5. X-Men 2

This is the franchise that really kicked off the modern Superhero film, building on the good will created by Blade. X-Men was a good film in its own right but it was a bit self-conscious at times and oddly goofy at others. It was also saddled with introducing many characters and explaining powers and origins. X-Men 2 was where the franchise found its feet and unfortunately thanks to the almost dire X-Men 3 and mediocre Wolverine films it was also where it peaked. It is a nicely balanced film. Superheroics, drama, new characters, better wigs and focusing on the existing characters better all rise it above X-Men.  And thanks to not being saddled with so many introductions there is more plot available for the film. More importantly this is the film we really got to see the Wolverine in action.

4. Spider-man 2

Spider-man was a good film despite suffering from Superhero origin syndrome. If there was one Marvel character that could have had his origin easily glossed over it is Spidey. The sequel improved everything laid down by the first. Better plot, better characters, better villain, better dialogue, better action sequences and much improved CGI. Yet again this was also the peak of the franchise as Spider-man 3 was such a let down  that everyone involved swore off it and Sony has had no choice but to reboot the franchise and take it back to its roots. It helps that the film was really ‘my Spider-man’. I grew up reading the comics of the young adult Peter Parker rather than the teenage one so this fits in better with my idea of how Spider-man should be. What? This is my list so the reasons the films get on it don’t have to apply to you too.

3. Watchmen (Ultimate Edition)

The Ultimate Edition DVD is what slides this into the top 5 otherwise this would be the honourable mention. The extra footage and the inclusion of the Pirate comic as a cartoon really makes the film complete. I consider this film both entertainment and a work of art just like the comic book and you never read this but I prefer the film’s ending over the comic’s. Synder did the impossible with this film and made probably the best adaptation of Watchmen that was possible and even tweaked it to make it more relevant to a modern audience. I can fault it on very little. The soundtrack alone is the best Superhero film soundtrack ever and the opening sequence is sublime. Despite the length I never feel like the film is dragging or trying to do too much. Horribly violent yet never mindlessly so and all the violence in lovely slow motion instead of that modern trend of shakey cam and quick cuts like the Bourne films.

2. The Dark Knight

Batman Begins was good, really good, probably the best first film of a Superhero franchise when it came out. Dark and broody without the peculiarity of Tim Burton and with a Batman who can keep up with the Villain in the acting stakes. The Dark Knight not only went its own way with its naming convention it also took everything write with Batman Begins and made it better. Nobody thought Heath Ledger would be able to match Jack Nicholson’s evil funny uncle portrayal of the Joker but he match it and then some. Ledger’s Joker was phenomenal. Yet he managed to do it in away that he didn’t over shadow the films protagonist. Which might have more to do with the differences between Bale and Keaton to be honest. The film is so good it is possible to ignore Bale’s almost comedic Batman voice.

1. Iron Man

This as it stands is the ultimate Superhero film. It gets everything right. It manages to incorporate the colour and spectacle of a Superhero without dragging the film to far away from reality. Despite being an origin film it never seems to get bogged down. Possibly because it is not an origin we have seen 100s of times before like say Superman’s. It manages to use special effects in just the right amount to serve the film without dominating it. Even with all the CGI and action the thing that stands out more than the armour is the man in it. Downey was born to play Tony Stark and thanks to the lack of a complete script he is allowed to really make the character his. The dialog feels fresh and real because so much of it is an either ad-lib or was written with the author. And you know what else it is an enjoyable film with a delightfully roguish hero you can’t help but love. If the pattern of the 2nd film in a comic book franchise being the best continues then Iron Man 2 should be a stonker.

Honourable Mention: Daredevil – The Directors Cut

A lot of people dislike this film and the theatrical cut has a lot to be disliked, not least of which is Ben Affleck’s acting while being Matt Murdock. As Daredevil he manages to Batman it up just right but as Murdock he is unconvincing and his hair looks stupid. So why is this an honourable mention? Well partly because the Directors cut pretty much fixes most of the complaints you could have with the film that come down to Affleck’s wonky acting. The fact that Murdock is a broken man, both physically and psychologically and that really comes across in the film. He is covered in scars, coming apart and has to dose up on pain killers just to function. Mentally he is fried and long ago crossed that line into being Daredevil with Lawyer being his mask. The Director’s cut fixes the balance and frankly ads some plot. However it is the fact that Daredevil pilfers imagery from the comics like you wouldn’t believe that makes me like it so much. Few comic book films have dared draw from the comics in this way as much as Daredevil does. It is packed full of scenes from the very first to the very last shots that you can find in the comic books. I know I have those comic books and I am a comic fan before movie fan, sorry. I like that enough to bump ‘Batman Begins’ out of the honourable mention slot. Still it would have been better if they had just filmed Frank Miller’s ‘The Man Without Fear’.

Conclusions

It seems to me that is telling the origin story that often drags Superhero comics down. The problem is that Superhero origin stories are vitally important to the character but also tend to be quiet short. Long enough to drag down the quality of film but not long enough to make a whole film out of. You can either skirt over it as much as possible like Daredevil or expand it and make it the entire plot like Iron Man or Batman Begins.

Nice too see Stark building up his collection of suits. I especially love the suitcase armour and how it doesn’t suddenly become his normal armour but actually looks like it folds out.

Here is a shout out to Mr Anthony McLaughlin for the help and advice with the design. Especially for the advice on the use of colour and leading me to that very funky font. Us programmers need all the help we can get with design.

Let me know your thoughts and comments below. Also if you spot any bugs or where I have overlooked some styles please let me know.

The game carries on from the original game and you can import your character. Beware though as Bioware have seriously fucked up this process on the Xbox 360 by hiding away the file you need so unless you have the original memory/hard drive you saved onto you will not be able to import your character even if you kept your save games. If you still have the original Mass Effect to hand you can play through the final battle again and cause the game to recreate this hidden file so you can import your character, otherwise you are screwed. How Bioware managed to make such a hash of this I don’t know. Luckily I managed to locate my original 20gb hard drive. After a semi-interactive opening sequence the game takes a 2 year game time break and sends you off on another mission to save the Galaxy. Naturally even Commander Shepard can’t save the galaxy all alone so your first task is to recruit a new team. Some characters from the original game return, mainly as NPCs but a few can be added to your team. Seems in Shepard’s 2 year absence they have carried on with their lives. As before you can go on side missions (which are thankfully more varied than Mass Effect), help out your companions and indulge in romance with your team members.

My Commander Shepard

Some of the changes that have improved the game play have sadly had negative consequences. Everything in the sequel seems that little bit smaller and less epic than the first. Partly due to the difference in the plot and partly because game areas have been reduced in size to minimise running backwards and forwards. It feels odd that the enhanced Normandy now feels bigger than some of the game locations and if it wasn’t for the some times spectacular background vistas the game would feel very small. Shoring up the combats seems to have made the game much easier and I would recommend laying at a level of difficulty one higher than you would usually play. The final battle alone is way to easy and feels a bit of an anti-climax after playing through the game. However the set-up for the Mass Effect 3 more than makes up for the lack of epic-ness of this title. It also seems a little short compared to similar recent titles like Dragon Age or Fallout 3. I blew though it the first time in 36 hours, I did the main plot, some side quests and all the team member missions. I still have some star systems unexplored so I doubt I have covered everything but still.

Mass Effect 2 is more polished than its predecessor but the side effects of this polish make it slightly less in some areas than the original. It all comes out in the wash though and I think the two titles are pretty much on a equal standing in the end. I look forward to a second play through and the DLC. I give 4 out of 5 just like I did Mass Effect. A very good game but not as good as Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware are still the kings of RPGs in my book.

Norman Osborn (formerly the Green Goblin) has managed to wangle himself the top job at S.H.I.E.L.D (which he renamed H.A.M.M.E.R), drove all the best Superheroes underground (Some literally, others figuratively) and replaced all the major Marvel Superhero teams with his own twisted versions (made up of Marvel’s shadier heroes and villians). Oh and used scavenged Ironman armour to make himself into the ‘Superhero’ Iron Patriot (complete with Gaudy Stars and Stripes paint job). He has decided that Thor and his fellow Asgardians are terrorists and has attempted to invade Asgard which currently floats above US soil (Loki kind of helped along with that line of thinking). Ares, the greek god of war, has just been torn in half (that makes him dead) by the mad, super-junkie the Sentry (he makes Superman look like a pansy) and Osborn has just ordered the Sentry to kill the wounded Thor (who just made Wolverine’s son a chared mess with Lightening). Still with me? Yes? Good! Right Osborn thinks he is still winning (despite already having his ass handed to him by a former S.H.I.E.L.D agent armed with a shoulder mounted missile launcher) and has to be warned by an underling to turn around.

Unfortunately (for him anyway) while Osborn has been happily involved in taking over everything the real Captain America (Who was kind of assassinated after opening a can of Whoop-ass on Iron-man during the Superhero Civil War) has recently returned from the dead and he is not a happy, star-spangled bunny. It looks like next issue the Iron Patriot isn’t going to be either.

The who Avatar hype machine is beyond insane. When it was people claiming how awesome it would be because James Cameron was Directing it was silly. When critics and other in the industry started buying into the hype it was surprising. When reviews started saying how awesome it was despite critics usually flaying alive any film with such a heavy focus on special effects over plot it was stupid. When people got abused by Avatards on internet forums for saying they enjoyed it but it wasn’t ‘all that’ it was pathetic fanboyism. When Avatar’s initially didn’t blow the box office away and we got headlines like “Avatar almost breaks records” it was ridiculous. And when people started naming their kids Pandora (presumably they will have a stalker named Adrian when they get older) and getting depressed because they couldn’t live in the CGI world Avatar had created it was simply sad. Now I am beginning to think money is involved.

Avatar is in the race for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Yes it should be a sure thing for just about every technical award going but best picture? Come on! I like Avatar, it is an amazing film to look at and it is entertaining in a superficial way but that in no way means it deserves to be recognised in this fashion. I’m no movie critic, I only watch films that I expect to enjoy. That is my prime reason for watching films but it does help when they are well written, acted and directed. However I am under no illusion that some of the films I enjoy are not great works of art and I don’t expect them to be recognised as such. Avatar is no great work of cinematic art. It isn’t the best Science Fiction film of the last year. It wasn’t even the best film for its month of release. How can it possibly be recognised as Best Picture? The upside of course is that should it win a high profile award then the Academy might get over its prejudice against genre films.

My theory is that this is about mass rationalisation. So many people have gone along with the hype and hysteria that the whole industry now feels Avatar needs a worthy accolade to justify said hype and hysteria. Technical awards and viewer voted awards are a given and expected so it has to be given an award of note. Otherwise too many people who pride themselves as being cinema connoisseurs will be outed as little more than simpletons impressed by anything shiny or whatever is cool.

Still it wouldn’t be the first time James Cameron got himself a bag load of Oscars for a tedious love story wrapped up in fancy special effects.

And here is everybody’s favourite Star Wars Prequel reviewer to highlight the good and the bad of Avatar:

Part 1:

Part 2

Not really! It was created by some cad called Matt Bateman. Oddly close to the truth though, if you ask me. And before anyone complains that no work of fiction is ever truly original I’d like to point out there is retelling a story and then there is just repeating a story.

I love who it was who knocked four times.

The build up to the regeneration was fantastic. I liked how even as he was effectively dying he searched out his companions and gave them each that a little bit of help one last time. I didn’t even mind that he went to see Rose either. I really felt for the Doctor as he struggled against his regeneration because he didn’t want to go. Who would? Regeneration is not quite dying but it isn’t far off really. Most of the Doctor’s incarnations have simple accepted it or not had time to think about. This incarnation didn’t want to go. Which is the 10th Doctor all over, lovable, friendly, helpful, courageous but ultimately selfish. Even his self-sacrifice for Wilf wasn’t without a tantrum. This Doctor learn’t to love what he did again after his previous incarnation had struggled to come to terms with what he did in the Time War. Probably ended up loving it a little too much, which is why everything went a little caca. Ah mixing my time travel show terminology will get me in trouble one day.

It looks like holding back his regeneration has dire consequences for the Tardis and he still isn’t ginger! I liked the sly dig that the PC meddling brigade as he checked he wasn’t a woman after discovering he had long hair. Watch the regeneration:

No doubt the various Doctor Who internet discussion forums are already sharpening their knives to stick into Matt Smith’s back. They have already do doubt labelled him the worst Doctor ever based on his few seconds in this special. And when they see him punch a guy in the advert for the new series they will have a damned fit. Still onwards into the Moffat era and here’s to new catchphrases!

Geronimo!

I thought it showed promise at first. The characters where well acted and motivations and behavior was initially sound and consistent. Not that you end up caring as by the end of the story they have flushed all that away. I felt like the producers were laughing at me after conning me into thinking it was going to be good. Eddie Izzard is actually really good as the opportunistic survivor of a plane crash (we won’t go into the utterly ridiculous method he uses to survive the crash) who rises to power by making good use of his time. He collects guns, supplies and followers while every other sighted person is lamenting what has happened or wandering around with a sad face. He should play bad guys more often. At least they didn’t pick a cast of youngsters to make the story appeal to a younger audience. Which is probably good as it would just meant more pissed off people.

They deviated from Wyndham’s original plot more and more as they went along, until it got to the point the 2nd part of the story just made no sense. The whole we shouldn’t play god morality tale got a bit obvious and repetitive, especially the throw away scenes at the Nunnery. Talking of repetitive there is a series of flashbacks involving a tribal mask. Every 15 minutes we see the flashback with a little more detail each time. Yes we get it the mask is going to turn out to be important quit it with the flashbacks about it. Naturally it does end up being important but not in anyway that you might understand. They drip the Triffid venom through the eye slits in the mask and this makes eyes weep black and tears which has the side effect of making the Triffids ignore humans. What!? Why is that exactly? The protagonist Bill wonders aloud at one point on why the Triffids aim for the eyes but that is all we get. Why does this work? Is it because it changes the shape of the eyes and Triffids no longer recognise them as human? Do Triffids actually really like pandas? Why!? No explanation is given and the main characters happily fuck off to the Isle of Wight to fill a glass lighthouse with coloured sand, or something.

What is it lately with film and TV sacrificing coherent plot for action sequences? Not to mention really hammering home their messages like we are to simple to pick up on subtle parallels or decode metaphors. Am I just getting old a crotchety or am I just way smarter than the average TV/film producer thinks their audience is? Also the book and the original BBC version takes place over months but the events of this story seems to take place over a weekend. Everything is rushed and with Bill at one point seeming to recover from a bullet wound overnight.

They kept the Triffid mostly hidden at first preparing for a big reveal which didn’t happen because instead they just slowly showed us slightly more and more of the plant. Which is good because they looked totally shit and a big reveal would have been unintentionally hilarious. The new Triffids look like a giant Aloe Vera plant with a big purple knob-end on the top and are not at all scary or awe-inspiring. I mean in the 80s the BBC came up with this design:

Sure it takes a few liberties on Wyndham’s descriptions but it does look like a giant, tropical, meat-eating plant. They created those without a massive budget or CGI. For some reason these new modern triffids not only get up and walk they have roots that act like tentacles and allow them access to anywhere and to grab anyone from several metres away. And instead of the creepy and nerve shredding knocking of root on tuber the new Triffids squeak and squawk a whole language. They sound like a mix of Sweep and Joe Pasquallie put through an electronic voice synthesiser like Lilly Allen uses to sing in tune. And now the Triffids eat people with their roots in minutes rather than killing them and then hagging around to eat them slowly as they rot. Just like the modern fast moving Zombies these new Triffids sacrifice ominous presence for new action-friendly abilities.

Lets start off with the positive stuff shall we. The CGI is phenomenal and the film is visually beautiful. It is virtually impossible to spot where the CGI ends and the real life actors begin, if not for the fantastical alien creatures anyway. Sometimes I became convinced some of the live action was actually CGI, weird. The plot is straight forward but generally well executed and the characters behave in realistically and consistently. The acting ranges from pretty good to adequate. Worthington’s CGI Avatar has twice the emotional range as its real life counterpart. Weaver is as ever spot on despite being in the film mostly for exposition. The characters resonate well and they are easy to identify with, even if you can’t quite accept Phoebe’s half-brother being in charge of a planetary scale mining operation. The Na’vi are likable and well fleshed out alien species despite looking like shaved Thundercats. The action sequences are all fantastic but this should go without saying as they are all done in the fantastic CGI.

Now the bad. Despite being solidly done the plot is clinched to high heaven. This same film has been made so many times it isn’t even funny. It has also been done better. This was particularly hammered home by the fact the coming attractions included a trailer for a CGI animated film with a virtually identical plot. The dialog regularly wanders way too close to George Lucas and Chris Claremont territory for my liking. At times it skips foreshadowing and goes straight to flat out telegraphing what is going to happen next. As soon as the mention ***ing the big **** thing you know the protagonist will ending up doing it. The film isn’t shy on delivering its morality like Hacksaw Jim Duggan either .i.e with a 2×4. The anti-war and pro-environment messages are so obvious they are more than a little bit preachy. At times the who noble savage cliche threatens to turn the film into an anthropological (Whats the alien equivalent? Anyone?) mockumentary. Which brings me to the films biggest failing, the middle of the film drags badly. I actually got bored half way into the film.

It is a decent enough film but other than setting the standard for CGI it isn’t the cinema revolution people are claiming it is. I’d give it 7/10. It was enjoyable enough but simply doesn’t live up to the hype nor its budget. The film is best seen in the nausea inducing 3D unless you wear spectacles with large frames. No doubt it is even better on an iMax screen. I’ll get it on DVD but I have no pressing need to go see it at the cinema again.