Summer round up(Superman vs Batman,Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2)

Yeah long time no see! What should I say? It was hot as hell here and vacation was good ;)
But I want to go back into writing more so I think I will just start with talking about things that happened in the last few weeks.

First off, at Comic Con there was this huge announcement that Man of Steel 2 will have Batman in it.
Boom and everyone went nuts. But I really couldn't get what the big deal was all about? I mean come on, the Avengers happened, it's not like this would be the first time we see 2 or more heroes on the screen together.
And don't give me that crap about how Batman could beat everyone with enough preparation! I had enough of it. Sure Batman's biggest weapon is his mind but how, without a certain green rock, could he bring the man-who-freaking-moved-a-planet to his knees?
Also it won't be Christian Bale as the Dark Knight which is a huge bummer! Overall I enjoyed Man of Steel, it was a entertaining movie, but the more I think about it the more I dislike it. Of course this all could work very well but in the end it comes down to how they create an tension packed situation where we could see Batman and Superman really go head to head. I really can't see that though. Obviously everyone who saw Man of Steel aka Disaster Porn 2.0 knows that there is no way Batman could win in a fair fight, and I'm not only talking about the Nolan Batman, generally speaking. So yeah I would bet we will see some kryptonite in the next movie but I'm not really looking forward to it. Sorry Super-Fanboys.

I also got the chance to see the Wolverine. I will say it's not as bad as X-Men:Origin but it also wasn't as good as it could have been. Two thirds of the movie I really felt like this could be the awesome Logan movie the character deserves but then came the last third arc and it took all the hopes and good feelings I had till there, threw them to the ground and stabbed them in the back. Seriously?! Seriously Wolverine couldn't fight 20 freaking Ninjas? In the comics this guy was introduced by fighting the Hulk for God's sake. They shooting him with 20 arrows in the back and he goes down, without cutting the ropes that were tied to the arrows like any other sane person would have done. And then the Silver Samurai! He's a giant adamantium Robot?! Utter Bollocks!
Ok before I'll curse more I will round this up: Overall the movie is good, but as an comic and movie fan, I just know so many ways how this movie could have been more.
The setting was good, the support characters were really good, the action wasn't all over the place just enough, even viper wasn't that bad but still the last part of the movie pissed me off. End Result: OK if you don't care about such things.

Personally I have a special place in my heart for the Kick-Ass movie, because back a few years ago when I (to my shame) had never heard of it, a good friend showed it to me and it was eyeopening.
The comedic and also brutal tone just appealed to me, as did the thoughts of Dave cause I had some of the exact same when I was younger. So I really was waiting for this flick to come out and what should I say? In my book Kick-Ass 2 is also very good. I'm really glad about a few changes from the books to the movie because the would have given the movie a much darker feeling which shouldn't in any way happen ever. Like which movie can pull it off to make their villain a comic relief plus to give him an ,for a movie, legitimate emotional journey. It's nothing worth of an oscar but still I prefer films that at least try to give their actors something to work with. Jim Carrey, I hear everybody asking? It felt like all his scenes were in the trailers and thats that. Really I liked him but he had overall not enough screen time. The real stars of this movie are Dave and Mindy aka Hit-Girl. Mindy really struggles to live a normal teenager life and the girls she is meeting are nothing short then mini versions of the Mean Girls. But it's fun and you get it, my only gripe was one Plot device to get rid, or win, their situation, but yeah you will see. I also liked how they ended the movie which is as far as I know completely different from the comics. It gave me a positive feeling for the future which is exactly what the first one did, which is probably why I like the flick that much. End Result: Awesome!    


So thats all I got for now! I will try to get more blogs out there soon, foremost about the state of Marvels X-Men and the new comic crossover Event Infinity while I also am working on my website so we will see :)

Man of Steel

It has been a while since my last post here. Long story short it's summer here and it was just way too hot to write. And festival season started, so yeah that was also a thing. Maybe in this week I will finally finish the second part of my arrow review. Ok somewhen in the next weeks to come seems more realistic. But totally before the start of the second season, I guess. So here is the deal, yesterday I was seeing the Man of Steel and it was a good flick but there were a few thing I couldn't help but to talk about, and here I'm am.

For everyone who hasn't seen the movie already, go watch it! I guess there will be spoilers duh!

So what I really liked was the way the way the movie started. It's nothing new, we all know the story of Krypton to some extend but the visuals and Russel Crows performance as Jor-El really made it worthwhile. But the moment he is riding on this flying creature somehow reminded me of Avatar and thats not a good thing. The movie in generell had some absurd amount of CGI. That's not necessary a bad thing, if handeld proper. And I think the really did a great job in the most cases. But when thinking about the movie, there is one scene in particular where I thought: ok all the money for CGI is already gone. When Clark rescues the guys on the oil rig and busts through the metal door while burning. The fire in this scene just looked awful.

We see Clark traveling around with fake names and helping people, while always getting flashbacks of his youth and how he grew to be the person he came to be. I really though that was a nice move to do but I don't get why he is on his road trip in the first place. I don't believe he is searching for this ship because he didn't knew it existed till he found it. So he just left his mother and went rouge? Doesn't sound like the Superman I know but ok plot holes. The thing that really disturbed me was the death of Jonathan Kent. Cause for this movie they changed the circumstances of his death. In the comics I know he dies cause of an Heart attack, which shows Clark that he can't save everyone. There are things not even Superman can stop. In Man of Steel he essentially dies because Clark let's him. Yeah Mr.Kent wanted it that way but seriously there had to be another way to safe him than just standing there.

Then everything happens fast, he finds this ship, gets the costume, Lois Lane discovers his identity in something about 10 freaking seconds, unimportant side characters appear, and Zod approaches the earth. When I say unimportant side characters I mean the whole Daily Planet crew or the military dude from Law and Order SVU. Cause they adding nothing to the plot and have around 3 scenes, so I don't care for them at all. I guess they are just in this movie because it's an Superman movie. And another plot hole I couldn't get my head around. Why did Zod want Lois Lane on his ship? How the hell does he even know that she is there when they took Superman? I guess just so she could tell them all how to rebuild Clarks ship into an black hole generator or bs like that.

And then it begins. The CGI battle we deserve but probably don't need. This action sequences where just huge. As predicted from a guy like Zack Snyder it's visually spectacular. After this movie you think about the battle of NY in the Avengers as an little training field. But ,and this is a big but!, if you know Superman you know his first directive is to not hurt anyone. In all the fight scenes it's seems like he gives crap about people and their properties. I mean he is throwing things through buildings and stuff like this. This is all of course normal but he probably should trie to get them away from living people to protect them first, right? But I will give him some slack because he is new in this whole hero business.

Finally there was the End. You know where Clark killed General Zod. And I saw people on the internet really getting upset about that, cause you know Superman normally don't kills. But in order to wrap the movie up what other choice did Clark or the Directors have? Really Clark was just about strong enough to hold him down? How the hell should he take a guy like that into custody? And I truly believe that Superman would kill in such an situation. All the other people didn't deserve the hate Zod had for them. The cool thing is this could somehow explain why Superman is against killing after this story. Think about it, not that he would have accidently killed civilians while flying through buildings and stuff.

Overall this movie was really entertaining and fun. No Batman Begins, Dark Knight or Avengers but really enjoyable. If you think about Superman Returns and compare it to Man of Steel, no don't do that, just don't think about Superman Returns at all okay?! No really go see the film it is good :)

Arrow in the quiver (Arrow S01 review p1)

Let's talk about last seasons new start and complete success the CW's Arrow. So after Smallville, a show about the early years of Clark Kent and how he became the man of steel, we get an show about the story of Green Arrow.

First off I love comics since so many years but always was more a Marvel guy. For a few this is probably blasphemy but I just never could identify with the all perfect Superman with practically limitless powers who could disguise himself just by putting on glasses or the all loved batman, who just happens to have every nice gadget in his utility belt and has a thing for young boys in costumes, at DC. But I still have a knowledge of the DC universe specially since the new 52, which brought us so awesome books like Batman, Aquaman(never thought I would say his name in an good context) or Wonder Woman. Really everyone who has no clue what I'm talking about should look those books up.

But even after the relaunch of the DC universe as we knew it, the Green Arrow book still couldn't win me over yet. Now just so that nobody is confused Green Arrow is the guy with bow and arrow(duh!), completely dressed in green, like Robin Hood,Peter Pan or the mention of honor Link.  I say this because of last years big,big and great Avengers movie. In this film there is this archer who is kind of Marvels version of green arrow, called Hawkeye. I really don't know who was there first and I don't care, they have different origin stories and every comic fan need to buy the ongoing Hawkeye book, which is the book I always looking the most forward to. The art, the Storytelling, Clint Barton und Kate Bishop (Young Avenger's Hawkeye), this book is as goods as it gets.

So now to the real deal, the reason why we are here, Arrow. Our main character/huntsman is Oliver Queen, a billionaires son, playboy and as irresponsible as it gets (Bruce Wayne anybody?). He lives in another fictional city of the DC universe, like Gotham City or Metropoles, Starling City.  The story starts off with Oliver, his father and Oliver's girlfriend's sister going on a boat trip on the Queen owned yacht Queens Gambit (yeah awesome name right). Wait what? Yeah you I said, he took his girlfriends sister on the boat trip and not just for the view I guess. So this is the guy we should be rooting for?, this is a question I found myself asking numerous times through out the season. It's actually a reason I like him, his character isn't black nor white and after the hell he is been through some things he does got more understandable.

Speaking of hell, here it comes. A big storm is coming and the Queens Gambit is right in there. Additionally some essential part on board breaks which is leading to the sinking of the Queen's Gambit. And with it the poor girl, which apparently never heard of the Chick-Code or even the Sister-Code(ok i made that one up). The only survivors are Oliver, his dad and one no-name crew member in an tiny rescue boat. They floating on open waters for days with almost no water or food. When the group agreed to share their water things get out of hand. Mr.Queen gets all cryptical tells his son that he himself had failed his city that Oliver had to survive and right his wrongs then shot the no-name and finally himself in the head. Important to mention Oliver found a small little empty mysterious book (lots of adjectives) in his dad's pocket, this is getting more important later on. This point would probably be the end of every real life story but this is a comic book / Tv show so after some time Oliver stranded on an not really civilized island. Side note: Are there still lonely not civilized islands out there?, and I'm certainly not meaning the comedic boy-band.

I have to mention there are two main stories which are running through this show. One begins five years in the past with Oliver's arrival on the island and the other one is the narrative here and now, when a guy in a green hood is running through the woods of the same lonely island, looking at a ship at the coast then shooting an arrow to ignite a signal fire. This hood guy is of course an hugely trained up and unshaven Oliver Queen. And so the real story begins with Oliver Queens comeback to Starling City after 5 years on that island. If anyone screams: "Batman Begins" right now, you are right. The similarities are quite obvious but not only for the story, the whole tone of the show is almost openly lend on the image Christopher Nolan created with his Batman Saga. As a fan of the Nolan trilogy and the "realistic" scenario, for super hero movie standards, he built, I won't complain.

Of course I won't talk about every single of the 24 episodes, specially when in the middle of the season there are many case of the week episodes, but I have to talk about a few special characters and storylines that appear through out the season. I will talk about those things in part 2 because it probably would be useful to establish the status quo first.

Thea, Diggle, Oliver, Tommy, Laurel

 Oliver Queen comes back to Starling City what happens? Of course the whole media goes nuts, that's practically a given. But the first thing Mr Queen has to do is getting checked up by Doctors, which are telling his mother, Moira Queen, about the many scars and wounds Oliver collected over the time of is island visit and to be carefully about his mental state, cause the long holiday probably changed Oliver. Well, back home at the Queen villa we come to know Oliver's little sister Thea Queen and Walter Steele, the former best friend of Oliver's Dad and new husband of Moira. All are so happy to have Oliver back, but it's almost impossible not to notice the change Oliver went through in those years. It just feels like he has problems talking to his once so well known family. But the family has other problems as well, like Thea rebelling against their parents and living the young careless playboy(girl) life Oliver once embraced. Also Moira isn't the only thing Walter took over from his best friend, he is now also some sort of CEO of Queen Industry. Eventually Oliver had to be reminded who he once was, so his former best friend Tommy Merlin enters the scene. The two were like brothers and lived a very simular life, only that Tommy is still living it. Obviously he wants to celebrate and so the two of them drove to the city. Where the were kidnapped ,in not even 2 freaking seconds, to question Oliver about his long timed vacation. This is were the show starts to show off what Oli is capable of. He freed himself, fought and hunted down the attackers, while Tommy still captured and blindfolded was made believe a mysterious third person rescued them. The Family and the Police thinks this was just a normal kidnapping, because in the glades, a very poor and dirty part of the city, things like this just happen. But why should they question Oliver about the island then?

Well Oliver sure learned a lot on the island and he uses this abilities for his own agenda. Means he searches one of his dad's old industry buildings and trains like a crazy. He even throws a basket of tennis balls in the air and shoots them with arrows, pinning them right into the wall for god's sake. After that he dresses up into his green hood and goes out to fight some evil gang members or drugdealers or whatever. Unfortunately it's not that simple, the little book old Mr Queen left has a long list of powerful people who failed the city big way, so the Hood, thats what the police calls him through the whole season, finds them, gives them a change to quit and finally get rid of them. And thats another grey area for this show. Oliver doesn't seem like he has issues killing bad people either with arrows or with his fists, he really has way more problems playing his old self in front of other people.

But Olivers life isn't complicated enough so there are several other key players in his life. After the abduction Moira hired a personal bodyguard. John Diggle is his name, he served in Afghanistan and honestly seems like a good man, which is I guess why he has a hard time with Oliver at the start. You remember the girl on the Queen's Gambit? good. She was Laurel Lance's sister, seriously DC enough with the L's (Lana Lang, Louise Lane). So Laurel must have been Oliver's girl friend back then. In those 5 years of time skip Laurel became an city attorney, but when they first meet again she is still just mad at him for taking away his sister, which in my opinion is more than satisfied. At last there is Quentin Lance, Laurel's father and Police Detective. He hated the Queen's from the beginning, so after they are kind of responsible for his daughters death and his wife couldn't take the loss and left, his work is all he has to life for and of course his still living daughter.

Yeah that's it. The status quo of the show. Oliver Queen at day playboy, at night crossing names of his fathers bad guy list and shooting arrows into people. The next time I will talk more about the characters and how their stories develop to the big season final.