Movies

Review – MCU – The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Spoiler Free Thoughts and Review

The Incredible Hulk seems to be a really hard hero to get right for movies. He’s had a few of them and even a live action TV series in the 80s. The Incredible Hulk is sort of the redheaded stepchild of the MCU. It came out just after Iron Man. It’s technically sort of part of the MCU, but no one really remembers or cares that it’s part of the MCU. Part of this confusion is the change in actors from the movie and his next appearance in The Avengers. They traded out Edward Norton for Mark Ruffalo. This particular movie also exists in a weird space since it’s technically a sequel to the 2003 Ang Lee film simply called Hulk. The rumors and stories I’ve read are that Norton was kind of a bear to work with on the whole thing and had a hand in altering a lot of the script until it was much less of a sequel and more of a reboot. It doesn’t really directly contradict Ang Lee’s Hulk, but it doesn’t reference it either. This is also part of why they dropped Norton for Ruffalo.

A lot of the problem with Hulk is that the exciting part, IE the big green monster, is boring and hard from a story perspective. He’s not really a hero, he doesn’t really go around saving people really, he just gets mad and rages, and hopefully he’s raging against someone more evil than he is. The part that works for the story, Bruce Banner, is kind of boring from a movie perspective. It’s not super easy to depict “inner turmoil” on screen, which is part of what makes the Hulk and Banner who they are.

This film also is treated by the greater MCU the same way it treats it’s Ang Lee predecessor. It’s not really acknowledge, it’s not really rejected. It does seem to be kind of a goto reference for the TV MCU though. Ironic since the TV MCU is also ignored by the movies. Daredevil and Iron Fist make references to the final battle in Harlem, Agents of SHIELD makes references to Emil Blonsky a few times.

It’s an alright film, but I kind of prefer the Ang Lee vision of Hulk and frankly, I don’t really like Edward Norton as Banner.

Synopsis and Spoilers

The plot starts off with Banner working and hiding in Mexico, working at a soda bottling plant. He’s communicating with Samuel Sterns, a scientist in the states, anonymously working to find a cure for his Hulkness. During an accident, he accidentally cuts himself and some of his blood lands in one of the sodas which ends up giving Gamma Poisoning to poor Stan Lee. This leads the military to Banner’s location. They recruit special forces agent Emil Blonsky to head in and capture Banner. After some Fitbit advertisements where Banner’s heart rate keeps increasing during his escape from the military, he finally Hulks out and battles it out with the soldiers before making his escape.

Jealous of the Hulk’s power, Blonsky gets injected with some experimental super soldier serum to help beef himself up and help him go up against the unstoppable force that is The Hulk. Banner returns to the states to meet up with his old girlfriend Betty Ross, daughter of General Ross, who is leading the military charge against him. Bruce wants to recover the data from the original experiment that transformed him into The Hulk to better help Dr. Sterns find a cure. Unfortunately for Banner, the Military has been alerted to his presence. Hulk rears his raging face again and makes short work of the military forces, including Blonsky, despite his newfound strength. Hulk flees with Betty after The Hulk “kills” Blonsky.

Bruce and Betty finally meet up with Samuel Sterns, who was able to formulate a cure, but possibly a faulty cure. They administer the cure to Banner and afterwards General Ross, Blonsky and the military show up yet again and take Banner into custody. After Ross heads out with Banner, Blonsky forces Dr. Stern to inject him with Banner’s blood. The super soldier serum and the Hulk blood have a negative interaction and Blonsky is transformed into the classic Hulk nemesis, Abomination, who starts rampaging through Harlem. General Ross agrees to let Banner go because the Hulk is the only one who can stop The Abomination. After the two brutes trash out the city, prompting Wilson Fisk to leverage his power to rebuild things in his vision for control (no wait, wrong show), The Abomination is defeated and things come to a close.

Banner is later shown to be living in seclusion again and Tony Stark shows up to talk to General Ross in vague terms about the Avengers.

How it’s Connected

Aside from Robert Downy Jr’s cameo at the end, there’s not a whole lot else that comes up later. There aren’t any references to The Absorbing Man in the first movie, there aren’t any Infinity Stones or much SHIELD even. The events that take place in Harlem are mentioned in the Netflix Defenders shows some, primarily because those shows mostly take place in and around Harlem. Though I find it kind of odd that the major event everyone talks about is Hulk and not, you know, the literal alien invasion and Avengers. The Super Soldier serum theme is here, that of course relates to Captain America, Agent Carter, and a few bits in Agents of SHIELD.

Thoughts on What’s Next

There hasn’t been a straight followup for The Hulk, he shows up again in the later Avengers films and the upcoming Thor Ragnarok, but nothing new in terms of a solo film. There is/was clearly some plan though, during the scene when Samuel Sterns turns Blonsky into the Abomination, he too gets infected by the Hulk Blood and his head starts mutating. In the comics, Samuel Sterns is a smart dude with a big head villain named Leader. Someone was pushing for this angle, though at this point it’s clearly gone nowhere.

Final Notes

The Incredible Hulk is an ok though pretty forgettable part of the greater MCU. It’s not an awful movie, it just sort of, is. Hulk is just sort of a hard guy to really do justice in film.

Review – Movie – Warcraft (2016)

May 19th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have to say, I was pretty excited to see the Warcraft movie. I don’t currently play World of Warcraft but I got pretty deep into the game in recent years. I played all of the original Warcraft games back in the day as well, especially Warcraft 2. I also enjoy films such as The Lord of the Rings, which kind of felt like the same idea, a large sweeping epic.

Ultimately, I ended up really let down by this movie. I’m not sure that it’s really a bad movie, it’s just not particularly amazing, despite the pretty impressive visuals. The entire film, something just felt really off. I worry a bit that my experience with the video game series was part of the reason for the sense of distraction I felt throughout the movie. Warcraft isn’t a straight retelling of the Warcraft story, it’s simply, heavily influence by the lore.

It’s also important to know that the movie Warcraft is intended to be based more on the video game Warcraft, that old RTS game, and not World of Warcraft or the books. This feels like it shouldn’t be notable, but it is, because World of Warcraft has expanded and mildly retconned things to make them work for it’s story. It’s also worth pointing out because the original Warcraft didn’t exactly have an amazing, deep story. Orcs come through the Dark Portal, Orca and Humans battle it out in a series of medieval battles.

All of the proper players are present on both sides, Gul’dan, Doomhammer, Blackhand, King Wrynn, Lothar, Medivh, Khadgar are all characters who would have had some hand in the events of this time period of the Lore. The movie shows the Orcs baely leaving the area around the Dark Portal, though the game was a large war across several regions and Stormwind was eventually raided by Orcs. I mostly wanted to mention this because the movie presents a really odd mix of set up for sequels while not quite explaining things that really could be important later in sequels.

The main set up element is Durotan’s Orc baby, who makes several appearances in the film though doesn’t do much, since he is a baby. This baby orc, in the Lore will grow up to be Thrall, aka Green Jesus, who is the first leader and founder of the modern Horde. The real missed opportunities though come from what feels like the complete omission of anything before the orcs enter the portal at the start of the movie.

I really feel like even a narrated montage of events leading up to why the Orcs are entering the portal would have really helped. There isn’t any mention of Sargeras or the Burning Legion that I recall, though Fel Energy is a large part of the plot. There also isn’t any mention of Grom Hellscream. Grom isn’t part of the “First War” featured in this film, but he was the first Orc to be corrupted by the Blood of Mannoroth which lead to the downfall and corruption of the Orcs. He later becomes friends with Thrall and in general is a very pivotal character in many later plot elements. He is also the father of Garrosh Hellscream, though it would take a dozen movies to get to the events that make Garrosh Hellscream important. Maybe the plan is to tell his story with flashbacks in a later film.

Like I said, the little things like this kept coming up as distractions, which may have tainted my enjoyment of the film, though there’s definitely more to it. It’s easy to compare this movie to The Lord of the Rings, both are grand tales of high fantasy with a large following of fans. Visually the effects, especially the orcs look great, but there’s also this odd factor where everything just feels extremely clean, TOO clean. You never really get the feel for the grittiness of the war, it just feels, much like the original game, like an excuse to have some Orcs and Humans fight each other.

The other major problem is the schizoid all over the place plot. This is also part of where a bit more fleshing out of the back story would have really helped a lot. Giving us some better glimpses as to the corruption that seduced Gul’Dan and Medivh would have gone a long way to show the motivation behind these two. A montage sequence at the opening of the power of Sargeras (effectively, the devil), and the Burning Legion, and their quest for power and how it led to the fall of the once peaceful and noble Orcs would have done a lot to make characters like Durotan and Garona, who question the actions of their people, more sympathetic. Instead the movie just opens on a giant portal and Gul’dan sucking the life from a bunch of blue people to power said portal. No real premise provided.

Ultimately, while I did find this film disappointing, I accept that the early Lore of the Warcraft universe is in fact, kind of bland. There’s set up in this movie to eventually to run through Thrall’s story, which could easily have interweaving bits setting up the story of Arthas. Both of these events are really good plot lines and would make incredible movies. I just hope that the poor performance of this film doesn’t hurt the chances for sequels, because I’d love to see Thrall’s time as a gladiator and his eventual creation of the Horde on the big screen. I’d definitely love to see the fall of Arthas as well, as his story is such a tragic tale that would work well as a movie. While Warcraft kind of falls flat as a film, I’m holding out hope that things can get better in some sequels. It’s just so bad this weak initial story pretty much has to be told first, since it’s the foundation of everything else

Review – Movie – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Apr 14th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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So, the first Michael Bay Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movie kind of got a lot of flack. To be fair, though, it’s not actually directed by Michael Bay, it’s just produced, so it’s not as awful of a live action remake as The Transformers movies are, it was however quite a departure from what people think of when they think Ninja Turtles.

The second film in this series is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, and it seems to be the answer to what a lot of people wanted and expected from the first movie. Where TMNT is an updated modern take on the basic Turtles vs The Foot idea, Out of the Shadows is a very blatant tribute and Nostalgia fest for the original 80s TMNT cartoon show. It actually kind of feels a little sad with just how blatant of a tribute it is.

Rocksteady and Bebop? Check!

The Turtle Van? Check!

Krang? Check!

Baxter Stockman? Check!

The Technodrom? Check!

Also, unlike a lot of remakes and updates, things stay fairly true to the original, or at least, much more aligned with the spirit of the original. Rocksteady and Bebop for example, are pretty unmistakable. Krang is a little weird but still very much is obviously Krang with his goofy robot body. Baxter Stockman follows the original comic and modern show versions of being African American instead of a goofy white guy with orange hair, but he’s still a goofy scientist.

This movie very much feels like a response to the “This isn’t the Turtles I remember” complaints of the first TMNT film.

Honestly, I kind of feels like it makes the film better. I didn’t hate the original TMNT, but the nostalgia level of Out of the Shadows definitely does it’s job.

The biggest fault of this film is the some what flimsy plot. It’s not awful, but there’s quite a few “what” moments, one of them is a pretty crucial hinge to everything. Early on in the film, The Shredder is rescued by The Foot, amidst the rescue, he is suddenly kidnapped by Krang, who wants to recruit The Shredder to gather several McGuffin devices in order to open a portal from Dimension X so Krang can take over The Earth. Very Classic 80s Cartoon to be sure. It’s just very, sudden, however with zero build up. It’s just suddenly “Hey, giant brain man, let’s work together”. It kind of feels like it could have been massaged a little bit on the flow.

There’s also a subplot involving Casey Jones tracking down Rocksteady and Bebop which feels pretty superfluous to the everything. It seems to exist entirely so create an excuse to throw Casey Jones into the movie. He basically fills the role of Vernon from the first TMNT, someone for April O’Neal to pal around with when she isn’t hanging out with the turtles.

There’s also an ooze subplot that goes nowhere after Rocksteady and Bebop become a thing. That is, it’s there to mutate Rocksteady and Bebop, which is fine, but then it lingers around a bit until the end where a choice is made, one that never really felt like it had any appropriate build up to actually give it any meaningful impact.

The real bottom line is that the plot, or plots aren’t awful ideas, it’s more that there’s just too much crammed into one film, and as a result, nothing gets fleshed out to any meaningful level. Maybe I’m looking for too much from a movie about giant martial artist turtles, but I can’t help but think that maybe, splitting things out a across a couple of films would have helped solidify everything a bit better, giving us something much better than what we got. Maybe run with Shredder being rescued and meeting with a shadowy unknown, creating Bebop and Rocksteady and introducing Casey Jones as more of an antagonist and foil, then keeping Krang and the idea of being forced to live “In the Shadows” as a plot for a third connected film.

Review – Movie – Logan (2017)

Mar 17th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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The latest and supposedly last outing for Wolverine, or at least, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Logan is one of the better comic book movies we’ve had for sure, though not totally flawless. Most of my complaints with this movie however stem more from how sloppy Fox has been with the X-men universe continuity, and not so much with the film itself. Much like the previous Wolverine movie, The Wolverine, this film pretty much exists in a vacuum from the other movies in the series. There’s a vague underlying theme about how awful Logan’s existence is because, while he never dies, everything he cares about eventually does. There’s also a brief mention of “The Statue of Liberty” which is a throwback to the original X-men when Hugh Jackman took up the role, but it felt more like an Easter egg than a plot point.

It also brings up the question of “Where does this fall in continuity”. Is it the old time line or the new timeline? If he mentioned the Statue of Liberty from the first X-men, that would imply this is old timeline, except there are a few little nods to the new timeline, like the return of the mutant Caliban seen briefly in X-men Apocalypse. Or the point about how there haven’t been any new mutants in something like 25 years, which seems contradictory to X-men 3, which showed us some future where there were clearly some young mutants in the school.

Nitpicky continuity stuff aside, the movie starts off a little rough but ends up on a pretty good note overall. It’s also worth noting that this movie, like Deadpool, is definitely rated R. Where Deadpool was more R rated for it’s crude sexual jokes, Wolverine gets it’s rating for language, a lot of gory violence, and one moment of very, very brief, non sexual nudity. I only bring this up really because it’s worth noting in case anyone wants to take their 9 year old to the film and because it kind of felt a little unnecessary. I hate to sound like some sort of grump over language, but given the history of the X-men franchise and the character, adding in a bunch of “fucks” almost makes some of the characters seem out of character and all of the extra goriness on the claw slashing didn’t really add a lot to the plot.

It all also felt a bit out of place as the movie progressed and more and more of Laura and her backstory, the young girl tagging along with Wolverine, became the focus of the film. It’s like hey, here’s a bunch of kids going completely psycho in the movie violent way possible because “Edgy cool”.

The whole film also does a pretty effective job of being a bit of an emotional roller coaster, as everyone around poor Logan seems to get harmed or killed by the people following them. Not to mention Logan himself, who is not anywhere near peak form as the poisoning in his body from his Adamantium skeleton is finally getting the best of him. He’s feeling a lot of pain, his claws don’t always work, and he isn’t quite healing as well as he used to. It certainly helps give some urgency to the character. The regular X-men movies usually managed to write off Wolverine when Magneto was around, since Wolverine can’t do anything to Magneto, The Wolverine had Logan under the influence of some poison that suppressed his abilities, I guess something needs to be done to make a guy who can’t be harmed interesting (see also The Hulk).

The core of the movie is about the interaction between Logan, Laura and Xavier as they run from a band of pretty bland bad guys. They are involved in Laura’s past, but they are essentially just an extension, spin off or figure version of Alkali and Stryker’s band, that same old repeating thread. There is also Weapon 24, who is the main baddie for Wolverine to battle. It’s not super clear what makes this guy so special other than “He’s like Wolverine only extra feral” and ultimately is pretty much a throw away nobody who only exists as someone who can stand toe to toe with Wolverine and not get killed in 1 claw swipe.

Laura manages to be an interesting character, despite being mute for much of the film. The aged Charles Xavier is also incredibly likable in this movie, though his purpose and point isn’t super clear to the big picture. He’s basically become a super powered senile old mutant, he has some mysterious vaguely explained crisis from the past, and serves as a father figure to Logan who in turn serves as a father figure to Laura, which makes a fun dynamic, but also felt like there were some pieces missing to help explain, at the very least, why Logan hadn’t just put him out of his misery already. I mean I get that they are old friends, but he really feels like he is suffering with no possible recovery, if Logan really cared he could have saved both of them a lot of trouble a long time ago by giving him a quiet quick send off. I know that sounds cruel but in the context of the film world presented, it honestly isn’t.

But alas, now I’m getting off on a tangent, and running a bit long. Logan really is a good film, it’s definitely the best of the Wolverine trilogy, though I’m not sure that it’s quite the best X-men film. It’s also a nice send off to Wolverine while also serving as an origin story for X-23, Wolverine’s replacement.

Review – Movie – The Wolverine

Feb 24th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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I’m feeling a little lost on the logic behind the X-Men movies, just a bit. I mean there’s the original X-men trilogy, then there’s the new timeline X-men, then there’s these Wolverine movies sprinkled in. The Wolverine definitely takes place after X-men 3, since there’s these little flashes of Famke Janssen as Jean Grey and references to X-men 3. What it doesn’t really reference at all is Origins: Wolverine, which is sort of the actual predecessor film. Actually aside from the few almost unneeded references to X3, The Wolverine feels really isolated from the rest of the X-men universe. The setting, all of the other mutants, the villain, it all feels like it exists in a vacuum.

This kind of hurts this movie quite a bit. It’s an interesting setting and story, but there’s this little back of the mind nag that says “Where is everyone else?” There’s no Sabertooth, though technically he died in X1, something that could have been explained away. I mention Sabertooth because he would have been the obvious thread to tie this film a bit to Origins: Wolverine, since he was such a centerpiece of that movie’s plot and character development. Still, there’s also not really any mention of Xavier’s school, or Storm or Rogue or anyone Wolverine has been fighting with for years. Instead we get a little opening bit involving Wolverine getting pissy at some hunters for poisoning a bear. This all felt like a wasted chance to tie this into the bigger picture better. It would have been expensive to drop cameos from everyone in the X-men universe but dropping in a couple of the lesser know (cheaper) actors for a bit at the beginning at the school then having Yukio pick him up from there would have worked much better.

Instead we get hunters and a story in a vacuum despite having all these little bits happening around it.

Aside from that issue, what about the film itself. There’s definitely a different tone to these single character movies than the larger X-men films, The focus is Wolverine, all the way, he’s always present and the whole plot revolves around his burdens and life and what makes him tick. Most of the film takes place in Japan, as Logan is invited by an old friend who is on his death bed, wishing to thank Logan for saving his life many years ago during WW2. There’s a lot of fish out of water element to this story, as the rough and tumble Wolverine navigates through the orderly Japanese landscape.

There’s a lager plot at work however, and Wolverine gets a bit of a taste for life without his healing ability, which makes things complicated during his battles. The fight sequences are probably the best part of this film, and they are numerous. There’s definitely a very Asian cinema style creeping into things here, and not just because of the setting. The camera work and choreography of the fights are all much more stylistic in nature. Wolverine’s feral fighting style definitely shows it’s difference from the much more fluid martial arts methods employed by his opponents. It’s a nice chance of pace in these films really and is handles pretty nicely given the different fighting techniques.

Really the entire movie kind of feels like an excuse to get Wolverine to fight Ninjas.

There’s also the romance sub plot. It seems a bit relevant to mention the plotline of this movie is lifted a bit from a comic plot line, though it involved a few more other X-men, a lot of the surrounding characters are there. Mariko in the comics is one of Wolverine’s sometimes love interests. In fact the comic some of the events of this film are inspired from draw involved the X-men gathering for a wedding between the two. In this movie however, their romance feels, and is, really rushed, especially considering the climax amounts to Wolverine staging a rescue of his captured love. Considering he didn’t even want to come to Japan originally and only planned to stay for a day originally, it seems a little out there that he essentially is willing to run somewhat recklessly into this rescue attempt.

This is compounded more by the really pointless Jean Grey scenes spliced in randomly.

Which also brings up another dodgy bit on the plot side, it’s never really shown well what connects Logan and Yashida Wolverine is just sort of in Japan during Hiroshima, for unclear reasons, saves this one random Japanese soldier from a nuclear blast, for which he is clearly grateful, and then as near as the story tells us, they have not seen each other since. Its understandable Yashida would want to thank Logan one last time before his death, it’s not super clear why Logan should or would care. Not to mention that part of Logan’s character is that he can’t really remember anything from his past, which presumably would include that time he saved some random Japanese guy. I mean he didn’t seem to remember his actual blood brother during the first X-men movie, one whom he fought along side during WW2 if the Origins opening is to be believed, but hey, random Japanese business guy.

So yeah, there’s a lot of off points on the plot, and the film feels like it is completely disconnected from the X-men universe, aside from the one thread that feels like a random after thought. I will give it a good point though, the effects are much better than Origins: Wolverine. The action is also really great with a good Asian style going on with things. One thing I will also add, there could be some redemption with the upcoming Logan film, if it bothers to reference anything in this film. Part of the plot involved taking Logan’s power away and transferring it to another, now we get Logan, with Old Wolverine, maybe he has aged as a side effect of what happened during this film? I’m not sure if they are organized enough on these movies to make the pieces feel like part of the same puzzle unfortunately.