Plans, Plans, Plans...They Always Have Their Plans

I haven't done much on the DC Universe Animated Original series. Well, besides the one blog on the possibility of Flashpoint becoming a movie. I'll get into a more detailed blog about the series someday, and I hope to do all the other films in the line as well. Today, I want to blog about the latest in the line, Justice League: Doom.

Normally I'd start off with a little history on a comic book hero or team, but I want to meet my workload (it may be self-imposed but if I don't set some boundaries, this blog would be updated with much less frequency) of three blogs per week and there's a lot to cover with a team book. Next time I read a JL comic that I want to review, I'll do it then.

But in brief, it's DC's big superhero team, usually with seven main members. The most common line up involves DC's “Big Three” (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) one of the various Flashes (usually Barry Allen or Wally West), one of the many Earthbound Green Lanterns (most commonly Hal Jordan, Kyle Raynor or John Stewart), the Martian Manhunter and the seventh alternates depending on medium and continuity, though usually it's Aquaman or Hawkgirl.

Though in the current DC comic continuity, Martian Manhunter is part of Stormwatch and Cyborg takes his place.

This movie is based on the story arc entitled Tower Of Babel. In the arc, Ra's Al Ghul steals plans that Batman had created in case the Justice League ever went rogue or were brainwashed into committing evil acts and the process was irreversible. Ra's used these against the Justice League in order to keep them occupied while he undertakes his latest diabolical plan. To distract Batman, Ra's abducts the corpses of his parents, thus keeping Batman from helping his fellow leaguers.

I have read the story, and it's fantastic. It's one of those “Why did no one think of this before?” kind of stories, the plans themselves are brilliant and Ra's goal (scrambling all languages into nonsense to bring about war) is exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from one of Batman's greatest (and best written) enemies. I highly recommend the story.

The movie plays out much the same in terms of basic concept. However, besides being condensed to a large degree, the movie makes many alterations:

• It drops Plastic Man and Aquaman (a pity, his was my fave plan in the comic. Not because the character sucked but because it was just so brilliant. It involved being exposed to Scarecrow's fear gas to make him hydrophobic) and Cyborg steps up to bat (everything's coming up Cyborg these days!)
• Instead of Wally and Kyle, the film uses Barry and Hal in their place.
• The methods used to dispatch of each member of the league differs greatly (I'd go into great detail here but that's a lot to cover and I will be mentioning a few later on anyway).
• Vandal Savage is the main villain in the film, as opposed to Ra's Al Ghul.

So, despite the changes, I really enjoyed this movie. There hasn't been a bad DCUAO film yet. Or even an average one. The animation is as solid as always, filled with rich, detailed characters and colour schemes.

Voice acting-wise, many members of the DC animated show Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, which is always welcome. I love that show in both incarnations and to hear Kevin Conroy (Batman), Tim Daly (Superman, though Tim actually did the Superman voice for the character's own animated series only, with George Newbern filling in), Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman), Carl Lumbly (Martian Manhunter) and Michael Rosenbaum (Flash, though on the show itself, it was Wally West and not Barry Allen, which is a minor quibble I have with the movie, as it feels so odd due to how different Barry and Wally are as characters) again is like greeting old friends. Even recurring or one-shot characters in the show have their voice actors come back (Olivia D'Abo as Star Sapphire and Alexis Denisof as Mirror Master).

Even Nathan Fillion's back for another round as Hal Jordan (he voiced the character back in Green Lantern: Emerald Knights), which adds to the awesome. Bumper Robinson as Cyborg is a great addition, too.

If I had to single any one performance out as being the best, as unfair as it seems since most of the voice actors are pretty much the definitive voices for their respective roles, it's Carl Lumbly. The Martian Manhunter is given a drink which has magnesium in it (magnesium being poisonous to Martians in the DC universe), which causes him to catch fire and the fire cannot be extinguished. It should be noted that not only is fire the major weakness for Martians in DC, it's MM's greatest fear. So, it's a two-for-one combo of physical and mental pain. Carl's anguished screams, constantly filled with panic, they are amazingly done. It is that and that alone which makes it my favourite performance of the entire movie.

If I have one major gripe (besides the substituting of Vandal for Ra's, which isn't terrible but disappointing), it's that the changes in the plans, while not boneheaded or anything of that nature, are a little more simplistic or head-scratching compared to the original story.

For simplistic, there's Superman's. In the comic, Superman gets exposed to red Kryptonite (a substance that causes random transformations to Kryptonians, usually lasting 24 hours or so), which causes his skin to go transparent, which causes him to undergo a sensory overload and nearly overload on solar power. In the film... he gets shot with a Kryptonite bullet. Granted, the comic's plan may be a tad complicated to explain but the Kryptonite bullet goes too far in the opposite direction. I mean, that would imply that no one in the universe of that movie (most if not all of the movies in the DCUAO line are set in their own universe) has ever tried shooting Kryptonite at Superman. I would have thought that would have been one of the most basic plans.

Now, for a head-scratcher plan: Wonder Woman's involved being infected with nanomachines that alter her vision and hearing and make her perceive everyone around her as the Cheetah (voiced by Claudia Black), Wonder Woman's arch nemesis. In the comic, she is trapped in a virtual reality battle with a seemingly unbeatable opponent. While the plan in the movie isn't such a bad one, there's a slight flaw: isn't Wonder Woman listening to the people around her, to what they're saying and noticing how they're NOT attacking her? Most of the random civilians just say things like “Look, is that Wonder Woman?” I mean, Wonder Woman's not stupid, she should be able to figure out “Something's wrong here. Hold off on attacking until I can make sense of the situation”.

Still, these don't stand in the way from another fine effort from the DCUAO. 4/5

With This Ring, You'll Be Dead (Part 2)

(Please note: the following blog was originally posted on my old blog Why Yes I Am Quite Random, Why Do You Ask?, a blog I can no longer access for some unknown reason. This is being put at the start of each blog I'm uploading, in case anyone comes across the blog and accuses me of plagiarism. This is explained further in my introduction blog.

The following was originally posted on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 1 am)

And welcome back to my review of the 2011 live action Green Lantern film. Last blog, I went over how uninteresting or downright irritating I found the supporting cast of Hal's friends on Earth, while Hal himself was well acted.

In contrast to the Earthlings, the members of the Lantern Corps are much more fun to hang with. Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush) NEEDED more screen time, that's how criminally underused he was. Playing the role of gentle mentor to Hal, Geoffrey's little screen time was not wasted.
And Michael Clarke Duncan as Kilowog? He's a hoot, and he even gets to say “Poozer”! Like Ryan, he's a fan of the comics and much like Geoffrey, I demand he get more screen time in the sequel (which I hope they do).

Luckily, the film does have an ace up its sleeve in terms of supporting characters with Mark Strong as senior Green Lantern, Sinestro. Even when things are at their worst, and death seems imminent, Sinestro remains calm and level-headed and that inspires our confidence that he's an exceptional Lantern. Though distrusting of Hal at first (cos of the whole “humans have never been Lanterns” thing), he doesn't come down especially harsh on him, just skeptical, with Sinestro being a creature of logic and all. Considering how much time the movie spends on Earth, he gets a fair amount of screen time (though a little more wouldn't hurt) and he might just be my favourite character in the movie (tied with Tomar-Re).

But it's not all fun and games in space. Our main villain, Parallax, isn't something I'd praise the creative team for. Visually, he looks like one of aliens of Mars Attacks with tentacles and for that, it kind of detracts from the menace he's supposed to project. Also, I know it might have been a little taxing to adapt Parallax directly from the comics but besides the prominent use of yellow, he doesn't resemble a giant bug at all. Yeah, that probably doesn't sound very menacing but its all about delivery. He's almost as badly mangled from the comics as Galactus was in Rise Of The Silver Surfer (seriously, a giant cloud? Really? That's your best idea? Look, the attire of Galactus may look silly, but making him a bad special effect out of some Twister knock-off isn't an acceptable alternative. I'll get to those movies eventually, too, though before the reboot, since no one has any clue on when that will hit our screens).
Character-wise... well, he's not much of one. Standard villain dialogue and motivation of conquest, blah blah blah. But what really pisses me off is how the film deals with him in the end (spoiler warning, best to skip ahead if you have yet to see this film)

Now, it's probably no shock that he gets killed off. He's a supervillain in a comic book movie after all, we're more shocked when they don't die/vanish. Basically, Hal and Parallax duke it out in space and Hal uses his ring to create a giant green fist and punches Parallax straight into a nearby sun. Parallax is vanquished, Hal's fellow Lanterns take him to the Lantern homeworld, Oa and Hal is given the respect he deserves.
That last part doesn't bother me. Again, par for the course. No, it's the fact that we have yet another comic book movie in which the rookie hero, with little to no training, takes out the major threat, sometimes through dumb luck. Biggest offenders before Green Lantern were Daredevil (come on, the Kingpin's solid muscle! I don't care if Daredevil had been active for some months before the movie, the Kingpin's been doing this for YEARS!) And in Fantastic Four, despite even less training (did they even experiment with their powers, besides Reed?), Dr. Doom gets his arse handed to him. Granted, he wasn't all that adept a fighter but that's for another blog somewhere down the line.
My point is, these are the representations of the supervillains from the comics that are just so badass and cool. To see them on the big screen go down like weaklings feels like a disrespect to their comic counterparts.
Let's compare to how some other supervillains are defeated in other movies. In Spider-Man, Green Goblin takes himself out and its a homage to the comic, and the scene is a shock to the system for anyone who never read the comic beforehand. Batman Begins, again, the villain doesn't get apprehended by the hero. Batman does stop his plan but Ra's Al Ghul chooses not to save himself, basically committing seppuku with a train. Iron Man, Stane's had less time in his suit than Tony and it's Pepper who delivers the final shot, so to speak. That one gets bonus points for having the love interest play an active part in the villain's defeat. In fact, she pretty much kills him (not in cold blood, mind you). Yes, those movies are much better than Green Lantern regardless but if Parallax had been sealed again or weakened to the point of near-death, I wouldn't be so annoyed. Or if it had been Sinestro or Kilowog or the Guardians who faced him down, but no, can't have that, gotta have the rookie be the one that takes on the supposed menace. If Hal had weakened him and Sinestro had been the one to finish him off once and for all, it would have given Sinestro closure for Parallax causing the death of his friend, Abin Sur. It would have looked awesome and Hal still would have been a hero, for his bravery and effort.

But also, was Parallax chosen just because they needed the Earth threatened in a big way and thus build him up? You're telling me that other Green Lantern villains wouldn't have worked? Granted, I don't see The Icicle or Solomon Grundy being dangerous to the world or universe at large but what about the Manhunters? Or Mongul, despite his association with Superman as well? Kanjar Ro appeared in the DC Original Animated film Green Lantern: First Flight but he could work again, as he wasn't even the main villain in that. And while it might seem too early, having members from the other Lantern Corps would have worked, the Red Lanterns in particular, being powered by rage and all (but explaining all the different Corps would take a whole other blog on its own and this one's way long already).

To summarize, Green Lantern's biggest problems were not enough time spent in space, with the interesting characters, and spending too much time on Earth, with the dirtbags we don't care about and the cliché of the rookie overcoming the big bad too easily. For all that, though, I still award it 3.5/5, if only because there is promise here. With Sinestro crossing the threshold to villainy like in the comics, he'll get his day and maybe we'll get an epic space battle. We can only hope. 

This Little Light Of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine (Part 1)

(Please note: the following blog was originally posted on my old blog Why Yes I Am Quite Random, Why Do You Ask?, a blog I can no longer access for some unknown reason. This is being put at the start of each blog I'm uploading, in case anyone comes across the blog and accuses me of plagiarism. This is explained further in my introduction blog.

The following was originally posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2012 at 4:26 pm)

Even though I've given it a mini-review of sorts in my blog on the movies I saw in 2011, Green Lantern is a film I've been wanting to review for sometime now. I've held off mostly due to all the films I've seen this year and as an attempt to spread my wings a little with what I review, since I have done a fair few comics and comic book movies. Granted, that won't be stopping (not with this year seeing the release of some great comic book movies and some more titles from the New 52) but I feel now I should go over my feelings about the Green Lantern film.

Now, considering how many Green Lanterns there have been in the comics, I won't be giving a brief history on the Corps itself. However, I do want to go into Hal Jordan's origin.

Hal Jordan was created by John Broome and Gil Kane during what was known as the Silver Age Of Comics (when a lot of silly stuff happened), making his debut in October 1959. Despite his title, he was not connected to the previous Green Lantern, Alan Scott (who was not connected to the Corps. Long story, for another time). Whereas Alan was a solo hero with a magic lantern, Hal was part of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force. Dividing the universe into 3600 sectors, the Guardians created the Corps and dispatched at least two Lanterns per sector and gave them a ring harnessing green energy representing willpower. Thus, to be a Lantern, you needed great willpower and the ability to overcome fear. This willpower allows the ring bearer to create constructs of anything they can think of.
Hal was special for at the time, he was the first human to be a Lantern and in the public consciousness, he is the face of the Corps. Other Lanterns from Earth would come and go and some would even gain popularity in other mediums (John Stewart in the DCAU production Justice League for example) but Hal is who most people would think of, regardless of which Lantern they grew up with or read first.

So, naturally, he was the Lantern selected to be the focus for the live action film. At this point, DC's track record of putting their heroes on the big screen is mixed. On the one hand, Batman and Superman have well known and well loved films, with the reboot of Batman changing not just how comic book movies (and comic books to some extent) are done but the industry as a whole (as did Inception. I'm going to go ahead and call it, Nolan is some kind of sorcerer, he's just too damn good). On the other... well, that's it for DC's A-list roster on the big screen. Despite having such strong and solid characters like the Flash, Wonder Woman and the Teen Titans, most of what DC fling at us are characters with a smaller following. Now, I'm not against that, I'm happy to see DC try and get some more characters into a wider scene but why exactly does Jonah Hex get his own movie before someone like Green Arrow? And Steel, from way back? I can understand The Losers, being a Vertigo imprint (for non comic fans, Vertigo's essentially a section inside of DC, mostly focusing on more “mature” content, like Sandman, Preacher and Hellblazer) and Watchmen is a standalone work, which are always easier to adapt. But how can you expect a Justice League movie when only two of your major players get the screen time? And yes, there WAS a Justice League movie being planned but that got scrapped and I don't see it happening anytime soon.

But I'm getting off-track. In short, having Green Lantern on screen gave me hope that things were moving forward, and that maybe Aquaman, Flash and Wonder Woman films would soon follow.
Now, let's get to the movie proper. Due to how much I have to say about this movie, I'm splitting the review in two posts. I don't like doing it because it feels a bit cheap and it seems like I'm favouring a movie (despite the rating I give it) but considering everything I have to say, plus the text above, I feel in this case that it's necessary.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a cocky and smug test pilot for Ferris Aircraft, who's putting the careers of his co-workers in jeopardy while showing off during a test flight. One night, he is drawn to the crash site of a dying alien, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) and is inducted into the Green Lantern Corps. Hal soon learns of Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown), a being of immense power, capable of destruction on planetary levels and that Parallax has his sights set on Earth. It's up to Hal to prove his worth amongst the Corps, under the watchful eye of Thaal Sinestro (Mark Strong) and save the Earth.

OK, there's a bit more to it, but we'll get to that. Green Lantern is a mixed film. For just about every good element, there's something that needed to be tweaked or removed altogether. Rather than do a point by point on every good and negative aspect, I'll try and keep it short and go with just a few of each.

Let's start with something good: Ryan Reynolds is a damn good Hal Jordan. A huge comic fan, it's always nice to see Ryan in any comic book movie, because you know he cares. Would I say Hal is his best? No, but when you've played Wade Wilson, it's a hard act to follow (and he better be Deadpool when that movie finally takes off. Seriously, he was the best thing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Ryan plays Hal as smug but noble, traits the character has had in the comics since his creation and hearing him say the oath, you can't help but be pumped. Though, part of that might be due to how awesome the oath is on its own.
Hal's a quick thinker, too, and the constructs he creates are wonderful. There's the standard giant green fist, and guns and swords (in a damn good scene, no less, between Sinestro and Hal in which they practice with sword constructs) but without giving them all away, they're way better than I expected and easily a highlight of the film.

For something bad... there's the supporting cast of characters on Earth. They range from being average (pretty much everybody not about to be mentioned) to being poorly developed (Hector Hammond, Thomas Kalmaku) to being Blake Lively.
Yeah. I hate Blake Lively. What exactly is a Gossip Girl doing in a movie like this? There's no himbos to slut up to or drugs to snort, so why was she chosen over candidates like Jennifer Garner or Eva Green? Really, throughout most of the movie, she just looks pissed off or vacant, like she doesn't want to be there. Well, that's fine, we don't want you there. I get that comics aren't big to a lot of Hollywood stars but why would you cast someone so superficial? At least get someone who gives a damn. Hell, Jennifer Garner has already been in a comic book movie (what's that? Elektra got a spin-off? I don't know what you're talking about and let us never speak of that again) and another potential for the role, Keri Russell, voiced Wonder Woman in the movie of the same name released under the DC Original Animated line (and she suited that role to a tee, and helped make it the best movie of the entire line). So, what did Blake offer that they couldn't? Could be worse, we could have that Heidi Montag skank. Having seen that “audition tape” she sent for the third Transformers movie, I would pay someone to punch her parents for letting her exist.

But on to Hammond, as the secondary villain. Before being infected with an aspect of Parallax, he's an average guy, and so far, no complaints from me. Once the infection kicks in... what the Hell? I've read his debut story. He may have a big head thanks to the alien influence but why does he look like Quasimodo's bastard son? In that story, while his head was big, he still looked dapper. But that doesn't compare to the characterization. Again, pre-infection, nothing wrong, everything seems promising. After... he becomes a whiny, petulant, creepy stalker. The scene that reveals he knew Carol (Blake's “character”, and if Carol Ferris was real, she'd kick Blake's arse for raping her name) and Hal back in their youth is right about the time I realized this movie wasn't getting any better. Oh look, another “everybody knows everybody” movie. It doesn't add to anything, he doesn't do much with Carol and no one cares about his eventual fate anyway, so if we were supposed to sympathize with him, you failed, movie. And to add insult to injury, the biggest recurring characteristic is his sour relationship with his father and how he keeps bitching about him. What I hate about that is that it made me think of Blackheart from Ghost Rider. And I HATE Blackheart. “Wah wah, Daddy didn't love me, I'm going to use my superpowers in rage against him RAAAARGHBARGBLEGH!” and you just wish someone would hurry up and shoot them in the goddamn head (and I'll get to reviewing Ghost Rider, probably just before the sequel comes out).

Next time, I'll get into the other members of the supporting cast and the villain.