The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Overall: A
Cast: A
Plot: A+
Special Effects/Stunts: A
Similarity to Comic: A-
Director: Christopher Nolan
Comic Company: DC
Stars: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page


I've never been anticipating the release of a movie more than I have for this one.  Four long years we waited for this, had to try to sort through all the rumors and updated cast lists and predicted plot lines.  They even released the scene early where Bane escapes from the CIA plane and boy did that make us eager, it was almost mean in a way.  But in the end this movie was totally worth the wait.

The Good: Let's start with the cast.  They all did fantastic, moving on.  Another thing I liked about this movie was how well it followed the comics, specifically "The Dark Knight Returns", "Knightfall", and "No Man's Land".  They change things a little in the end, but I'll get to that, for the majority of the movie however it is one of the most comic-following movies of the modern era.  The overall plot was superb.  "Batman" Begins" had a theme of fear, "The Dark Knight" had a theme of chaos, and this film's theme was pain.  Not only did the plot exemplify that nicely, but after watching all three movies in the trilogy you can notice the subtle differences in cinematography that portray their respective themes too.  Well played Mr. Nolan, well played.

Once again the special effects were stellar.  Nolan makes sure there is as little CGI as possible, so all of his chase scenes, fight scenes, and landscape shots are mostly organic and that's a nice change from most other superhero movies.  The soundtrack was good, and in some places the lack of music made the scenes more powerful and seems to get the audience more emotionally involved.  Probably my favorite thing about this movie is that it's the first in which Bruce Wayne isn't really conflicted about what he needs to do, whether Gotham needs a hero or not.  He simply makes up his mind in the beginning of the movie and sticks with it.

The Bad: I'm no doctor, but it seems to me that if someone had a vertebra sticking out of their back, punching it may not be the best way to heal it.  Apparently that works in this movie though, so that's cool.  My main beef with this movie though, if I have to pick one, is that the ending doesn't follow the comics at ALL.  They killed Tim Drake early in the movie and then Blake becomes Robin?  And when they said Robin did they actually mean Robin or did they mean the next Batman?  And either way Batman trains him in the comics, and that sure didn't happen in this movie.  And what's this crap about Bruce Wayne retiring anyway?  And last but not least, why did they act like Miranda being Talia was such a big twist?  Anyone who knows anything about Batman knew that was going to happen as soon as they mentioned Ra's Al Ghul having a child.

Another thing I thought was kind of dumb was that even after Gotham got invaded and Bane was threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb, Batman still wouldn't use a gun.  I understand if the city is being terrorized by the Joker and you need to make a statement by not using one, but come on, under threat of a nuclear attack I think even Batman might make an exception.  Am I wrong?

The Interesting: A couple of times there I forgot what movie I was watching, because 90% of the cast from "Inception" was in this movie too.  It makes me wonder how many of the actors got their roles because of "Inception" and not because they actually earned it or because they fit their role well.  Specifically I think Talia and Blake could have been cast a little better.

So they brought back the Scarecrow for another cameo, worth mentioning, and his whole scene seemed way overdone and not very realistic as far as the set goes, it looked like a piece of concept art.  Oh and the final showdown between Batman and Bane; is that all Batman had to do?  Just punch him in the mask?  Because I seem to remember him doing that like a hundred times in their first fight and that didn't work out so well.  Also, I wasn't really a fan of how they basically wrote Gordon and Alfred out of the plot, by having Gordon in the hospital for 80% of the movie and having Alfred walk out on Bruce.

Conclusion: This movie was fantastic.  I picked apart some of the details in this post, but overall I've seen very few movies that are as good as this one.  Go see it, four times.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Overall: A-
Cast: B+
Plot: A
Special Effects/Stunts: B+
Similarity to Comic: A
Director: Marc Webb
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page

This movie was better than it's three predecessors in almost every way.  But first things first, the thing that really sold me on this movie was this one simple fact; Andrew Garfield cries a HELL of a lot better than Toby Maguire, the movie is worth seeing just for that.

The Good: The first thing that jumped out at me was how much more like the comic this movie was compared to the first three.  Spider-Man shooting webs from a contraption on his wrist instead of his actual body and having his love interest be Gwen Stacy instead of MJ were simple changes to make and made the movie a lot more likeable.  Another big plus was that Spider-Man got his sarcastic, smart ass attitude back, which was lacking in the previous films.

The plot was solid, I appreciated how they used a villain that hadn't been done before and also eluded to the Green Goblin at the end.  The cast was good too, I think it needed maybe one more nigger name at least, but the mid level actors really stepped up.  I am usually not a huge Emma Stone fan, but she really won me over in this movie, as did Andrew Garfield.  Martin Sheen did well as Uncle Ben and Denis Leary held his own quite well as Gwen's dad/police captain.

The Bad: At some places the CGI of the Lizard wasn't as good as it probably could have been, and a lot of the scenery was pretty obviously CGI, which at times got a little distracting.  I didn't like how at the end, Spider-Man was so hurt that he could barely swing and get to the Lizard, but once he got there he was fighting as if nothing had happened.  I know that the hero is supposed to win no matter the circumstances, but that was a little bit of a stretch.

My other nick on this movie is that right at the end they show a shadowy figure that we can only assume is the Green Goblin.  However, throughout the whole movie they didn't even mention him.  Oscorp was brought up several times, and even the name Norman Osbourne was mentioned once or twice, but nothing n how/why he is the Goblin or why he wants to apparently kill Spider-Man.  Questions that I'm sure will be answered in the sequel, but for now they serve no purpose other to drive us crazy.

The Interesting: "With great power comes great responsibility" has always been and will always be the main message behind Spider-Man.  So... Where was it in this movie?  Uncle Ben had his dying scene and spouted off some similar message, but not those words, and why not?  I can't find much online that provides an adequate explanation other than "they didn't want this movie to be too much like the last ones".  Really?  This movie is far better than the last ones, they shouldn't have been so worried about a single phrase.

Peter's parents, let's talk about that.  They are involved in some weird backstory with Dr. Connors?  Okay they made it work for this movie, but that's not how it goes down in the comics is it?  I like that they tried to tie them in somehow, but there is never really any closure with it, maybe in the next movie, maybe not.  It's probably best that they leave it a loose end, but we all know how Hollywood is sometimes.

Conclusion: Considerably better than the first three movies, this Spider-Man film is what the last director and group of actors was probably going for but couldn't achieve due to money reasons, and lack of available CGI technology back in 2002.  I highly recommend seeing this movie, probably more than once.

The Avengers (2012)

Overall: A
Cast: A+
Plot: B+
Special Effects/Stunts: A
Similarity to Comic: A
Director: Joss Whedon
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson,
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page

The Idea behind this movie series almost seemed impossible a few years ago.  Making a series of movies and then tying all of them together into one mega-movie while retaining most if not all of the major cast members seemed highly improbable.  Add onto that how well done and successful each movie was and I'd say this idea and these movies far exceeded expectations.

The Good: The cast of this movie was one the best I have ever seen.  Every actor played their role perfectly, giving the movie a great mix of bad-ass, cocky, conniving, mysterious and sexy players.  I was particularly impressed with Mark Ruffalo.  Nobody thought he could outdo Edward Norton's Bruce Banner, but he sure did.  I enjoyed how well all of the actors seemed to understand the fragile relationships between their respective characters and the rest of the team.  In the comic books the Avengers hardly ever get along unless they have to in order to defeat a common foe, and this movie displays that well.

The special effects and stunts were amazing in this movie, which was to be expected, but I also thought the 3D was superior to some of the other movies.  It was used in the right places, not overdone, and high quality to boot.  This film was also very funny, probably more so than any of the other Marvel movies, which it had to be in order to downplay the ridiculousness of having all the strong personalities in one movie.

The Bad: If the was any part of this movie that was "bad" it would probably have to be the plot.  I shouldn't even call it bad, I think "not nearly as spectacular" sums it up better.  It's as if the movie was so focused on developing the team and character relationships that it kind of left out a good villain and diabolical world ruling plan.  The villain and their evil plan was basically just Loki summoning things from another world to wreak havoc on Earth.  A realistic plan given the circumstances and the characters but not super creative.  It was done well though and it was simple enough to lead to an obvious sequel.

My other big ding on this movie was that Loki never really puts up a fight.  He executes his plan but once the Avengers get to him the Hulk just thrashes him around for a couple seconds and its over, no big finale or epic battle.

The Interesting: The most interesting thing about this movie (since they didn't deviate much from the comics) is what they're going to do for the sequel.  It would be nice to see some more villains (which they allude to), but it would also be interesting to add more Avengers, like Ant-man, and give them smaller roles.  I would also like to see them further develop the relationship between Black Widow and Hawkeye.

It looked like they changed how they animated the Hulk, like they made his features more like Mark Ruffalo instead of what he used to look like.  And the only part of the movie where the comedy was a little too much was when the Hulk punched Thor, I didn't think that was entirely necessary.

Conclusion: You have to see this movie.  You don't even have to see the other movies first its done so well.  And after you see it once, go see it again, its THAT good.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

Overall: D
Cast: C
Plot: D
Special Effects/Stunts: B
Similarity to Comic: D
Director: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page
  
I was surprisingly excited for this movie, although I shouldn't have been after the first one.  I should learn from my mistakes, because this movie was even worse.  I didn't expect a great plot, but what I got was abysmal, the cast was unenthusiastic, and I really want to know what comic books the writers and directors have been reading because this movie was NOT based on the Ghost Rider comics.

The Good: The only thing I can really write about in this section is the special effects.  Some of them were pretty impressive.  I especially thought that the way they animated Ghost Rider himself was better than the first movie.  Some of the chase scenes were pretty cool, but other than that the effects and stunts were pretty standard.

A lot of the actors were pretty unknown, and considering that they didn't do too bad.  I kind of liked Idris Elba, but even he could have been better.  Nicolas Cage was, well, Nicolas Cage, speaking in the same over-dramatic monotone voice that he always does.

The Bad: Pretty much everything in this movie.  The plot was boring and incredibly generic and predictable.  They tried to spice it up by throwing in random over the top action scenes, but they were so random and over the top that they too became predictable and just ruined the movie even more.

I don't ever remember reading anything like this plot in any Ghost Rider comic.  It's one thing to make a superhero movie and not exactly follow a comic plot, but it's another to add characters and make major changes to the main character.  This movie did both.

The Interesting: The only thing I really find "interesting" about this movie is that they made it at all.  The first Ghost Rider didn't merit a sequel, and if they made one it should have at least tried to be similar or better.  Give us Eva Mendes, a decent storyline, a different actor for to play the Rider, SOMETHING!  

Conclusion: They could have made this movie much darker, less "comical", and more like the real comic but they chose not to and they really should have.  This movie was pretty much a disgrace to the franchise and an embarrassment to Marvel.