Marvel's Luke Cage

I finished the Netflix series Luke Cage last night. I loved it.

Luke, himself, was a great, positive, likeable character. Though he often tried to avoid getting involved in the conflicts, for as many times as he said he wasn't a hero, when it came down it, he would always to step up to defend others. Even in the final part of the story, when all of NYPD was hunting him, and he was on the verge of just leaving town, he saw something going down that he could stop, he couldn't ignore it.

Being a character I know nothing about, this portrayal made me really like him, and I really appreciated that about this show. I haven't finished watching Jessica Jones, in part because everyone in that show is just SO miserable and difficult to like, that it's hard for me to get into it. Superhero stores are definitely escapism, and wish-fulfillment fantasies, so I appreciate characters that have fantastic powers and want to use them. I always respond positively to a story about someone being excited by their abilities, because that's how I think I would be. As such, that's probably why Killgrave was the only character I really liked in JJ, because he appreciated his powers. Jessica was just too mopey about them, and I understand why, but that is hard for me to relate to, and I feel Luke Cage did the reluctant hero bit better, because while he may not have asked for his powers, he was more willing to use them for good.

Shades was my favorite character, after Luke. He was committed to his path, but he was also calm, logical, and clear headed about everything. In the first part of the show, I liked that he was trying to reign in Cottonmouth, keep him focused on the business, not get distracted by the Luke Cage situation. And again, when Diamondback appeared and turned out to be off his rocker, Shades was there trying to keep everything under control, and not endanger their position. I was afraid a couple of times he was going to pay for his sins by being killed off, but I'm glad he wasn't, and would be available for use in a season 2.

As for the two main villains, Cottonmouth and Diamondback: I feel something was off there. I don't know anything about Luke Cage in comics, him or his villains. I assume these are both characters from the comics, but I feel that by both having snake names, they should have been more of a team, or had more of a history together, rather than being from vastly different places and it just happenstance that they each have a snake street name from when they were kids. Whenever Diamondback was mentioned before he was introduced, I pictured them as a snake-themed criminal organization, like the Five Deadly Venoms, or Deadly Viper Assassins from Kill Bill (which I suddenly realized is actually probably a reference to Five Deadly Venoms), and was disappointed that there was no history or relationship even hinted at.

Usually, I enjoy personal stories between the hero and villain, and I enjoy a good insane villain, but in this case I liked Cottonmouth more, of the two, because it wasn't a personal story and because he wasn't crazy. He was just a criminal businessman, and Luke started interfering with his business. Diamondback immediately seemed insane, and I guess in this fairly sane, real-world setting, he felt like he didn't fit in. It felt like he was a little too Joker from The Dark Knight, too chaotic/watch the world burn, as long as he took down Luke. I mean, even if he had defeated Luke at the end, he was going down, the cops were there ready to take him out, he would lose his empire, while Cottonmouth was mostly focused on getting a business obstacle out of his way so he could make his money and build his influence and power.

The rest of the characters were sufficiently interesting, I liked seeing Claire again, tying this show to Daredevil for me (does she show up in Jessica Jones? There's some allusions to her meeting Luke previously, so I assumed its in that show), and I liked the teaser at the end of the show that seems to hint that she will appear in Iron Fist (I'm rather excited for this one, being a fan of martial arts movies). Turk's brief appearances also tie the shows together, which again, I appreciate the world building. Misty Knight was mostly likeable, and honestly I think I'd be up for seeing a show focused on her.

Though I am not a fan of the styles of music used in Luke Cage, I enjoyed the use of it in the show. It is such a part of the feel of the show, such a part of the character of Cottonmouth, that as a musician myself, that actually might be another reason why Cottonmouth resonated with me more than Diamondback. I did legitimately like the group performing at Harlem's Paradise in the first episode, and kinda want to hunt down the songs featured.

In a similar way that I am not really familiar with the music in the show, I am not familiar with Harlem, or black communities, but I appreciated the cultural aspect of the show. I don't think I've ever seen a blaxploitation film, and I found the focus on race, and black history, and representation fascinating. Somebody I know told me something to the effect of, one of the reasons this show wasn't as relate-able to them was there were no white people in the cast. And of course, that's not true, there were like two white guys in it! Detective Scarfe, and probably maybe some other guy I don't remember. And not everyone was black, there were a couple of Latin people too.

Of course, their point wasn't that they can't watch something comprised of an nearly-entirely black cast, but that their viewpoint can be foreign (or uncomfortable) to white people. I've watched quite a few Japanese TV shows, I've watched Chinese martial arts films, I lived in South America for two years, so to see something that's doesn't feature white people in and of itself isn't new to me, but I guess a show with that viewpoint is new to me. The shadow of oppression and minimizing a person for their gender or race is over the entire show, and that is not something I am used to. I don't know what it's like to feel oppressed for my race or skin color, I don't know what it's like to be persecuted by authority, but the sentiments all felt legitimate to me and I appreciated those viewpoints being expressed in the show, because it is rather foreign to me. I don't really understand the existence of racism, but more importantly, I don't know what it's like to be subject to racism, and I think this show provided that insight very naturally.

One final thought was that the ending was more bittersweet than I expected. In the final episode as the final conflicts were being resolved, I thought they were all being given a nice, happy, resolution. And then suddenly things go a bit sour, but not in an off-putting way, but again, a sort of real-life-the-good-guys-may-have-triumphed-but-evil-is-not-fully-vanquished sort of way. Just when it looked like everything was going his way, the tertiary villain is off the hook, Luke is going back to prison, and Misty is devastated by a mistake that cost someone their life, and it's her fault and she is told so, in rather strong terms. In a way it felt like it was leaving things set up for a second season, but it also felt like, no, this is how the real world works. Sure, Luke saved Harlem from an arms dealer, but he also broke out of prison, and needs to pay for that. Sure, the cops know Miriah killed someone, but they haven't enough proof to get her through the system, which can be supplanted by connections and money. It put a bit of a damper on the high of thinking Cage had conquered all, but it also grounded it in a believable way, that I liked.

Well, I think that concludes by thoughts and feelings on the show. It was an enjoyable superhero story, with some deeper, meaningful real world relate-ability, that was presented in a way that didn't break my fantasy-escapism requirements, and left me with things to consider beyond the superhero aspects of it. It feels like a mostly complete story, one I am happy with as is, if there is no second season, but also a story I would look forward to seeing more of, if there is a second season.

I'd call that a success.

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The Dark Knight Rises - Quick Thoughts

In short, it was awesome and amazing. I don't think it will displace The Dark Knight as my favorite movie ever, nor do I think it will displace Avengers as the best movie of the year. But, fantastic nonetheless, a fitting end for the Nolan trilogy. Though, I would not in any way be averse to another sequel.

I want to see it again. Hopefully sometime this next week.

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The Dark Knight - Thoughts and Reflections

The awesome hosts at Now Playing Podcast reviewed The Dark Knight this week, in anticipation of The Dark Knight Rises. I'm a huge fan of the podcast, and watched The Dark Knight last night for the podcast and TDKR last night. And I had a few thoughts that I shared on the forum, but since it ended up being a novella-length post I thought I might as well post it here. So here it is, in case anybody cares. Mainly I address the climax of the film, as the hosts mostly felt that it wasn't as strong as the earlier action scenes.

Wow, there is just so much I could say about this film. I listened to most of the podcast yesterday, didn't get to finish it before I had time to sit and watch the movie, and have just finished up the podcast this morning.

I was running late, I've been trying to pull my bedtime back from 2:30-3am to a slightly more reasonable 2-2:30, but I started the movie late, forgetting it was 2.5 hours, not 2. 2 came around and I half-heartedly started looking for places to stop, but THERE IS NO PLACE TO STOP in this film. There's no lowering of the tension, not break in the movement, at least not of the last hour, maybe there was earlier, I don't remember. I pretty quickly gave up clock watching and sat there entranced till the very last moment.

I really like the climax. I can understand some not finding it to quite be on the same level as the highway chase, with the amazing semi-flipping (and the video on how they did that is awesome), but for me the tension is higher at that point, so even though the action is less, I'm more involved in it. No, we don't know who the people are on either boat, but so what? They're still people; and trust me, this is weird for me to say, because in general I feel nothing for people I don't know, they're almost not even human beings to me. And I FEEL the fear and tension on those boats, and the indecision and moral dilemma, 'do we, as law abiding citizens have the right to execute those lawfully being punished for crimes'?

And believe you me, I would totally vote for blowing up the other boat. And I would totally be the guy that stands up to push the button. I relate to that old guy who stands up and says he'll do it, when he does that. I've often thought that I could totally kill some one to defend my wife or kids, and not have a second thought about it afterwards, because it was the right thing to do at the time. But then, the film grabs me and says, 'Wait, think about it. Could you REALLY kill people to save your own life, and others?" And I contemplate that, and I can see this dude on screen contemplating it. And it's hard for him, he doesn't get to see the innocent people on the other boat like we do, the guards, the ferry operators. Is it right to condemn those people along side the evil people they have to guard. Do the needs of the many truly outweigh the needs of the few, and are you willing to make that choice.

And I have always thought, and even decided last night again, that yes, I would do that.  And then the hosts bring up the point I had never considered: Was the detonator really for the OTHER boat, or was it really for their own boat. And talk about a shocking moment of clarity in my mind when you said that. Because, hell yes, the Joker gave them their own detonator. No, it's never said that for sure he did, but when the detonator is discovered that's the first question asked, "Why would he give us the detonator to our bomb?" It is COMPLETELY in keeping with what the Joker has done in this film, switching the street addresses of Harvey and Rachel, switching the doctors and the clowns. I have no doubt the Joker intended to blow up the people who were willing to blow up the other people, and that is super chilling to me, because I was willing to blow up the other people.

And that leads me back to the SWAT assault on the building with the doctors and clowns. That scene is awesome and tense for me, and I might name it my favorite scene, if I was to have to pick a favorite of my children. I completely understand that the SWAT team is ready to go in and kill the clowns to save the hostages, and they are right to do so, it's their job, and the moral thing to do, in my mind. And yet when we discover the hostages have been disguised as the criminal, so the snipers are lined up to blow 3 (or 5?) of them away immediately, it was the most chilling moment of my viewing last night. Even though I knew it was coming.

I love that Joker inadvertently turned Batman into the bad guy at that point, because he has to take out the SWAT team before they kill any hostages (and imagine for a moment, being a SWAT member and discovering that you'd shot a hostage instead of the hostage-taker). And of course, the best part is him tangling the cables up around the guys, and the almost casual way he kicks the one off the building, and they all one by one get yoinked out the window. F-ing amazing. And the looks on the other guys' faces when it happens, priceless.

In the interrogation room the Joker told Batman he would have to break his one rule in order to defeat him. And he was right, though maybe not in the way he originally meant. You talked that he did it when he killed Harvey, I look at that more in a Ra's al Ghul-I-don't-have-to-save-you kind of way, or that Harvey isn't dead and they're covering it up. But that he takes the fall for the people that Harvey killed. He didn't really break his rule, but he lets people think he did, so that Harvey can remain untainted in the public eye. And the way the music is, and the slow-mo and Gordon's voice breaking as he explains to his son that they have to chase him, and the words he uses, the way they're spoken. I don't tear up often, I am just not that emotional, but this ending really gets me.

I know nobody is going to read this because it's so freaking long, but there's one quick thing I want to point out that I noticed last night. What happens to Lao?  When listening to the podcast before watching the film you guys say that Joker escapes so he can get Lao, and you never mention him again, and I thought back to my last viewing and didn't remember seeing him after that scene, so I assumed that it was indicated that Joker killed him in the jail. But no, he took him alive from jail. What happened to him?

He's sitting tied up on top of the big pile of money, that JOKER SETS ON FIRE. :o

Some people throw hyperbolic phrases around so often that they're meaningless (my boss says 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard' AT LEAST once a day), I strive to not do so, so I mean it when I say, The Dark Knight is best movie I have ever seen. For as much as I love the Original Star Wars Trilogy, Hellboy, Blade 2, Terminator, Predator, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight just blows them all away. Like the podcast kept saying, the story is so dense, yet so tight and coherent, it's amazing just how fantastically great this movie is. It perfectly captures everything I get out of Batman comics, and everything I WANT out of Batman comics. It is the greatest movie in existence.

After Avengers this summer, I didn't know if I could still say that. I loved Avengers so much, it was one of those rare movies I saw more than once in the theater, it's one of those rare ones I'll buy on DVD the moment it is release. It was the best comic book movie, capturing the fantasy feel of the comic book world, and so much FUN, which TDK isn't, and TDKR won't be. But after last night's viewing, I can confidently again say that TDK is still, to me, the greatest film ever made. And I doubt anything will ever top it. They may come close, like Avengers, but this movie is the most perfect film for me that exists.

I almost find it scary just how much I'm anticipating The Dark Knight Rises. The only other movies I can think of that I was this hyped and excited for are Avengers and The Dark Knight, and both movies far exceeded my expectations, so I'm finding it very hard to keep my expectations under control. I'm somewhat fearful that TDKR can't possibly live up to my expectations, especially since it features the two characters have been the mostly royally screwed over in previous films (Gah! Batman and Robin SUCKS SO MUCH!), it can't possibly be as good as TDK, I certainly don't expect it to be better than TDK, or to be as financially successful as Avengers (but it would be awesome if it is, and I'll do what I can to help it out) but I truly thought that about TDK vs Batman Begins. So we'll see. I have tickets for 12:05 am tonight, first showing in my little town, and I cannot wait.

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Chop Sockey Night: Episode 2: Duel of the Brave One

I really had meant to do this feature about once a week, but of course, I'm too lazy to even watch a movie, if I know that I'm going to have to do some form of work afterward (like write up some thoughts on the movie). But the time has come.

The second film from the self-proclaimed GREATEST KUNG FU KILLERS of all time! collection, is Duel of the Brave One, which sounds like a title for a good movie. Too bad it's not.

This one's going to be short, people. Frankly, I didn't like this movie at all. The long and short of it is, I couldn't tell who anyone was (with one or two exceptions), who was on who's side, what the hell was going on, or why the hell anybody put this movie in a collection called the Greatest anything.

It was basically about a territory dispute between two gangs. I think. Also, how some guy had supposedly betrayed one of the gangs, even though he served prison time because he wouldn't squeal to the cops. Probably. Also, there was a reasonably attractive chick in the film.

I tried really hard to follow what was going on, but while the first movie in this collection had about 8 people total in it, this one had many, many more than that. And they all looked the same. There was no identifying outfit that either gang wore, or even colors (that I could tell) to distinguish one side from the other. I'm not even sure how much we really saw the other side. There was a cop, who was big for a Chinese guy, he was a good 6 inches taller than most of the characters, if not a foot. His boss was some white guy, and I think he said The Empire or the Crown at some point, so maybe this took place in Honk Kong, or some other British held city.

The fighting was faster than in Shadow of the Tiger, but it also felt much less refined, more poorly choreographed, much less real, too unstructured, and too confusing (what with not knowing which side anybody was on).

I tried, I really did, but I could not stay interested in this film. I kept drifting off to sleep, and even though I think it's partly because I was getting sick, that's extremely rare. I kept telling myself the movie was almost over, I felt like it had been going on forever, but when I finally checked the run time, I had barely seen over half of it. There was still 40 minutes to go. And I gave up. I turned it off, and I went to sleep. I don't think I can possibly finish it, I am so lost as to what's going on and who anybody is, that I feel I have no investment in any of the characters, what their plights are, or what the main point of the story even is. And I certainly don't want to start it over again to try and figure out what's going on, so I think I will pass on the rest.

I just went and examined the case again, and there are three people on the cover. I think I know who two of them are, one is the leader of one of the gangs, we've seen him 2, maybe 3 times, all he's done is yell at his underlings. One is, I think, supposed to be the protagonist, because everyone was looking for him for a while, and we're still following him around a lot, but I couldn't tell you why. I have no idea who the third person is. The stills on the back of the box don't even look like scenes I'd seen yet, it almost made me curious to see the remainder of the film, to get to those scenes, but not only did the scenes not look familiar, neither did the people in the scenes, which means it's entirely possible I DID see them, and just don't remember them (although the lighting in one makes me think it came from the other film on the disc, Shadow of the Tiger), so color me completely lost and confused with this film.

My conclusion is, then, don't watch Duel of the Brave One. The blurb on the back makes it sound exciting. It's not. It's incomprehensible and confusing. It's got poor kung fu, and I couldn't stay interested in it for even half of the 90 minute run time. Even the (presumed) promise of better fight scenes at the end of the film can't make me sit through the rest of it. This film has no redeemable features. Avoid at all costs. It's so bad, I wouldn't even scan the cover for you to see. At this point, I feel the $2 I spent on this 6 film collection to have been wasted. $2, for 6 movies. So far wasted. I could have bought some soda which I would have expelled from my body a few short hours later, and gotten more out of it, than I got out of this film. If anyone tries to get you to watch this movie, it means they don't like you.

I hope this "Greatest Kung Fu Collection" gets better.

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Chop Sockey Night: Episode 1: Shadow of the Tiger

I recently picked up Kung Fu Killer Collection Volume One, which defines itself thusly (emphasis NOT added).

Get ready for ACTION featuring 6 of the GREATEST KUNG FU KILLERS of all time in one SUPER 3-PACK COLLECTION! Ferocious fighting and wall to wall thrills and adventure await!

It was $2, so how I could resist? Neither Jackie Chan nor Jet Li stars in any of them, so how good could they be? Neither is Steven Segal for that matter. However, Bruce Li is in one, so could be interesting.

Anyway, I thought they could be mildly entertaining at the least, since I enjoy wire-fu movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and the odd kung fu flick I saw as a kid. I watched one a couple of nights ago, and thought it would be fun to review it a little bit. This idea is heavily inspired by everything The Spoony One does at his awesome website The Spoony Experiement, specifically the It Came From Beyond Midnight feature, where in a couple of guys with an old video store watch and commentate on absolutely horrible old films.

The first of the GREATEST KUNG FU KILLERS of all time! is Shadow of the Tiger.

You know it's going to be great when there are two films on one DVD.

Shadow of the Tiger can only be described as kung fu porn. The plot, such as it is, is given to us with five minutes of exposition followed by one fight after another, each as pointless as the next. In fact, there are two fights before we get to the expositing five minutes, and the opening credits showcase the various 'actors' by showing them performing a few minutes of warm up moves in their martial arts style of choice, along with listing some of their credits, which are things like, 'Teaches at such and such school', 'Winner of such and such tournament', etc. Clearly these are actually trained fighters, all quite good at that, and actors not so much.

The box art in and of itself is not bad, showing three of the character faces up close, and smaller in front, one guy kicking another in the face. Awesome! The strange thing is, the guy doing the kicking is the villain. Of the three big faces, one is only present in the movie for one fight, which fight serves to tell us about his opponent. Of the other two faces, neither is actually the Hero of the film.

The movie begins with a bunch of old guys sitting around in a temple explaining out the abbot of their temple has died and left no instructions on who should succeed him. So they determine the leader in the ancient tradition of Mortal Kombat! Wait, sorry, just a regular fight, not to the death or anything. So two old guys get up and fight, and they're surprisingly spry considering one's eyebrows are long enough he probably has to constantly fish them out of his soup. It's got silly stunts in it, it's entertaining and amusing, and eventually they decide somehow that one lost, I didn't quite follow that.

The loser runs off and starts his own school, combining various styles and techniques into a new one (gasp! surprise! the horror, the horror!). They call it Karate, and I guess he went off to Japan to do this, because they kept mentioning Japan when they talked about the actual villain. I don't know, I kind of took it as some underhanded jab from the Chinese at the Japanese, cause historically don't they kind of hate each other? (I'm very white in this aspect, all Asians look the same to me. I can't recognize any of the characteristics that distinguish Chinese from Koreans from Japanese from Cambodians. Sorry, no offense is meant. Seriously, I sometimes can get confused between characters if they're similar enough looking. And don't get me started on the names.)

Anyway, with that racist (hopefully not) sidetrack out of the way, the movie itself takes place some undetermined amount of time after the aforementioned fight, where a student of this runaway monk has come to a town to fight the students of all the schools to show he is better than all of them, and force the other schools to close down. He holds a competition and in turn practitioners of various disciplines get up to face him and get their asses handed to them in seconds. It was pretty awesome. One opponent got kicked off the stage and landed in front of it, unmoving. Several people huddled around him, I don't know, to go through his pockets, or take his pulse, while another challenger arose, got the crap beat out of him, and the next challenger was beaten handily in seconds and kicked off the same point of the stage as the first, landing on top of everybody still huddled around him. I liked it.

The teachers of the schools are all depressed that their students are sissies, unable to face this cursed Japanese intruder, and a few decide to try to hire somebody else to fight him, so they can keep their schools open. The young guy on the cover, whose face you can only see half of decides to go searching for a worthy combatant, leaving the old guys to see after their school. In an amusing scene he tells some fat kid to watch after his students (as if this fat kid, barely more coordinated than I am, can fend off the karate guy). When this guy (we'll call him Sky Blue, because his outfit was and I could track names from one scene to the next) returns home and finds fresh graves at his school, I fully expected it to be the fat kid. Somehow it wasn't, and I have no idea whose it was.

I'm talking too much. Quicker recap. Sky Blue meets up with some guy he knows who was at least thirty years younger than the monks in the opening scene, but kept complaining about how he was old, and slowish and weakish and couldn't possibly fight the Bad Guy (who wore a black karate gi, with a red belt, oooh, black and red, he's obviously Eeeevil). He and his daughter go with Sky Blue to find a Warrior Hero to defeat Bad Guy.

The scene introducing the only female I saw in the picture was quite fun. The dad was showing his daughter off on the streets, he hung some money tied to strings about her neck, and she spun silver plates in her hands. For 50 cents (or that's how I interpreted it) somebody could try to take the money off her, which they could keep ($8 or something). She proceeded to make fools of 3 or 4 guys, while continuously spinning the plates, kicking, dodging flipping, rolling (seriously, the plates spinning the whole time) or occasionally whacking the guys with the plates. Until the crowd bored with the spectacle and left. I like it, even if she was clearly holding plates attached to posts in some of the shots.

Anyway, the trio goes off on a short journey to find the Warrior Hero to beat up Bad Guy. They acquire a drunk guy (the one getting his face mashed on the cover), a waiter who follows them like a lost puppy, even though they tell him repeatedly to leave them alone, a boy he ferries them halfway across a river, then decides to steal their money and dumps them in the water (he turns out to be a famed martial arts expert, who justifies his attempted thievery and murder with the line, "Well, I'm poor". Let's see, there was another guy who liked to gamble but sucked, so he was flat broke, but made in impressive display of disassembling a bamboo scaffolding, and lastly, a reluctant fellow, who fought the guy in the middle of the cover art, as previously mentioned.

When this fight was introduced I didn't know who I was supposed to care about, so I cared about the guy on the cover, because he had cool threads (I didn't realize until afterward he was on the cover). He had a fancy black and red outfit with gold trim, and he also won the fight, so of course they should add him to the group. But apparently he died later, and so was an unsuitable match for the Bad Guy, so the loser got invited to the party. When they approached Loser he was teaching a 4 year old to fight (his nephew or something) and was reluctant to join the group because he had disobeyed his former master by seeking out the previous fight, so now that his master had died of old age he would always honor him by never fighting anyone again. The kid throws a fit about how his uncle told him martial arts were to defend the weak and helpless, yet when such people came seeking aid he turn them away. Guilted into this by a 4 year old Reluctant Guy joined the group. Oh, and there was fighting or some display of martial prowess to introduce each of these characters.

So the group consisting of Old Teacher and daughter, Young Teacher, Thief/Murderer, Drunk, Waiter and Reluctant Guy go fight Bad Guy in Black. They take him on two at a time, which seemed smart to me, but he pretty much kicked them all to the curb, even the girl. Old Teacher did the best, as he noticed that Bad Guy fought barefooted, and he (Old Guy) had shoes on, so he stomped on the guys foot a few times, until Bad Guy beat him to death. Yep, he punched him in the heart a few times and then left so everyone could gather around Old Guy while he died in his daughter's arms. He also gave them Crucial Piece of Advice (something that would have been good to know YESTERDAY!).

Old Dying Guy told them that to defeat Shao Khan (another Mortal Kombat reference) they needed to teach all their styles to one man, so he could fight with many styles mixed together, since that's how Shao Khan was defeating them. Since only one of them hadn't been gravely injured, Reluctant Guy becomes Reluctant Hero. Sky Blue Young Teacher instructs Reluctant Hero in the Monkey technique, although he did so with a broken arm. This was definitely the worst example of fighting in the movie, for when they used the monkey technique, they crouched on the ground like a monkey, pawing at their face, making stupid monkey moves, and there was the horrible chittering of monkeys whenever someone used monkey moves. I know Everybody Loves Monkeys, but honestly, I don't.

The Only Girl had her neck slashed or something, she was bleeding pretty bad after the fight, but somehow taught her technique to Hero-guy, either Waiter-dude or Thief-guy had a broken leg and was holding themself up with a pole while they taught, pretty tricky, and Drunk-guy was blinded. Bad Dude In Black and poked him in the eyes so bad that they were swollen shut and blackened bruises all around them. I've not the faintest idea how he could teach whatever technique was his when he was freaking blind, but he did.

So after the slowest training montage I've ever seen, Hero Guy fights Bad In Black on some rocky shore edge. At first, he's loosing, I think he was only using his own technique, but then he switched (Monkey! shouts the bad guy) and slowly, progressively starts gaining on the bad guy. There were lots of neat moves in this fight, some silly ones, and in the end, Hero Guy kicks Bad Guy out into the water, thereby signifying that the movie was over, as the picture froze before the water finished splashing, the music finished and all faded to black, the end.

All in all, it was okay, I guess, but certainly nothing to go looking for. Made in the mid 70's I think, It was dubbed in English, not horribly done, the picture wasn't great by any means, nor the acting, but the fighting was okay, and I didn't mind it. Apparently it was also rated R, though I couldn't tell you why, unless for violence? I don't know. Sure, it's a lot of fighting, but I wouldn't call it violent. Don't think I'll ever watch it again, but for 33 cents I'm not complaining. The film was 90 minutes long, maybe 10 of which was talking, seriously no more than 7 of that was for the plot. There's probably no reason for anyone to see this film, unless you get it in a collection like this and need something to do while you eat (like I was doing).

Speaking of eating, it's late, I'm hungry, maybe I'll go get some food and queue up the next film in the set, Duel of the Brave One. I love the titles on these films.

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TERMINATOR SALVATION is Awesome!

I've been meaning to blog about the Terminator series for a while now, as I have only recently seen the films, but I don't want to delay this mention of the current film.

I loved it. I doubt anything will ever equal the feelings I had while watching Terminator, that suspense and awe, but Terminator Salvation does come as close as either of the other sequels. The music was great, they made nice use of the original theme in a few places, and when they did, it was very appropriate and impacting.

I don't want to raise people's hopes and expectations for this, in fear of raising them too much and the film not meeting them, but I highly recommend this movie.

Bye, bye, Star Wars. Terminator is my new favorite franchise.

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Underworld - U: Evolution - U: Rise of the Lycans

I saw a really great movie earlier last week, but first, a quick update on Batman: TAS (if anyone still cares). I will be getting back to that soon. There's still one thing that will occupy my nights for the next week or two, but once that's taken care of I'll make better use of my time than just playing the XBox all the time (I just got Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which is pretty cool) and get some Batman reviews done too. Along with the cartoon I plan to review some comics; I finished Batman: No Man's Land Volume 1 recently and want to discuss it, as well as a few books from the Dune series.

There will be spoilers for the previous two films, and probably some for this one as well.

I thought Underworld: Rise of the Lycans was a great movie. The relationship between Sonia and Lucian was really well executed and they're both quite sympathetic characters. Viktor, on the other hand, is NOT a sympathetic character. It's interesting to see how the point of view of the films changes.

The first, Underworld, was mostly from Selene's point of view, from the perspective that the vampires with the good side of the war, and the lycans were the bad; Viktor was Selene's hero and her savior. But as we get to know Lucian through Michael (Michael was bit by Lucian, and as he undergoes his first werewolf transformation he sees Lucian's memories) we learn that Lucian's woman was executed by her own father, Viktor, for loving him, because she was a vampire and he was a lycan.

Viktor

Then there's the big reveal later that it wasn't lycan's that slaughtered Selene's family, with Viktor arriving in time to save her life (only to turn her into a vampire so she could hunt down lycans for the next 600 years), but that Viktor in fact was her family's killer, and he spared her because she reminded him of the daughter he had lost. So with Viktor the bad guy at the culmination of the movie, Selene kills him and the lycans leave her and Michael in peace.

Underworld: Evolution picks up soon after the first, with Selene and Michael hiding from the vampires, with Selene planning to return to her coven and wake the last remaining Elder Vampire, Marcus, to explain everything that transpired in the first, in hopes of winning amnesty for Michael from the vampires. It's again told very much from the vampire perspective, this time Selene and Marcus. The plot of the first film was that the lycans were trying to combine the vampire and lycan bloodlines to create a hybrid which would be more powerful than either, and they succeeded in Michael (which is why the vampires want to destroy him, Abomination!). However, they also inadvertently turned Marcus into a hybrid, only he's a much more powerful hybrid, he being the original vampire, he's more a bat-man and he looks really cool. Anyway, he seems to have gone a little insane from the transformation, and he decides to kill all the vampires in his coven and find out why Viktor thought Selene was so important (and then kill her). And free his brother.

Turns out his brother, William, is the original werewolf. Marcus and William are the sons of Alexander Corvinus, a noble of types from centuries ago. A plague swept through the land and killed all of those under Alexander Corvinus, he too contracted the virus, but somehow he didn't die. His body was changed such that he stopped aging and getting sick, and he became the first immortal. He could still die, of course, by violence, but natural causes of death no longer affect him. I guess sometime after this point he had two sons who grew to adulthood and stopped aging, the virus and its effects having been passed to them. Then one was bitten by a wolf and the other a bat, and the vampire and werewolf species came into existence. But the werewolf that William because was not like the lycans of later days. He was permanently transformed into a large, somewhat humanoid wolf creature, and became completely feral, all his past humanity lost. Also, he was highly infectious. He went on murderous rampages throughout the countryside, and those he murdered would come back to life as crazed wolf-creatures like him.

At some point Marcus came to Viktor, a human noble or ruler of some type, who was dying of old age, and he offered him immortality. Viktor turned his armies and the nobles of his court into vampires and immediately took over as the ruling vampire. He and his armies hunted down the feral werewolves, trying to exterminate them, and in a concession to Marcus, to capture William. This is actually the point at which E:U started, which the capture of William, and his eternal imprisonment. We see some more that Viktor is actually a really big stupid head and convinced of his own superiority over all others we have no reason to like him.

Viktor

Okay, so back to Marcus hunting Selene and Michael. He learned that Michael has been wearing a pendant that Lucian had all through the first movie, which we learned he took from Sonia after she was murdered, which had been given to her by her father, Viktor. From another rather old vampire Selene and Michael had learned why Viktor had murdered Selene's family, for it wasn't just to feast on the blood of humans, it was to guard a secret - the location of William's prison, for Selene's father was the one that built the sarcophagus that William is imprisoned in. And the pendant is part of the key. Marcus kills Michael, finds out where the sarcophagus is being kept (because vampires and werewolves can read each other's memories through drinking each other's blood - which I thought was pretty cool), and rushes off to free his brother.

Selene takes some army-type guys with her (who are actually in the employ of Alexander Corvinus) and rushes off to stop Marcus from freeing the most infectious and powerful lycan. They bring the body of Michael with them. Marcus frees William, who attacks the soldier guys, quite easily killing them (so they can shortly rise as rabid dog werewolves for Selene to kill. Then she's left to face William and Marcus, but Michael's body finally finishes healing itself and he joins the fight. Marcus and Selene fight up on a bridge, while William and Michael fight down below, Michael being cleverer and more agile he eventually wins the fight by getting on William's back, grabbing William's upper snout, and tearing his head in half. This distracts Marcus enough that Selene is able to push him into the still rotating blades of a crashed helicopter so he can get blended into bite size bits, and the movie ends with Selene and Michael probably going to be able to live the rest of their lives out in peace.

Selene

And finally back to the movie I'm trying to review, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This movie appears at first to be told from the vampire perspective, but is really all about Lucian and the lycans, with a little bit from Sonia and Viktor thrown in. You know, for guy who died at the end of the first movie Viktro got as much or more screen time in the sequels than the Selene did.

I started this review Wednesday morning after having seen the film, and it is now Sunday morning, and I've really forgotten quite a bit of the movie. I'm not sure if I remember how it started, or what for explanatory dialog there might have been at the beginning. Guess I need to go see it again. This movie takes place hundreds of years in the past (compared to the first two movies which take place in the now), as U:ROTL starts the vampires are at war with the lycans, but these are the original breed of lycans, the vicious, feral lycans; the mindless murderous beasts. The vampires have a nice big fortress they live in, with Viktor as the lord of the vampires. It's shown that the vampires have several of these lycans imprisoned, though I don't remember why, maybe to torment them, or experiment upon them, something or other. Anyway, the important point is that one of these feral lycans had a baby. A baby that wasn't a wolf-creature, but a human baby boy. Viktor kills the mother, and it just about to kill the boy, when he suddenly has a change of heart.

The boy of course, is Lucian, and he is raised as a slave of the vampires. He is quite intelligent, and unlike the lycans that gave birth to him, he can transform between wolf and human form (at the full moon). He is used by the vampires to create more lycans like him, taking from the human slaves the vampires keep. We also learn he is the (or a) blacksmith for the coven, and the favored slave of Viktor (and not the favored of the slave keeper, of course). We are also introduced to Viktor's daughter Sonia. She's an independent woman, strong and courageous, often disobeying her father to leave the safety of the fortress to hunt down the wild lycans. And eventually we are shown what we already know from the previous movies, Sonia and Lucian are in love, despite the class and racial differences.

Lucian

I rather expected that we would see Kraven in this film. Evil Vicious Cousin Derek and I looked the movie up on imdb.com last week to see who was in it, and seeing whoever as Kraven from the previous two films excited me a little, because he was a sneaky, slimy , backstabbing worm in the first film (and died in the first 20 minutes of the second) and I wanted to see his involvement in the origin of the war between Viktor and Lucian, and expected him to be one of Viktor's primary lackeys. But he wasn't. His lackey in this one was Tanis, the historian we met in Underworld: Evolution. Which was cool, I rather liked Tanis, and he had a very large part in this movie. For example, when Lucian and Sonia sneak out to boink he sees them together, and puts two and two together. But he's also cool and doesn't snitch on them to Viktor.

Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a plot recap of the movie, more a general review and my thoughts on it. The action was good. The CG lycans were good. Viktor was a hateful evil monster, just like the first two movies, but he's a great actor and had a great presence in the film (and the first film too, I really, really liked Viktor in Underworld, right up until the end when we found out he was the bad guy). The design of the props, sets and costumes was really cool - the lycan slaves were fitted with collars that had 4 silver spikes in the front, so if they tried to transform they'd get skewered in the throat, the vampires were all very well dressed, especially Viktor, with intricate designs on his fancy robes and armor. Rage has the freakiest voice of anyone I have ever heard. And it's awesome.

Sonia

The execution scene was excellent. We saw it in flashbacks in the first movie, and this recreation was very faithful, and very emotional. Lucian, of course, was torn apart (emotionally) as he was chained in front of Sonia to watch her die. At first he tried to be the brave one, trying to distract Sonia from her impending doom, but as the skylight was opened he lost his focus and control and completely broke down, trying to break free and save her, and finally slumping in defeat, while in contrast Sonia maintained her calm, even as the sun fell upon her and turned her into ash. Then when Viktor came back into the chamber (after night feel) to see how it went, he pulled the pendant from her neck, Lucian transformed, freed himself, took the pendant, and escaped, Again, just like in the flashback, but new and exciting all the same.

What we didn't see in the flashbacks is what Viktor did during the execution. After leaving Sonia and Lucian chained in the chamber, he went to Sonias room, and wept like I wouldn't have believed possible. He loved Sonia like no other, and was apparently really broken hearted to have had to sentence her to death. Speaking of which, she was brought before the council of vampires to be judged, he presented the crime and the sentence (death) and asked for a vote. Each of the council members voted in favor of the sentence, and he was the last to have to vote. And he hesitated. For several long seconds he paused, and in fact, there may have been flashbacks to her as a child, like when he gave her the pendant, but I don't remember for sure. But he hesitated a long while before finally saying, "Aye." So he sobbed and sobbed in her room, while his daughter burst into flame.

Rage

Lucian escaped, the wolves overran this fortress, and killed all the vampires except Tanis and the three elders (Marcus and Amelia, who were slumbering, and Viktor, who escaped after a near fatal encounter with an enraged Lucian) who escaped to presumably form another coven someplace else. And that's when the movie should have ended. Everything was perfectly awesome up to that point. Then there were the last thirty seconds or so.

Seriously. The movie was totally awesome, possibly the best of the three (the guy behind us said as much, but I very much enjoyed the previous two flicks), except for the last thirty seconds, in which they needlessly put in footage of Selene from the first movie, the opening shot of the first movie where she was perched on a ledge at the top of a tall building, with a voice over by Kraven, saying something (I don't quite remember actually, but it seems like it was something about how the consequences of the events of this movie would cascade down through time). It was completely pointless, and I'm sure somebody felt it was needed to tie this movie to the first two, maybe to make clear that this one is a prequel to the previous films, but it was so completely unnecessary and ham-handed that it almost spoiled the movie. It surely broke the mood we were in after the seeing the true ending of the film.

If you go see the movie (which I highly recommend to anyone that doesn't mind the rather copious amounts of blood), do yourself a favor and leave after Viktor leaves on the boat.

The abomination growing in her womb was a betrayal of me and the coven. I did what was necessary to protect the species. As I am forced to do yet again.

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