holabendez blog

Aside from Iron Man 2, it would seem that movie studios have eased up quite significantly on their comic book movie titles in 2010, and aside from “Inception” the year has suffered for it in terms of the quality of its “blockbusters”. That looks to be remedied in the next couple of years with the impending releases of “Thor”, “Captain America”, “The Green Lantern” and “The Avengers”. Perhaps the break was a good thing to help people catch their breath.

As an avid comic book super hero fan, I am looking forward to these movies with great anticipation, however, lets face it, these titles are B-grade heroes at best. Sure, Iron Man has shown that if a film is well made it doesn’t matter what the status of the hero was in his comic book form, but I do wonder about the broad appeal of these upcoming titles.

So it was a pleasant surprise for me to see the extended Comic-Con trailer for “Thor” which is due out early next year. This particular property seemed challenging to make in any kind of grounded form – remembering that in conjunction with “The Avengers”, it is supposed to be set in the same world/universe as the “Iron Man” films which are somewhat grounded. This trailer made me feel better about the potential of this movie, but didn’t leave me all that convinced that it would have mass market appeal. What do you think?

See the bootleg trailer on YouTube

I was in two minds coming into the film. On the one hand the trailers make the movie look cheesy, but on the other Stephen Sommers has never let me down. The good news is, Stephen Sommers has not disappointed. Taking what was quite frankly kind of dubious quality source material he managed to turn it into a well paced great fun action movie.

I was never into G.I. Joe as a kid, so I had no specific expectations regarding what needed to be in the film. What really made the movie work was that it had a clear understanding of exactly what it was, and made no pretence about trying to be anything else. Conceptually, G.I. Joe cannot be taken seriously, however the movie is careful not to disintegrate into parody.

In many ways, it was the perfect Hollywood big budget action film. The plot was simple and snappy, moving seamlessly from set piece action scene to set piece action scene, incorporating character development via flashback sequences that take place literally while the characters are travelling between destinations.

I wouldn’t have believed it coming into it, but I think this might be my favourite movie of the year. Four stars.

I may have been in the minority of people that liked the “original” Punisher film of recent times starring Thomas Jane, but I definitely have a bad feeling about the sequel, “Punisher: War Zone”. It just has fail written all over it.

They’ve recast The Punisher himself, with Frank Castle now being played by Ray Stevenson – that’s a warning sign on it’s own when the star leaves the film, and just looking at the trailer I don’t hold much hope. Particularly cringe worthy moments include the line “I’d like to get my hands on God”, and the chandelier shooting scene. I think this will be a bomb.