, and Danny Huston as General Erich Ludendorff.

After not so interesting trailers that preceded this, Warner Bros. and Patty Jenkins finally managed to put together a decent sell. After all, this movie is supposed to rescue the DC Films from oblivion after the disappointing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad.

Check out the trailer:

The trailer shows a young Diana taking lessons in warfare to become the best among the Amazonians. Then comes Man and with him comes the problems of the big bad world. Diana takes a trip with Steve through Guy Ritchie's steampunk London followed by a nod to Richard Donner's 1978 Superman.

Like any self respecting superhero in the 20th century, Wonder Woman fights Nazis and brings peace to the world.

The action scenes are way better than what we have seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. There is far less graphics and more of actual people doing the fighting. Still we have to see the movie if this is the case for the entire movie or if this is just another promising trailer that sets us up for (another) disappointment eventually.

Chris Pine has the best lines in the trailer and delivers them very well. Gal Gadot is good at action but seems a bit lost in dialogue delivery, emoting and voice modulation. Plus there are only so times we can see an origin story.

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This looks to be at least as good as Man of Steel if not better than it. This itself is a big achievement considering the dismal quality of BvS and Suicide Squad. Warner Bros. studio executives are clearly only interested in making money from these movies and they do not care about these characters at all. Which is why Ben Affleck quit as the director of the solo Batman movie and the Flash movie lost two directors and is currently undergoing a complete rewrite.

But the most disturbing thing about this movie is that Zack Snyder claims writing credits.. Let that fact sink in. The guy who is clearly anti-feminist and has already delivered two DC duds so far has contributed to this movie.

Irrespective of the other factors, if the movie has a single action sequence that is at least half as much fun as the airport sequence in Captain America: Civil War, I would consider that a major win for DC Films.

The answer lies a couple of months away. 

 
Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

Image Sources:  Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Warner Bros.

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Logan (2017) Trailer # 1 - Review and Reaction

The first trailer for the (supposedly) final Wolverine movie, Logan is here.

After directing The Wolverine, James Mangold returns to the director's chair. In addition to the series regulars (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart), we have a few newcomers: Richard E. Grant as Dr. Zander Rice a.k.a Mister Sinister, Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce and Stephen Merchant as Caliban (a younger version was played by Tómas Lemarquis in X-Men: Apocalypse).

Check out the trailer below:

The trailer comes as self-serious. Gone is the humor and wit that Hugh Jackman displayed in the X-Men movie: X-Men: Days of Future Past. Appropriately, the trailer is set to the song “Hurt” covered by Johnny Cash in 2002.

Patrick Stewart appears as an aged Charles Xavier. This is what I have understood so far about the movie: It is an apocalypse-type scenario and mutants are being hunted down. Logan has advanced in terms of age and there is a female clone (X-23) in the fray.

As usual, it is upto Logan to save the world of mutants. This time, the bad guy is Mister Sinister. I am not an expert on X-Men mythology. I have not read the comics and my only exposure is via the two animated series: X-Men and X-Men Evolution apart from the movies.

From what I have seen so far, Mister Sinister would make an interesting villain, given his skill sets. Plus, hopefully we won't get Magneto lifting bridges, cars etc...

Another good thing about the movie's trailer: At least there is no Jennifer Lawrence. It would be nice if Rebecca Romijn makes at least a cameo appearance as an aged Mystique.

Click here to read all my posts related to Marvel Comics.

Image Sources: Donners' Company, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - Review/Reaction

The long awaited movie has finally been released. There will be spoilers throughout and the readers who are yet to watch the episode are recommended to skip this post.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Watchmen), the movie stars Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

Supporting cast includes Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Diane Lane as Martha Kent and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.

The movie starts off with a funeral procession of Thomas Wayne (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Martha Wayne (Lauren Cohan). A traumatized Bruce Wayne (Brandon Spink) is seen running wildly and falls into a cave full of .... bats (what else can one expect?).

Flash forward to the climactic battle of Man of Steel. Bruce is rushing through the Metropolis streets to save his employees/friends working in the Wayne building. He manages to save an injured employee, Wallace Keefe (Scoot McNairy) and an unnamed girl from the rubble.

But instead of spending a few minutes with Bruce, we again jump to an underwater excavation under progress in the Indian Ocean. The object being retrieved is a considerable chunk of Kryptonite.

Senator Finch (Holly Hunter) wants Superman to be held accountable for his actions. She is being cleverly manipulated by Lex Luthor, who wants to get his hands on all things Kyrptonian, including the corpse of Zod (Michael Shannon).



But Finch is the not the only one, Lex is toying with. He is also setting up both the Man of Steel and Batman to a no-holds barred brawl.

In the midst of all these developments, Diana Prince is hanging around the same social gatherings as Clark Kent and specifically Bruce Wayne do. Bruce can sense that she is up to something.

The movie meanders around till it gets to the much-hyped battle of the superheroes. Like The Dark Knight Returns, the graphic novel on which the movie is partially based on, Batman ends up defeating Superman with the help of Kryptonite.

He is about to kill the Man of Steel, when Clark mentions a name: Martha. This triggers an emotional trip down the memory lane for Bruce. Lois stops by and informs Batman that Martha is the first name of Superman's mother.

Yes, that is how stupid Ben Affleck's Batman is. He does not even bother to check out these details of his enemy before he goes to fight him. For a character supposed to be the “World's Greatest Detective”, he is mindbogglingly dumb. That is probably good, as only Sherlock Holmes can rightfully claim that title.

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The movie finally comes to a conclusion with the DC's Trinity facing off against Doomsday, the monster created by Lex from Zod's corpse. This confrontation is pure CGI and is boring as hell. Except for Wonder Woman, neither of the other three combatants make no impression.

Superman and Doomday kill each other, again echoing the story-line of the 1992 series: The Death of Superman. The movie ends with yet another funeral scene, this time for Clark/Superman. In the comic book universe, no one stays dead for long and neither will Superman.

This was a major disappointment. The movie fails on almost all possible levels: acting, action, direction, music.... The saving grace is Gal Gadot's performance as Wonder Woman and her theme music. In the final fight, she is the only one who actually fights back against the villain. Batman is busy jumping around desperately trying to save himself. Superman gets pummeled around like a toy.

The only other enjoyable scene in the movie is at Luthor's party, which also features her. Diana and Bruce eye each other warily as they attempt to steal Lex's secrets.

This is a movie that is not about the DC Universe and characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. This is a movie about Warner Bros. and how the studio is desperate to create an inter-connected universe to rival the massively successful one owned by Walt Disney/Marvel Studios.

Superman is as bland as he was in Man of Steel. In this movie, he saves Lois Lane more than any other human being. It is as if he was sent from Krypton only to the guardian angel for Lois and not humanity itself.

As emotionless as Cavill is throughout the movie, the standout is his reaction after the explosion during the hearing that leaves everyone around him dead. Cavill just looks around as if nothing happened. At least that is the impression that I got from his “acting”. In the history of worst casting decisions in superhero movies, this has got to be near the top of the heap.

Ben Affleck is either angry or snobbish. Batman's action scenes are heavily inspired by The Arkham series of Batman games and it shows. The actions look quite cartoonish both in their content and the way they are executed. Both Kevin Tsujihara (current CEO of Warner Bros.) and Zack Snyder have a strong background in video games and this works against the movie's best interests.

Except for the Batman vs gang of thugs fight sequence, both the Batman v Superman and the climactic sequence are as generic as possible. There is no element of fun behind the way these scenes have been designed. A fight scene showcasing each character's unique skills/fighting styles would have been so much fun. But this is a studio mandated product that has no time for imagination or fun.

Hopefully Suicide Squad will be much more fun than this self-serious piece of nonsense that pretends to about some of the world's most iconic superheroes.

This movie solely exists for the reason of setting up the DC Extended Universe. The best proof of this would be the “cameos” for The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. These have to be the most shoehorned in scenes in the history of Hollywood or any other cinema for that fact.

I had hoped that at least with the critical drubbing this movie has received would make Warner Bros. reconsider their decision to retain Zack Snyder's directorial talents (?) for Justice League Part One and Two due in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Now that the movie has grossed 424 million USD worldwide, it looks increasingly possible that Snyder would continue to taint the DC Universe with his “vision”.

Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

Image Sources: DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Syncopy, Warner Bros.

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