1. I really enjoyed Michael Bay’s first outing with the Robots in Disguise. I hear what those who are critical of the movie say, but as an overall experience I really enjoy it and think it’s a great movie.

2. I did read a few non-spoilery reviews of the movie before going to see it. I was disheartened because a lot of what I read tended to be very negative. I had no idea about a plot, and I had not really read any spoilers for the movie going into it. My expectations were pretty even in spite of the negative reviews I had read.

3. I loved the G1 Transformers series from the eighties. Transformers weren’t action figures…they were Transformers, the show was, to my child eyes, the best thing on television, and it still holds a very special place in my heart. Subsequent series, with the exception of Beast Wars, really tended to fall flat to me. They just didn’t feel like The Transformers.

4. There may be spoilers ahead, so if you don’t want anything ruined, don’t read.

This movie is really two different reactions for me. I’ve seen it twice now, and had I written this review after only one viewing, I would have written, “HOLY MONKEY SPIT!!! I freakin’ love this movie!”

Having seen it twice now, I say, “Wow. What a good movie.”

Upon the first viewing I found myself thrilling to Optimus being airdropped in to China to take out a huge Decepticon. I felt tears well up as I had to watch Optimus do something I never thought I’d have to see a second time in my life.

I cheered with the mention of the Matrix of Leadership. I laughed at jokes that weren’t too funny. I felt the awe of the 7 year old in me as Jetfire showed up. The whole experience the first time around was exactly what I wanted out of a Summer movie. I left with my jaw on the floor and completely ticked that people had been spewing venom on this movie.

The second time I saw it was a more low key affair with a couple of people who aren’t quite the fans that I and my friend Josh from New Day Photography, are. It was in this viewing that I realized how slow the pacing of the movie is, how unnecessary some of the humor is, and how pointless at least one of the characters are.

Let’s deal with the negative first. Sam’s roommate? Pointless. Well, after leading Sam and company to John Turturro’s Agent Simmons he’s pointless. For one things, Turturro is the far superior actor and when he’s on screen, it’s like no one else is there. So there is no need for a character who doesn’t have half the knowledge of Agent Simmons portrayed by a gentleman who’s a fine actor…just not on Turturro’s level. In fact, Leo would have best been served in the role of taking Sam where he needed to get and then either stayed behind in some sort of support role or even turned Sam over to the authorities to try to collect some sort of reward…I think it would have made his character more useful and he would have had more of a reason to stick around once Agent Simmons came on the scene.

The humor is a double edged sword for me. You had to expect Sam’s parents to be funny. However, at points they were a bit too over the top. To me, though, it’s all paid off once they are taken hostage and used to try and stop Sam in the final battle. The scene between Sam and his father is really emotional. All jokes are over, this is life and death, and instead of letting their son go for college, this is a mother and father letting their son go to save the world and potentially not make it back. It’s a moving scene and it stands complimentary to and as a counter to what we had seen from the Witwicky parents earlier.

The Autobot twins Mudflap and Skids were…too much. Too much vulgarity. Too much humor. Too much screen time. When we are shown a totally awesome Autobot in the form of Sideswipe in the opening sequence, when we have someone like Ironhide or the Arcee triplets in the movie, to spend so much time on a vulgar Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum duo is a little disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, they had their moments and at times even made me laugh, and I appreciated that the two could fight, but kids are gonna be playing with these toys and quoting their lines from the movie, and there were so many cooler Autobots that could have been used.

Then there’s Wheelie…I didn’t mind Wheelie at all. Except for the leg humping. That was unnecessary. He was grovelling enough to be funny, and he was a cool little character.

Ultimately, there are a few little plot points that rubbed me the wrong way, but even with the problems I just mentioned, it wasn’t enough to ruin the experience, the movie, or the franchise for me.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had so much eye popping goodness about it, it did everything we wanted the first one to do, and it ramped the stakes up so high that even the slow scenes seemed intense.

The stakes for our characters were bigger than an unknown threat in the person of a frozen Megatron getting his hands on a source of power we don’t quite understand. This time around the Earth was at stake. The Decepticons, under the leader of an ancient Transformer known as The Fallen, are after the Energon they can harvest upon destroying our sun, and thus our planet. Sam has been thrown headfirst into this war, and has to step up in a way that goes far beyond anything he was called upon to do in the first movie.

The Decepticons seem to be coming in huge waves and all hope seems lost for a large portion of the movie. Then, the second things seem to turn around, the bad guys appear to win. Then…well, it’s just huge.

The action sequences in this movie (and there were a lot) were amazing. From the aforementioned Prime airdrop to appliances going all decepticonish in the Witwicky household, to a Decepticon psycho chick, on through to the end battle, The camera was, for the most part, pulled back to allow us to more easily follow the fights than the first movie.

Ultimately, we got what we asked for. More interactions between the Transformers, more focus on the giant robots fighting, and more robots.

As far as plot goes, this was a classic Transformers story. There was the search for an item on which everything hinged. Megatron will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal. Soundwave is sending his little minions and gathering the information needed to effectively strike against the Autobots. The Autobots have no clue what’s going on til the end, and then lay their lives on the line to save humanity.

There was a lot weak about this movie, but to me and the seven year old Steve that came out to play in the movie theater there was too much good to complain.

I honestly had no expectations for this movie. I knew that what I had seen looked amazing, but I knew little to nothing about the plot. So when I walked out the first time, I was super pleased. The second time, I was able to look at things in a less seven year old like manner. Combining the two experiences, I give the movie a strong 3.5 out of 5. I will probably see it again. I do like it enough to watch it as much as I have the chance to. I will definitely buy it when it comes out on DVD/Blu Ray, and I highly recommend it. In my opinion, it’s the best of the Summer so far. Just on a fun level.

WONDER WOMAN #31 – Rise of the Olympian Part Six

I got to meet Gail Simone on Free Comic Book Day. I don’t think there was another comic book writer that I would have been more excited to meet. Despite not having a clue what to say to her… I think I was able to convey how much I’ve enjoyed her comics. “Wonder Woman”, “Secret Six” and her work on “Birds of Prey” are absolutely awesome. She writes such sharp dialog and interesting characters. Plus, no one writes a twisted, messed up villain like Gail Simone. And damn if she didn’t wind up making Genocide even more twisted than I ever would have expected when this story arc began.

For the past five issues there have been all kinds of forces gathering against Wonder Woman. Diana still hasn’t learned about half of them by the time his issue starts up. She’s faced off against Genocide but she’s still got no clue about Zeus or his Olympians. So it’s almost overkill when we discover that there’s still more forces marshaling against Diana that she hasn’t even been clued into yet. Hippolyta’s nutjob of an ex-bodyguard is skulking on a shadowy hill, watching her former queen reunite with the other Amazons. It’s not just some general, standard villainous skulking though. The crazy lady has business to attend to. She’s there to meet with Ares and at least she has the good sense to be kind of revolted with herself as she makes a shadowy, ominous and vague deal with him. Though they don’t get into the details, it’s safe to say that there’ll be a severe shortage of rainbows and lollipops in whatever plan they’re plotting.

While everyone and their cousin are finding some way to conspire against Diana, she’s busy receiving an update on Etta’s condition at the hospital she’s brought her too. It’s not looking good; Etta is catatonic and non-responsive. With the nurse comforting her, Diana finally allows herself to break down for a moment and cries for her friend and all of the hell she’s been put through for the past couple of days. Doctor Morrow, who has accompanied Wonder Woman, tries awkwardly not to notice her crying while handing her a tissue. It’s not until another of the hospital’s patients, Tom, walks in that Diana brightens. She’s reunited with her boyfriend but there’s not much time for joy as Tom fills her in on the news of the day: The Olympians.

The Olympians are all over the place. They’ve been attacking military stockpiles and political gatherings around the world. Right now they’re storming the United Nations and declaring that they’re going to take over and impose peace on the world. Before she can deal with any of that, however, Diana first needs to take a moment at her friend’s bedside. While she sits alone with Etta, the nurse that she’d been speaking to earlier enters the room; she’s not herself though.

Athena (now with 10% less deadness) is possessing the nurse to communicate with Diana. She explains to her that she had a dream, a vision of the future, where Ares had won and defeated all the pantheons including the superheroes. We see Superman’s tattered cape and other dead heroes lying in the ruins of a destroyed Metropolis. Athena explains that Ares is behind everything that’s been happening and that everything he’s been doing has been to hurt his father, Zeus. Ares was responsible for prompting Cheetah, Morrow, etc. to create Genocide and intends for Zeus’ Olympians to wind up triggering the war that will destroy the world. Then she reveals exactly who’s body it was that was used to create Genocide… Wonder Woman’s own future corpse.

Diana doesn’t have time to reel from the news for too long (or to spend much time figuring out the temporal logistics) since Athena has told her she’s got about fifteen minutes to stop the Olympians from accidentally triggering a nuclear Armageddon. Wonder Woman races to Russia where she and Achilles finally face one another in a fight at a Russian nuclear weapons bunker. The two have a quick smackdown but before Diana can explain (while totally kicking his ass) how his people are being used, the Russians launch a nuclear missile. Diana takes care of that threat and is now off to find and kill Genocide… no matter who’s body she’s made of.

STORY: 4 1/2 out of 5

I wonder if it’ll count as suicide when Diana finally finds Genocide and rips that stolen lasso out of her stolen body? I might as well just get all the “Holy Crap! I did NOT see that coming!” stuff out of the way up front. Because, seriously, holy crap… I did NOT see that coming. Sure, it’s a little bit of a paradox-laden twist but if Steve has taught us anything, it’s that paradoxes were meant to be embraced. So I’m going to full on face-plant-huggle this twist because it’s not often a comic has made me just stare at one page in shock and confusion and then have to immediately go back and re-read the issue.

I had spent some time theorizing after the previous issue when they finally indicated that the body used to make Genocide was significant but I can honestly say that Diana’s own future-corpse wasn’t really at the top of my list of suspects. There was definitely a moment or two where I wasn’t quite certain if I liked the twist but for sheer shock-value and for all the timey-whimey implications it ended up bringing me around. Cause if that’s Diana’s corpse… that kind of equals a dead Diana. Now all those early how-is-Wonder-Woman-going-to-get-out-of-this-alive thoughts have suddenly come back with a vengeance. What I love even more about it… is her reaction. She’s just been confronted with this horrific knowledge of her own future death and after only a page’s worth of shock she is back on mission and her primary concern is to kick some ass.

Another thing I just loved about this issue was that all those loose plot threads that have been dangling around since the first part of this arc have been tied up into one big ole’ Ares-shaped bow. To find out that he was pulling every string and playing everyone to further his own agenda was awesome. When he first popped up in this issue it was like he was just another villain ready to blend into the mass of antagonists surrounding Wonder Woman right now. Discovering his actual role in all this was pretty darn cool. Diana has a full day of kicking butt ahead of her but Ares has definitely earned his place at the end of that list.

There was just a great balance throughout this issue of action, emotion and humor. Doctor Morrow desperately trying to not acknowledge the incredible awkwardness of seeing Wonder Woman crying was really funny at just the right moment when things had reached such a low point for Diana. One of my favorite moments had to have been them walking to go visit Etta but Diana and the nurse still took a moment to check out the open hospital gown of Tom as he led the way. It’s the humor that keeps things grounded in a reality that you need when you’re fighting god and monsters and your own corpse from the future. Somehow Gail Simone is always able to keep the dialog and the emotion and the characters feel natural in even the most heightened of circumstances.

ART: 4 out of 5

I’m kind of glad that I wound up taking a long time coming out with this review because it gave me a chance to reevaluate the art. Aaron Lopresti has been doing the art for “Wonder Woman” for a while now and I’ve been loving it. So, when I first opened this issue and found that everything was a bit different because Bernard Chang had been done the art this month it all just felt kind of off. Not bad, by any means, but not quite what I was used to. As I’ve gone over the book a few more times I have definitely come to appreciate the look of Chang’s art a lot more.

The characters all have a lot of sharp angles to them and an edge that I think really worked well with the strain and stress that so many of them are meant to be feeling at this stage of the game. He did a great job with the body language of the characters as well. In one scene you can read all of Diana’s emotions from the tension in her shoulders. The character that I think benefited the most from his style is Alkyone. There’s a hardness and edge in the way he draws the characters that really works for her. Her anger and strength really come through from his characterization.

COVERS:

Main Cover: 4 1/2 out of 5

I really liked the way this cover seemed to sum up exactly where Diana is at in this issue. Her armor is gone, the clip at her side where her lasso should be is empty, she has no weapons, Etta and Tom are there but in no position to help her. Yet her fists are both clenched and you can see her raw physical strength as she prepares to take on Achilles. Despite everything that has been stripped away from her she is still Wonder Woman and she’s still going to kick some Olympian butt.

The contrast of seeing Achilles in his gleaming armor and carrying his shiny spear works well. A couple of issues back it was Wonder Woman who was all decked out in her shiny, gold armor with her weapons in her hands and facing off against Genocide who was about to attack with just her bare hands. It’s an interesting reversal, especially now that we know the truth about Genocide’s origins.

Variant Cover: 3 out of 5

Not my favorite of the series of variants they’ve been doing. It’s strange seeing such a carefree, happy, smiling version of Diana on the cover of so gloomy a story. It’s a nice picture and definitely shows another side to Wonder Woman than what we’ve been seeing lately but it doesn’t blow me away.

MEMORABLE QUOTES/LINES:

Nurse Tamika: “No one’s looking. You don’t have to be a princess right now, if you don’t want to.”

Nurse Tamika (to Diana as Tom walks away): “Are you going to tell him that his gown is completely open in the back?”

Diana: “Well… perhaps not just yet.”

When Stan Bush told me that he was retooling “The Touch” to give it a more modern sound, I was excited, but I had that niggling in the back of my mind…what if it sucks?

Well, Stan has released the new version to the masses via YouTube, and I have to say, I’m liking it. The original version of the “The Touch” will always be my version, but I have to say, this one has grown on me rather quickly.

The next step is to somehow get Michael Bay to sit up and recognize that HE NEEDS THE TOUCH! HE NEEDS THIS SOOOOOONG! ahem…yeah..he needs the “The Touch” in his Transformers movie.

Go check it out by clicking here.

Here is a retooling of the video:

When I first heard that J.J. Abrams was relaunching the Star Trek franchise I was intrigued and kind of excited. I felt like Star Trek didn’t get the send off theatrically that it deserved. Regardless of what you may think about Nemesis, the Next Gen crew deserved a better, more epic end to their tales on the big screen. As different Star Trek alum have passed over the recent years, the idea of seeing Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, and the crew on the big screen ever again was relegated to special screenings of the original movies. Now, someone was actually putting it all out there. Someone was doing the unthinkable…recasting these roles. Trek fans everywhere stood back aghast at the thought. The questions of William Shatner showing up began to be asked. Leonard Nimoy was suddenly on board, and people scratched their heads. Pictures leaked. Stills were realeased. People debated, bemoaned, and some were excited at the prospect.

Then, that teaser hit with Cloverfield almost a year and a half ago. As Nimoy uttered those iconic words, the debate stopped, the moaning and whining stopped, if only for a bit, because regardless of a person’s opinion of what was happening to Trek, that teaser got us all excited.

In the months leading up to it’s release, I truly thought Star Trek was gonna steal the Summer show. I thought it was gonna be THE picture of 2009. I was sure that when it hit theaters, the Summer would just be a downhill ride from there.

Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek was good. But it wasn’t “end all, be all” good.

From the outset, let me say again that J.J. Abrams and crew have done the unthinkable and pulled it off. Like Scotty pulling nearly warp 10 out of a Klingon Bird of Prey, J.J. Abrams coaxed everything he could out of Star Trek and put it all on the screen in a way no one has ever seen Star Trek before.

There’s so much good about this movie, that it’s hard to know where to begin.

I really like the introduction to Kirk and Spock. The idea that these two characters are rebels in their own way on their respective planets show us how it is that they can become such good friends years down the road. They have an understanding of one another before they ever truly meet. These two are, understandably, the focal points in terms of the cast throughout much of the movie. It’s Kirk and Spock, and if these characters aren’t done right, then the movie fails.

Chris Pine is my new James T. Kirk. I completely believed him in the role. I loved that he had all of the swagger that everyone has always told me Kirk had. You see, I have never seen Kirk as the cool ladies man that everyone says he is. So to see Chris Pine try to pick up Uhura at a bar and fail, but not be daunted by it, and later hooking up with a green chick (Original series joke in and of itself), and throughout all of his tests, trials, and troubles still maintain a wit and charm not seen since Han Solo makes me like Kirk more than I ever have.

Zachary Quinto was an inspired choice to cast as Spock. He brings to the table all of the necessary elements to play the Vulcan Science Officer, and in this new version of the character is allowed a little more emotional room to work with. He does this excellently. He gets emotional without getting emotional and when he DOES finally explode, it’s scary and we are reminded that Spock is not one to be trifled with.

Zoe Saldana portrays the Uhura that Trekkies have always loved, with some 21st century sensibilities that weren’t there when the character was originally conceived. Things have changed a bit since the original series aired and the presence of a strong female character on screen isn’t as revolutionary as it once was. However, because we are willing to accept more from our female characters, Saldana is able to take the character of Uhura to places we’ve never seen the character go before. We get to see more passion than I recall in the character and it only serves to make Uhura more interesting than she’s ever been to me.

John Cho’s Sulu is probably the most problematic of the crew for me. Mainly because I can’t help but see Harold from the Harold and Kumar movies. Also, one of the coolest things about Sulu to me was his voice. Unfortunately, Harold doesn’t have the weight and deep timbre of voice that George Takai has and it causes his character to not stand out for me. However, Sulu was given more to do in this movie than he was in any of the previous movies. Harold was great in his action sequence with Kirk.

I’m not familiar with Anton Yelchin outside of this movie, but I like what he did with Chekov. Having said that though, do we really need Chekov?

Simon Pegg was great as Scotty. He brings the fun and the wonder to the character that we all expect from Scotty.

Karl Urban, however, stole the show from everyone for me. My favorite moments were when Dr. Leonard McCoy was on screen. Urban captured the voice of McCoy perfectly, both literally and figuratively. From his introduction (”All I got left is m’bones.”) to the “I’m a doctor” line, he was perfect as Bones, and the fact that he and Kirk strike up a friendship from their first meeting is so fitting. I can’t think of anyone more suited to step into the role after seeing what Urban did with the character. As I walked out of the theater, it was with Urban that I was most pleased.

Then there’s the story.

I liked the way that each member of the classic Enterprise crew came into their positions. I liked that Kirk basically forced his way onto the ship. I liked that Kirk and Spock are initially at odds with each other. I liked that the crew of the Enterprise came together to overcome overwhelming odds and save Earth and the Federation.

I don’t know how I feel about the time travel aspect. Honestly, going in I knew that Spock would be traveling back in time, but I didn’t expect it to be such a major portion of the story. I didn’t expect the entire story to revolve around time travel, and I didn’t expect all of Trek history to be altered by this one story.

I think that’s the catching point for me. While it took guts for J.J. Abrams and crew to do a full on reboot of the Star Trek franchise, it feels a bit contrived and scared of Trekkies to say, “Well, we may be doing something new, but it doesn’t in any way undo what you have come to know and love.” I just don’t like the idea of throwing in time travel to explain away every discrepancy in the new franchise and the old. How about this…How about it’s A NEW FRANCHISE! THINGS ARE GONNA BE DIFFERENT!

The villain of Nero had his moments, but in the end, it was a character anyone could have played. Eric Bana is too good of an actor to throw into a role that could have been given to anyone wiling to wear the makeup. In fact, Nero had the same problems that most Trek villains have. There is an attempt at some emotional depth and dynamic characterization, but it falls flat in light of the big scheme to take down the Federation. Hopefully, we’ll see more compelling villains in the future.

There are other points I could nitpick. The Kobiyashi Maru (I have no idea if that’s spelled right) Test was something that I loved hearing about Kirk beating in Star Trek 2, but I imagined differently. I always imagined Kirk ripping off a computer panel in the middle of the test and reprogramming it while the simulator was blowing up around him. While it is understood that the green chick fixed things for him, it is never clearly explained. So a scene that should have been great fell a bit flat for me.

Kirk on an ice planet has been done before. A drop of the lava lamp liquid causes a black hole that consumes a planet, but the Enterprise can escape the effects of an exercise ball sized amount of the stuff? The creatures on teh ice planet reminded me of Star Wars moments. (Always a bigger fish.) Spock and Uhura having a relationship added nothing to the movie. And, I’m sorry…but did I see HYPERSPACE LINES starting to form as the Enterprise was about to jump to warp speed for the first time. Go check it out…you’ll see what I’m talking about.

As I sat and watched this film, there was so much that reminded me of so much else. That is a problem. Star Trek shouldn’t be inspired by other franchises. (Even Star Wars) Star Trek should be setting the standard. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened in this movie.

Overall, however, Star Trek is an awesome movie. It is a great start to what is hopefully a new series of films for the franchise. The cast is so strong that I want to see these characters on screen again for anything.

Michael Giacchino’s score is definitely worth picking up and adds a lot to the movie. I like the fact that he avoided the temptation of using variations of the classic Star Trek theme throughout and waited til the ending credits to give us classic Star Trek music. His score works so well for the moments. It feels epic and adventurous. It’s powerful and moving. It works. It just works so well.

ILM’s effect work was…well, it’s ILM…they cut their teeth on space movies. (STAR WARS)

In the end, I give Star Trek a 4 out of 5. While 4 seems better than what I think, 3 seems too low, so I’ll go with the more positive review of 4 out of 5.

Yes, friends, Star Trek was good…but it was no Star Wars.

Like everyone, I had heard the mixed reviews. I had heard most people respond to Wolverine with a resounding “eh.” Unlike some, I didn’t download the leaked copy of the movie a few weeks ago. I was just too uninterested to take the time, bandwidth, or memory on my computer to do it. I was determined, no matter my trepidations, the mediocre reviews I’d seen, or the response of fans who downloaded an unfinished copy of the movie to sway my opinion as I watched the movie.

So what did I think?

I think the greatest strength of this movie is what makes the movie work more than anything else…the cast.

I knew going in that Hugh Jackman owns the role of Wolverine like nobody thought possible about eight years ago. He seems to understand the character, he gets what makes Wolverine so cool to so many people. So it is, when he steps on screen to don the adamantium claws, he brings Wolverine right off the page to right in your face on the screen.

Liev Schreiber was a surprise to me. I was a bit shocked to find out that the guy who played Cotton Weary in Scream 3 was gonna be Sabretooth….SABRETOOTH. It worked though. He did an outstanding job of making Sabretooth not only tough, hard edged, and threatening, but also bringing a touch of humanity to the character that we’ve not seen in the cartoons or the first X-Men movie.

Then there’s the one everyone was talking about, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. While he wasn’t on screen for very long, he definitely made an impact on the movie. He has a comedic timing and wit that allowed him to deliver Deadpool’s lines perfectly funny and appropriately B.A.

I was disappointed (and relieved a bit) to find out though that Weapon XI (read Weapon 11…which I thought was supposed to be Deadpool post Weapon X texting) was NOT Deadpool.

In truth, I have always been so indifferent about Wolverine, that I can’t come to this movie and pinpoint derivations from any of the supporting characters in the film. So I wasn’t constantly saying, “That’s not how it is in the comics.”

I DID read Wolverine Origins a few years back, but I was so disinterested that I really don’t remember it. So while a few of the things from the boyhood days of Wolverine are familiar, they weren’t fresh and important.

This is a movie that is well put together while not as epic as the trailers make it out to be. I was glad to see that the trailer only gave one really cool moment away. Wolverine vs. a helicopter. I was also glad to see that character development wasn’t completely thrown out the window only to be replaced with action. There are some genuinely good character moments not only from Jackman and Schreiber, but even people who are only on screen for roughly five mintues.

In fact, in watching this movie, there are only a few negative things that I saw.

First, and most obviously, are the special effects. There are moments that it seems any major studio should be able to pull off and give a more realistic look to. Action moments that apparently were done of a blue or green screen and the proper care didn’t seem to be taken to make the elements blend well. Normally, I wouldn’t mention anything about effects, but these moments seem to be things that shouldn’t be so obvious.

There is a moment when Logan is looking at his new adamantium claws and they are so blatantly digital that it took me out of what should have been a pretty interesting scene. (And understand that it’s HARD to pull me out of a movie.) I thought I had read that Jackman wore prosthetics for close up shots in at least one of the X-Men movies and it seemed to me that he should have been using them in this particular instance.

Another drawback to this film, to the story actually, is what I refer to as the Boba Fett mistake. (Yes, everything comes back to Star Wars for me.) While I love the prequel trilogy and remain one of it’s biggest proponents, it isn’t lost on me that a lot of the coolness that Boba Fett held for fans of the original trilogy was lost the minute they saw him as a little boy tagging along with daddy. I think the same can be said here. I like the mystery that always surrounded Wolverine before the comic ORIGINS was published. I think that’s a big part of the character’s appeal.  Well, this movie goes a long way in stripping all that away.

The final negative to this film for me was that it just didn’t thrill me.  It was entertaining.  It wasn’t BAD…it just wasn’t the second coming of the Marvel Super Hero movie.  Sadly, though, I think Fox is ok with that.   Unlike Paramount who went out of its way to make Iron Man something special, Fox seems content with just taking in the money it knows fans are gonna spend on the characters we love and know so much.  So, if the movie is acceptable…that’s good enough.  I disagree, I think this movie should have been the surprise of the Summer.  It should have had the Star Trek franchise backed against the wall just hoping that it could perform as well and get the buzz that Wolverine got.   Unfortunately, that won’t happen.  This movie will just fade into obscurity.  There’s just not much to talk about.

So in the end, I say this is an average movie.  Which is honestly more than I hoped for.  If you’re a huge Wolverine fan and can’t stand any descrepancies from the comic book franchise then…well, get a life…but you may also want to avoid the movie.  If you like a good action flick and you aren’t expecting Citizen Kane, you won’t be disappointed…but don’t expect to be blown away either.

Sigh, remember last Summer when we were excited EVERY weekend?  I miss that.