SquidFlicks

Tag: comics

  • Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

    Nobody was going to give this movie a chance because we (America) aren’t familiar with the source material that this Sci-Fi Epic is based on. Valerian is a long-running series of Sci-Fi comics in France from 1967 to 2010. Writer-Director Luc Besson took this cinematic endeavor under his wings because he grew up reading the comics and was a huge fan of the franchise, which is popular in Europe but never quite took hold across the ocean.

    Luc Besson is perhaps best known for giving us The Fifth Element, which also was considered a commercial flop in theaters until it grew legs upon release to home video, and is now widely considered to be a classic. Valerian may be destined to the same fate, although it certainly lacks some of the charms that Besson’s previous hit held. Perhaps it’s just the difference in the late 90s grungy CG vs today’s high-level effects, but I think it comes down more to differences in casting and acting performance.

    The movie is set in a late stage of the comic series – an intentional move after a lot of backstories has already been created to create a compelling action-filled film for audiences unfamiliar with the Valerian saga (think Star Wars dropping us in at Episode 4 instead of going in chronological order). Set in the 28th century, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are a duo of special operatives tasked with keeping human affairs and relations intact alongside the multitude of other sentient beings that co-exist across the galaxy. The mission takes them to Alpha, a conglomerate space station that has grown exponentially to serve as a galactic ‘united nations’ over centuries, nicknamed “The City of A Thousand Planets”. A sacred, world-building device has gone missing and must be recovered before it falls into the wrong hands. Throughout the chase to regain possession of the ‘pearl’, the duo stumbles through the underworld of the station, meeting new friends, making new enemies, and revealing deep-seated rifts of bigotry and mistrust between humankind and other species. It turns out that the sides aren’t quite as cut and dry as they were made out to be in the beginning – Valerian and Laureline will have to choose between duty and honor.

    Visually, this movie was incredible. Beautiful vistas, realistic technologies, fantastic alien designs, and concepts. The entire setting had a distinct “lived-in but still futuristic” feel. Luc Besson created a fun, colorful, and frantic future fraught with danger but also full of whimsy that helps drive the story and emphasize the wondrous properties of the ‘Alpha’ station and its many diverse inhabitants.

    Where Valerian fell short was in the acting and storytelling departments respectively. I personally didn’t hate the acting, but Cara Delevingne & Dane DeHaan are relatively new actors and haven’t really found an audience in Hollywood yet. They are paired as Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline, both partners in fighting crime and corruption for the Human Federation as well as love. Rhianna has a gem of a role as the shapeshifting and seductive alien, Bubble. The movie is playful and silly but lacks some teeth when it comes to making a statement. There are a lot of good veins to tap in the story – government corruption, the covering up of genocide and collateral damage of galactic warfare, the need for empathy and understanding, a strained dynamic between serial dater Valerian and Laureline’s desire to be something more than his latest ‘girl’ – but somehow the film just doesn’t seem to cash in on some emotional checks it writes.

    It’s a stunning visual experience, with some holes in the story and some soft acting from the lead roles. I would love to see more from the franchise, but thanks to the lackluster response from audiences, this story is all but over – which is a shame.

    Trailer:

  • Thoughts on Ben Affleck as Batman, or Batfleck

    I let this linger in the draft pile for too long (what else is new). The outrage from the initial announcement has decreased, and Affleck’s image was somewhat bolstered by recent media at SDCC this summer, strengthening my argument below.

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    Often on very different planes of existence, both comic book nerds and mainstream Batman fans likely can sympathize with their feelings once news came out that Ben Affleck (of Daredevil and Gigli infamy) was tapped as the new Dark Knight.

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  • The Wolverine

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    This was a guest review submitted by William Derbyshire. Thanks William! You can submit your own reviews to SquidFlicks here.

    A decade or so and five X-Men movies on, you would have thought by now that Hugh Jackman would have left the role of Wolverine and handed the adamantium claws over to another actor like James Bond’s tuxedo was given to George Lazenby, and then to Roger Moore, in the wake of Sean Connery. Surely, there would be another part for Jackman to sink his teeth, and a new Wolvie film for that new actor to sink his claws, into.

    But there is only one man for this acting job and that is Jackman. Seriously, no-one else can play him, even in 2008’s prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine when a younger star would have circumstantially been needed to portray him in his early days. That, however, was his last outing and it misfired thanks to a tedious plot, a dull villain and a lacklustre climax which left me quaking for the action spectacle that it should have been.  But it’s clearly evident in The Wolverine that director James Mangold injects this movie with that much-needed boost and thrill that was lacking in X-Men Origins, but the storyline still suffers from ridiculous twists and the action being cut short when it’s about to get exciting.

    The Wolverine kicks off to a good start: Logan being held in a Japanese POW camp in 1945 and surviving the Nagasaki atomic bombing (a cool thing about being a mutant). Then, we move to the present day – he’s also immortal – after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, which is odd as people would have wanted to forget Last Stand as it left a bad taste in their mouths. Poor Wolvie’s living in the sticks, suffering from visions of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), the mutant chick he had to bump off at the end of LS, and making friends with bears doing their business in the woods. Ten more minutes into the film and just when he’s started a brawl in a bar, hot Japanese assassin Yukio (Rila Fukushima) makes her entrance…only it feels forced.  She’s sexually attractive and you would want to date her, but the scene builds up tension only to be briefly interrupted by her and you wish she was introduced later on.  It’s not long before Beastie Boy gets an invite over to Japan to visit dying corporate boss Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi ) who craves Logan’s healing abilities but he’s not the only one who’s after them.

    The stunning cinematography in Japan is on a par with Skyfall’s and the action excels, even if most of it is on a cartoonish level. The fight on top of a bullet train shown in the film’s trailers, however, lacks the wow-factor of the train battle sequence in Spider-Man 2, looks amateurish and is needlessly shorter in comparison. But if that leaves us movie-goers deprived of adrenaline, I can tell you now that Mangold definitely delivers a final showdown that’s miles better than before. If only he saved the plot from moving towards silly Michael Bay-esque territory and left an unnecessary, mind-baffling scene half-way through the end credits with two characters who we thought died, along with Jean Grey, reappearing as cameos, where it should have been – on the cutting room floor – that The Wolverine is sadly not entirely the movie we wanted Origins to be, but you would certainly be lacking common sense to pick it over this. Trust me; this film seriously improves on it.

    Jackman is still on terrific form and definitely hasn’t shown signs of growing tired of playing Wolverine, even in his sixth film as the hairy mutant.  He knows what makes the character tick and gets his hot-tempered personality and burly, muscular physical appearance spot-on like he’s got Wolvie’s DNA inside him.  Fukushima does her best playing an ultimately one-dimensional character but hey, she’s sexy, so what does that matter? Well, the relationship between her and her shaggy boyfriend doesn’t quite sizzle. Scenes of dialogue in superhero films are fine but do they have to drag on? Less talky, more slash-y next time, perhaps? If Fukushima doesn’t attract the males, there’s also the steamy Tao Okamoto, given a stronger role as Yashida’s granddaughter Marika and Svetlana Khodchenkova, deliciously malicious as Dr. Green, aka Viper. For all the gals, there’s Will Yun Lee as Kenuichio Harada, head of the Black Ninja Clan, even if he’s given little to do.

    For all The Wolverine is worth, you’ll still get a kick out of it and it’ll probably be like Origins never existed, but the most perfect solo movie outing for Jackman’s fiery mutant is still yet to be made.  But rest assured, with a seventh film in the works, it may still happen.

  • Spider-Man 4 Lands Brilliant Pulitzer Prize Winning Writer

    Spider-Man 4 is more reality than myth with the latest addition to the production staff. Many think that the entire series was derailed by a ‘weak’ third film. I personally enjoyed the third, but my favorite Spider-Man was the second with Doc Ock.

    Hopefully this new writer and the same star cast from the previous three movies will be enough to make Spider-Man 4 a hit.

    Lindsay-Abaire, who won a Pulitzer in 2007 for his drama “Rabbit Hole,” is in final negotiations to write “Spider-Man 4” for Columbia.
    Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire are back as director and star, respectively, as are series producers Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad. Kirsten Dunst also is expected to return for the latest movie featuring the Marvel Comics

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