Fast & Furious 6 (2012)

Fast & Furious 6 was a lot of fun. It was dumb, cliched, and unrealistic. But as long as you suspend your disbelief, suspend it waaaayy up there, your gonna have a good time. 6/10.

Also, thanks to reddit I found a picture that sums up the whole movie nicely...

More DC Comics Animated One-offs

All-Star Superman (2011) starts with Superman trapped into being poisoned by Lex Luthor. His final days involve super-battles with a number of super-foes, finally revealing himself to Lois, and Luthor gaining Superman's powers for a day. Good animation and quality voice work in this one. The relationship with Lois was fleshed out nicely, but I really liked the scenes between Luthor and Clark Kent where Lex discusses his antagonism with Sups. 8/10.

Superman/Doomsday (2007) was just OK nothing more. I remember getting the graphic novel of this story back in the 90's when it first came out, and newspapers were running articles titled "The Death Of Superman". It ended up being a weak comic writing wise, and this movie is even weaker. Choppy, relatively cheap looking animation, with the storyline thinned out to the point of being melodramatic and anti-climactic. 5/10.

Justice League: The New Frontier (2008). This was a pretty fascinating concept. Basically a Watchmen like origin story of the League set at the height of the Cold War circa 1960, with an H.P. Lovecraftian enemy bringing the heroes and the world together. Neat animation style with character designs following the golden age comics' look and feel. Unfortunately it included the jingoism of the era. Not to mention a horribly miscast Jeremy Sisto as a gravelly Batman. All in all a pretty neat concept, but not done as well as it could have been. 6/10.

Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths (2010) has the Justice League going to a parallel dimension to battle evil versions of themselves alongside a good Lex Luthor. It felt kind of long, but the battles were above average. Some nice character touches on Bats and J'onn J'onnz, with the latter even getting his Martian freak-on with the parallel president's daughter. Having the parallel superbeings "Crime Syindicate" being modeled after and talking like the New York mob was a nice touch too. However, the voice casting was abhorrent. William Baldwin as a wispy voiced Batman? Mark Harmon as a stiff throated, slightly nasally Superman? Ugh! Good thing there were quality fights where not much talking was done. Plus the whole parallel Superwoman trying to make Bats her boy-toy thing was pretty cute. I liked it as a whole, but would've rated it higher with better voice work. 7/10.

DC Comics Animated One-offs

Last week I watched five of Warner Brothers Animation Studio's releases of DC Comics based stand-alone films, that is, storylines independant of any WB/DC television series.

Batman: Under The Red Hood (2010), based on the Batman comics storyline of the same name, was about as good as any live action movie. Well animated with a killer script, with top notch voice acting to boot. I remember when Batman: The Animated Series changed the game of cartoons. Nice to see the franchise still hasn't lost it's touch. 9/10.

Justice League: Doom (2012) was enjoyable as well. Batman is one wary dude. Also, Batman is correct. When Superman says "Maybe I can move the Earth's orbit out of the path of the flare." The right reply is "Even if I had a week I couldn't explain all the reasons that wouldn't work." 7/10.

Superman Batman: Apocalypse (2010). I ended up quite liking this in spite of Kara Zor-El's annoying affect in the first half. Character introduction and development, cartoon babes, Batman being a cold badass. Plus, it had some of the best animated fight choreography I've seen in an American release. 7/10.

Superman vs. The Elite (2012). Was worth watching for the sole purpose of witnessing Superman's defense of why he never kills anyone. His illustrative example at the climax of the movie is well worth beholding. As a friend of mine said, "It... it's somethin'!" 6/10.

Batman: Year One (2011). The animated version of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name was top notch. Briskly paced, fabulously voice-acted, and an animation style that remained true to the source. However, as an aside, I kept comparing it to the Nolan films, to which there's really no equal. In my opinion Nolan took the best parts from all of the Batman storylines and added his own genius touches and ideas to make The Dark Knight trilogy the ultimate Batman story. Regardless, as a stand alone or in that context, I happily give Batman: Year One 8/10.

Cry Vengeance (1954)

6/10. Classic mid-fifties second-tier noir set in Alaska.

When ex-cop Vic Barron gets out of prison, he travels to Alaska seeking revenge on the mob boss whom he believes murdered his wife and child and framed him for bribery.

This film is Mark Stevens directorial debut. The actor best known for playing Olivia de Havilland's husband in The Snake Pit does an admirable job in helming his first feature, whilst portraying it's main role. There's nothing particularly memorable done on the back end of the camera, save some unique-for-it's-day aerial and dolly shots. The movie as a whole is probably pretty forgettable.

The cast does a standard job for mid-fifties noir. Skip Homeier stands out significantly as the despicable thug Roxey Davis, mostly due to his unique looks as opposed to any acting forte. The beautiful Martha Hyer does an average job portraying love interest Peggy Harding, but as I said before, nothing truly memorable. Mark Stevens is more stone-cold than anything, which is what the character called for.

The only real thing of note about this film is the fact that it's a noir story set in the lumberjack capitol of Ketchikan, Alaska. The two don't obviously go together in one's mind, but the writers manage to pull it off, primarily by having the central ensemble all hail from San Francisco.

SPOILER ALERT

I would have cared for this film much more had it followed classic noir and climaxed in a dismal ending. The writers however chose the happy route and all is resolved with no true consequences. So although this movie was noir in style, it was really just an average Hollywood thriller.

The 13th Warrior (1999)

6/10. So this is what a flop looks like. Apparently going over budget to a cost of $160 Million, this film lost $123 Million upon release. When McTiernan's original cut apparently didn't please test audiences, Michael Chrichton took the helm and made at least a presentable effort out of the film.

The story of an Arabic poet, outcast from his native land and into the midst of a group of Vikings. He is among those chosen to travel north to fight a mysterious enemy in a mysterious land.

I remember reading part of Chrichton's novel in high school, "Eaters of the Dead". It was pretty slow, but had elements of interest to me. It was unique in that it was written both in Old English (like Beowulf) and in modern English as well.

Unfortunately McTiernan and Chrichton and the screenwriters turn it into a pretty mundane hack-and-slash Medieval action film. No indication in the film that the mysterious hordes were actually descendants of Neanderthals, as was presented in the book. Nor is any of the feeling of coarse poetry, that bled through the pages of the book.

Chrichton was actually my favorite author growing up, and I'm familiar with most of his works (both his writings and his films), and this I would have to say is among the most middling of the film efforts. Entertaining enough, but not really capturing the power of the original story.

A Bullet For Joey (1955)

6/10. Entertaining spy/crime thriller. Geroge Raft plays a crime boss hired by international spies to kidnap a nuclear scientist in Canada. Edward G. Robinson is the police inspector on his trail.

This was your average crime thriller from the 50's. The big bonus was the brief scenes with Edward G. Robinson and George Raft acting together. Up until that point it was just one or the other carrying the shot.

I was expecting this to be something more noirish along the lines of "Kiss Me Deadly", but it ended up being more like "G-men". Not a terribly bad thing, but I ended up giving it a lower score because of that. Really the only reason I gave this film above average score at all was because of Raft and Robinson.

Also of note is Peter van Eyck playing a variation on his evil Nazi, only this time we get the impression that he's an equally evil Commie.

Dark City (1950)

6/10. In Charleton Heston's first screen role he plays one of three grifters who dupe an out-of-towner out of his every penny in a poker game. The out-of-towner hangs himself and his psychopathic brother hunts down Heston and crew seeking vengeance.

Dark City was your run of the mill 50's film noir. It's most notable in my opinion for introducing us to a very young Charleton Heston. Heston really stands out in this film, with his stilted acting and intense demeanor that won him more starring roles. There were other notables including Dragnet's Jack Webb as a baddie, and M.A.S.H.'s Harry Morgan as a punchy sidekick.

Not as memorable, or dark, as most film niors, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

Sisters (1973)

6/10. Sisters is among Brian De Palma's earliest works behind the directors chair. Made for American International, the production company best known for grindhouse schlock in the 60's and 70's, this picture stands out.

After witnessing a murder in an apartment on Staten Island, a feminist reporter begins an investigation into the life of the apartment's owner played by Margot Kidder. What she finds out is horrifying.

All of De Palma's touches are here: the Hitchcockian suspense; the overbearing musical score; the split screen and POV camera work; the touch of parapsychological horror. What made him famous for Carrie, can definately be seen in Sisters. I bet the once priceless Bernard Hermann was pleased to be once again working on a film with substance, instead of the run of the mill slasher fare he'd relinquished himself to in his later years. This film is definitely a stand out from the rest of American International's catalog.

I wouldn't say I liked this film, as I don't usually like horror films. It just impressed me as a well crafted film that didn't quite end up how you thought it would.