Having now covered ten films, I decided
that this would be a good time rank the films in order, with a little quote
from the review to summarise. Think of this as a quick recap.
10. Blade Trinity
“Blade Trinity is a metaphorical wooden
stake through the heart of what used to be an entertaining little series.”
Yay or Nay? Nay!
9. Hulk
“At times, it almost feels like Hulk is
ashamed to be based on a comic about a big green rage monster.”
Yay or Nay? Nay!
8. Daredevil
“Ultimately, Daredevil is a
disappointing film that is made more watchable whenever the focus of a
particular scene is Kingpin or Bullseye.”
Yay or Nay? Nay, unless you can get hold
of the Director’s Cut. In that case, yay.
7. The Punisher
“This film does a better job of sticking
to the darker tone than Daredevil did, due to the toning down of the sillier
elements, and reining in suspension of disbelief.”
Yay or Nay? Nay if you dislike action
films, otherwise yay.
6. Spider-Man
“The film doesn’t hold up quite as well
as it used to, because the story beats have become so familiar from so many
other films taking notes. That doesn’t mean the film is bad though. It’s still
worth watching.”
Yay or Nay? Yay!
5. Blade
“Blade is a highly stylish, though
occasionally dated, action film that doesn’t let a lack of substance get in the
way of being a fun time to watch.”
Yay or Nay? Yay!
4. X-Men
“While there are no shortage of cool
effects and fight scenes, the secret to X Men’s success is the cast of
characters. They’re easy to like, even the villains, and they show us that
there is more to them than just their powers.”
Yay or Nay? Yay!
3. Blade II
“Blade II is better than the original.
It’s faster paced in both action and storyline, the fight scenes are more
exciting to watch and the villains pose more of a threat this time. This one is
recommended for those with a strong stomach.”
Yay or Nay? Yay!
2. X-Men 2
“X-Men 2 manages to improve on the first
film by exploring issues of tolerance and peace in greater depth, as well as
improving on the already good action scenes from the first film.”
Yay or Nay? Yay!
Number 1. Spider-Man 2
“Spider-Man 2 is like Spider-Man 1, but
bigger and better. The stakes are higher, the conflict is more personal for
both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and the villain is stronger. This improves on
the original in every way.”
Yay or Nay? Yay!
I will be doing another list like this
after 20 films. Will Spider-Man 2 still be on top then? Where will the
newcomers fit on the list? We’ll find out when the time comes.
To answer the question posed at the end
of the last entry, no. The Daywalker cannot go 3 for 3, as Blade Trinity is a
disappointing step down from the first two films.
This time around, a group of vampires
led by the dastardly Danica Talos have revived Dracula, who celebrates by
making the screen flicker and giving the viewer a seizure. Dracula’s true form
is, to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator, “One ugly motherfucker!” so he
takes a human disguise and changes his name to Drake. Drakeula, if you will.
Blade is doing the same thing he always
does, killing vampires, but Whistler is concerned that Blade is getting
reckless and sloppy. He’s proven right when the FBI trick Blade with a fake
vampire and follow him back to his hideout. Whistler is shot in the chaos, and
he decides they’ll never take him alive, so he presses the self-destruct button
and blows up the hideout. Blade doesn’t take the opportunity to escape and
instead comes quietly. Quick assurance, Whistler died in Blade 1, but came back
in Blade 2. That doesn’t happen this time. He really is dead now. The reason
why will become apparent soon.
The FBI handlers interviewing Blade are
all familiars working for Drakeula and Talos who plan on handing Blade over to
them, but their plans are put on hold when Blade is rescued by Whistler’s
daughter Abigail and her annoying friend Hannibal King. They are members of the
Nightstalkers, a younger and sexier group of vampire hunters here to replace
the distinctly old and unsexy Whistler. Blade is miffed at being shoved out of
the limelight in his own movie, but he reluctantly works with them anyway,
secretly planning to sue their asses later. Vampires and FBI goons give chase,
but the former give up when resident big tough vampire, WWE wrestler Triple H,
re-enacts the scene from Terminator 2 where the T-1000 runs after a speeding
car and gets an arrow to the eye for it (must… resist… Skyrim joke…), while the
FBI give up after Abigail tells them she’s a Katniss cosplayer; an impressive
feat, given the Hunger Games didn’t exist yet when this film came out.
The Nightstalkers announce that they
have created a virus that can kill vampires, but the virus needs Dracula’s
blood for maximum effectiveness. To draw him out, Blade and Abigail go to a
vampire blood farm and turn off the machines keeping the victims asleep. They
don’t stick around to open the bags though, so I don’t really want to imagine
the scene once the hundreds of people wake up to find themselves slowly
suffocating in giant plastic bags. The plan has the desired effect, and for his
move, Drakeula goes to the Nightstalker hideout and kills everyone there except
Hannibal King and a little girl who is kept around for the purposes of being
adorable, who are taken hostage.
Drakeula, Talos and Triple H take turns
beating up Hannibal King in what is the most enjoyable scene in the movie, but
unfortunately all good things must come to an end, as Blade and Abigail arrive
to rescue King, and fight the vampires. Blade fights a horde of mooks before
fighting Drakeula, leaving Abigail to deal with the rest of the nameless horde.
For his part, King gets to fight vampire dogs.
Bender enjoys laughing at mutated dogs
and will continue to do so whenever they appear.
He then gets to fight Triple H and
eventually defeat him, but Talos attacks him while he’s distracted. Abigail and
Blade work together to inject Drakeula with the virus, which goes on to kill
every vampire in the world, saving King’s bacon since Talos succumbs to the
virus before she can finish him off. Drakeula takes his defeat surprisingly
well, and disguises himself as Blade to get the FBI off his back. Of course, he
then drops the disguise upon reaching the autopsy table, which makes the
disguise rather pointless and implies Drakeula is not actually a vampire, but a
troll.
The key problem with this film is that
most of the characters are weak. Talos is a terrible villain. The only thing
she does after reviving Drakeula is get angry and shout a bit after being
thwarted. While doing this, she doesn’t come off as intimidating or frightening
the way some people can when they lose their temper, she comes across as a
three year old throwing a temper tantrum because they’re not allowed ice cream.
Sidelining her in favour of Drakeula is a sensible decision, but he isn’t that
much better himself. Dracula is a blatantly obvious opponent for a vampire
hunter to fight, and this portrayal isn’t unique or interesting enough to make
up for that. He comes off as a repeat of Deacon Frost from the first film, with
elements of Novak from the second film, but lesser than both of them.
The protagonists are just as bad. Blade
sleepwalks through the film. The unprofessional on-set antics of Wesley Snipes
during the film’s production (which are well documented elsewhere, so I won’t
go into that in depth) suggest he didn’t want to be there, and it shows in his quarter-assed
performance. Blade’s reluctance to work with the Nightstalkers is
mean-spirited, even taking Whistler’s recent death into account. At least he
had a good reason to be reluctant to work with the Blood Pack in the second
film. He was smart enough to see that they were going to betray him the first
chance they got. Blade not working with the Nightstalkers comes off as him
being a prick for no reason. Whistler is equally bored for the brief amount of
screen time he has, which causes his death scene to lack emotion, even though
they managed it in the first film well enough. Having this second death be an
explosive set-piece may have also had something to do with that. Hannibal King
is an obnoxious tool and extremely annoying. Scud in the second film was
obnoxious, but at least it was funny then because Whistler disliked him as much
as the audience did. Not so this time. When the character’s most enjoyable
scene involves him being beaten up, you done goofed. Thank goodness for small
mercies then, as Abigail is at least tolerable. She doesn’t steal the show or
particularly stick out, but she is definitely the least worst character here.
The plot could have done with another
draft to streamline things, as several elements are introduced, only to never
come up again or not be used to their full potential. For example, the vampire
virus could possibly kill Blade since he’s half vampire himself, but nothing
happens to him over it. He doesn’t become even slightly ill when it is activated,
and he doesn’t address the possibility of his death when the point is first
brought up. Drakeula is immune to sunlight because of reasons, and Talos wants
his help to make all vampires immune. This never comes up again after the
initial mention. Talos has vampire teeth in her vagina, if a passing mention is
anything to go by. Fortunately, someone out there decided a vagina with teeth
was too good an idea to waste, and made their own film about it.
The psychologist familiar character is
wasted when Drakeula kills him for a disguise. He could have been used to turn
the populace against Blade, as well as keeping them in the dark about the
existence of vampires, which could have helped the vampires feed and advance
their agenda in secret. A possible angle of Drakeula’s disgust at vampire
merchandise, also goes nowhere, which is disappointing as there could be
something to the idea of seeing a traditional vampire’s reaction to something
like Twilight. The scene doesn’t seem to be played for laughs either, like when
Disney’s Hercules did it.
Speaking of laughs, there aren’t any.
Unfortunately, that isn’t for lack of trying, as there are plenty of inane
jokes throughout, many of which are courtesy of Hannibal King. Not only are
these jokes not funny, they are actively unfunny, testing one’s patience with
every punchline. Any humour came from unfortunate
lines in the script having reality subtext applied to them, and are therefore
entirely unintentional. For example, Blade complaining about being replaced by Abigail
becomes funny as Blade was demoted to extra thanks to Wesley Snipes’ behaviour,
with Abigail and King’s roles being increased to compensate. This film isn’t as
gruesome as the first two, but there’s a significant increase in profanity to
make up for that. King and Talos in particular use the word Fuck every other
sentence, which doesn’t make them look any better. The word loses all meaning thanks
to their abuse of it and becomes just another means of annoyance.
Blade Trinity is a metaphorical wooden stake
through the heart of what used to be an entertaining little series, what the
Resident Evil movies could be if they weren’t terrible. The only thing Wesley
Snipes being sent to prison for tax evasion did was make the death official.
Next Time: A Fox executive’s dream comes
true.
Bonus: The ending used in the film was
one of three planned endings. The director’s cut ending had Blade give up fighting
his nature and go full vampire, while Drakeula escaped. The novelization ending had Blade start
fighting werewolves since there no vampires left. This ending was scrapped from
the film because the filmmakers feared that audiences would see it as a ripoff
of rival movie franchise, Underworld, which has vampires dressed in black
leather fighting werewolves.
Spider-Man was the first of the films I’ve
looked at for this to have been eagerly anticipated prior to release. When the
first film proved to be a success, expectations were even higher for the second
film. In this regard, it’s a good thing that the film turned out so well.
Two years have passed since the events
of the first film, and to put it bluntly, things aren’t going well for Peter
Parker. Being Spider-Man is putting pressure on his relationships with his
friends, his grades are slipping, he’s behind on the rent and Aunt May’s house
is being repossessed by the bank. Harry Osborne hates Spider-Man and blames him
for the death of his father, which strains his relationship with Peter, who
takes pictures of Spider-Man for a living. However, they’re still close enough
pals for Harry to let Peter accompany him to an Oscorp financed experiment
performed by Peter’s hero, Doctor Otto Octavius. Mary Jane on the other hand,
has finally had enough of Peter’s unreliability when he doesn’t come to see her
in a play she’s performing in, and gives up on him, instead dating the
astronaut John Jameson. Peter wanted to go to the play, but stopping on the way
to do Spider-Man things resulted in him arriving late to the theatre, and the
usher not letting him in. That’s right, out of all the crooks, criminals and
supervillains in New York, Spider-Man is defeated by an usher. He should put
that on a business card.
Octavius’ experiment goes disastrously
wrong when the machine he’s working on overloads, and the building in which the
experiment is being performed starts being destroyed, with Octavius’ wife being
killed when the windows break. Spider-Man is able to stop the machine, but
Octavius is electrocuted in the process, bonding the harness of four robotic
arms he was wearing at the time to his spine, and destroying his mind, making
him into the sociopathic Dr Octopus. Doc Ock hides in an abandoned warehouse in
the docks where he resolves to redo his experiment bigger and better.
Unfortunately, making the experiment bigger and better runs the risk of
destroying New York, but who cares? Ock doesn’t, because he’s got a more
immediate concern.
Doc Ock robs a bank to fund his
experiment. Spider-Man challenges him to a money fight, but Ock doesn’t want to
play and leaves with several bags of cash. A disappointed Peter visits the planetarium to take pictures for the Daily Bugle, but it’s a very bad night for him,
as Mary Jane gives him an earful, he is attacked by a drunk Harry and John
announces that he and Mary Jane are getting married. The stress Peter is
feeling from his recent failures causes him to lose his powers, which proves to
be the last straw. He is Spider-Man no more.
Without the pressures of being
Spider-Man, Peter is much happier. His grades improve, he can concentrate on
his work again, and he is able to patch things up with Mary Jane, though she
refuses to dump John and get back together with Peter, since there’s a little
thing called an engagement getting in the way of that. However, Peter doesn’t
feel quite right about not helping people, and eventually he breaks his new
promise to rescue a child from a burning building. With some words of
encouragement from Aunt May, who may or may not know that Peter is Spider-Man,
Peter decides to come out of retirement. Meanwhile, the next thing to tick off
Doc Ock’s shopping list is tritium, which he gets the same way he did last time
– asking Harry Osborne for it. Harry agrees to provide the tritium on the
condition that Ock brings him Spider-Man alive. Ock goes after Peter and
kidnaps Mary Jane, with the determination to rescue her restoring Peter’s
spider powers. The two battle on a train, but the cunning villain plays dirty
by attacking the train’s mechanisms, watching Spider-Man exhaust himself
stopping the runaway train, then coming back to finish him off when he’s in no
shape to fight back.
Doc Ock hands Spider-Man over to Harry
and gets his promised tritium, before leaving to perform his experiment. Harry
decides to unmask Spider-Man before killing him, and is horrified to find that
it’s Peter Parker under the mask. Peter is able to persuade Harry to let him go
by telling Harry that Mary Jane is in danger and that he needs to go to Doc
Ock’s lair to rescue her. After another battle, Peter knocks some sense back
into Doc Ock and convinces him to stop his experiment as it is going haywire
and threatening to destroy New York. Octavius tells Peter that the only way to
stop the experiment at this point is to drag it underwater, and sacrifices
himself in order to do that. Mary Jane ditches poor John at the altar in order
to be with Peter, leaving John to cry himself to sleep and maybe become a
werewolf or something. Meanwhile, Harry finds his father’s stockpile of Green
Goblin weaponry, setting things up nicely for the next film…
A surprising thing about the film is how
funny it is. There is quite a bit of humour, mainly from JJJ, though there are
other funny scenes too, such as Doc Ock ruining a lovely moment where the train
passengers defend Spidey by pushing them aside, and the awkward scene in which
Spider-Man takes the lift.
Then came the fart...
You may recall from the entry for the
first Spider-Man film that I was torn on Green Goblin as an antagonist.
Specifically, I liked the Norman Osborne half, but was less pleased with the
Green Goblin half. Dr Octopus is a big improvement in that regard. By making
him into Peter’s idol, the film gives him a personal connection to Peter like
Norman Osborne had, which is something Octavius did not have when he was first
introduced in the comics. The Dr Octopus half of the character is a physically
imposing foe with a visually appealing design, whose traits pose more of a
threat to Spidey. Thanks to the tentacles, Ock is also better able to keep up
with Spidey than the Green Goblin was, since the tentacles can be used to climb
around, which the Goblin couldn’t do, leaving him depending on his glider to
move around. Having four big metal arms sticking out of your back is also a
valuable asset in battle when aiming to lay the pain on an opponent. His design
for the film is also a better fit than the Green Goblin’s was, with the
tentacles being particularly impressive looking.
Doc Ock in the film...
And the comic appearance for comparison's sake.
The supporting cast is still as good as
ever. Aunt May provides the emotional core of the film in how she copes with
living alone since Uncle Ben died last time, and Peter has since moved out.
Some of her scenes are actually quite upsetting to watch, particularly the one
where she snaps at Peter to accept money from her, even though she needs the
money as badly as Peter does. On a lighter note, J Jonah Jameson gets a lot
more screen time in this film than he did in the first one, and he still steals
every scene he’s in. A scene of him laughing from this film even went viral.
His son John is also the most pleasant romantic rival in any film ever, acting
like a smug prick to Peter a grand total of zero times. In fact, he may have
been a little too nice, because I felt bad for him when Mary Jane left him on
the altar. He didn’t deserve that, poor guy.
The action scenes have also improved
this time, because Doc Ock is almost as agile as Spidey, which allows him to
keep up. The tentacles allow him to climb about the rooftops like Spider-Man,
which opens up the battleground instead of limiting it to somewhere that the
Green Goblin can stand vertically upright. The train sequence in particular
deserves praise, as it is thrilling to watch, thanks to Spider-Man and Doctor
Octopus being able to fight on the roof and along the walls and every which
way.
Spider-Man 2 is like Spider-Man 1, but
bigger and better. The stakes are higher, the conflict is more personal for
both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and the villain is stronger. This improves on
the original in every way.
Next Time: Can the Daywalker go three
for three?
Bonus: Doctor Octopus was originally
intended to appear in the first film alongside the Green Goblin, but it was
decided that he should be held back for the sequel, because having to stuff in
three origin stories would draw attention away from the main conflict. Good
call film. You get the...
Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee appears as a
man who drags someone out of the way of some falling rubble during one of
Spider-Man and Doc Ock’s fights. Originally, he was going to play the man who says "Spider-Man stole that guy's pizza!" The Usher who defeated Spider-Man is played by
frequent Sam Raimi collaborator and B-Movie icon, Bruce Campbell, who also
narrated the tie-in game.
Next up is the Marvel Universe’s
resident gun nut, The Punisher. Given the character's status as an anti-hero, it may not be a surprise to learn that his film is inspired by the likes of Death Wish.
Frank Castle is a police officer who
works undercover at sting operations. Because of his line of work, he and his
family are required to move frequently for their safety, and this time the
family are moving to London, but before then, they’re going to a family reunion
in Puerto Rico. However, this holiday is set to be ruined, not by misplaced
plane tickets or overbooked hotels, but by nasty mob boss Howard Saint. Frank’s
last sting operation ended in a shootout in which the target, Howard’s son
Bobby, was killed, and the grieving parents want revenge, which they get by
crashing the reunion and killing everyone there.
Fortunately, Frank is harder than a
titanium rhinoceros and is able to survive being shot several times, beaten,
then left to die on a pier doused in petrol and set alight. After being nursed
back to health, Frank returns to the house his family was staying in to take a
skull shirt his son had given him as a gift and his father’s antique pistol
collection. The guns are added to Frank’s impressively sized collection at
home, which he kept as souvenirs of his time fighting in the Gulf War. (The
film is set in the present day, so his backstory was updated slightly from the
comics, where he fought in Vietnam instead.) After learning that no one was imprisoned
for the attack on his family, Frank decides to take matters into his own hands,
and do to Howard Saint what Saint did to him.
As the Punisher, Frank sets about
getting a mole among Saint’s ranks, ruins his money laundering operation, which
severs Saint’s ties with the Cuban gangsters whose money he was handling, and
framing Saint’s wife as having an affair with Saint’s best friend, who is a
closet homosexual. When he isn’t working, he’s living in a grotty apartment
drinking and trying to avoid contact with the apartment’s other residents,
troubled waitress Joan, Dave, whose face is full of piercings and Bumpo, an
overweight man who enjoys cooking and listening to classical music. Frank grows
closer to the trio despite himself when they ask for his help throwing out an
abusive ex-boyfriend of Joan’s who threatens her with a knife one night. Upon
learning that Frank Castle is alive, he sends two assassins to kill him. The
first one plays some country music on his guitar before attacking.
Sadly, his guitar case doesn’t have guns
in it.
The second is a mountain of a man, known
as the Russian, who interrupts dinner to hand Frank his ass on a platter. He is
defeated when he tries to strangle Frank too close to the stove, allowing Frank
to grab a saucepan full of boiling water and throw it in his face before
pushing him down the stairs. Howard Saint snaps when Frank finishes his affair
ploy, leading Saint to stab his friend and throw his wife off a bridge into the
path of an oncoming train, with neither of them having any idea what they were
supposed to have done, since Saint was in a murderous rage and refused to
explain anything. Remember kids, poor communication kills. The mob come to the
apartment in search of Frank, but he is hidden by Dave, who refuses to tell the
baddies where he is, despite having his piercings pulled out with pliers.
To finish his revenge, Frank heads to
Saint’s nightclub and kills all the mobsters there, as well as Howard’s other
son, John Saint, who is forced to hold up a mine in his hand without lowering
his arm, otherwise the mine will explode. His arm gets tired fast. Eventually,
only Howard Saint remains. He has lost everything, just as Frank Castle did.
The only thing left to take is his life, and the Punisher takes it in as
show-offy a way as possible. Specifically, he ties Saint to the bumper of his
car by his legs, and sets it to roll into the nightclub car park, where the
cars have been wired to explode in the shape of the Punisher’s skull emblem.
Imagine it combined with the finale of the 1812 Overture. Fun times!
The film is going for a darker tone than
past Marvel films, which is appropriate for the Punisher as an anti-hero who
battles the good guys almost as often as the bad guys at times. However, this
film does a better job of sticking to the darker tone than Daredevil did, due
to the toning down of the sillier elements, and reining in suspension of
disbelief. The only real concession towards comic book excess are the climax,
which is admittedly pretty cool, and the origin story being turned up to 11,
which doesn’t work quite as well. In the comics, only Frank’s wife and son were
killed, due to their being witnesses of a mob hit. Giving the villain a more
active role in the origin works for the film, since the Punisher has few
recurring enemies due to his tendency to kill them, but the killing of everyone
in his family threatens to take the focus away from Frank and put it on the
villains. Fortunately, the film is wise enough to keep the focus on Frank’s
wife and son in this scene, because the audience isn’t going to sympathise that
much more for Frank losing a number of extended family members who don’t appear
outside this scene in addition to close family. Apologies to Great Aunt
Prudence Castle, a haggard old crone of 97, the type who’s lived at least a
decade too long and seems to leave the retirement home only for family
get-togethers where she complains about political correctness while saying
racist things about the black lodger the Parkers next door had for a week in
August 1952.
Another point of note is the Russian,
who is very different personality wise from his portrayal in the comics.
Normally, I would complain about this and ask why didn’t the filmmakers use a
more obscure but better fitting character instead, but this time I’ll make an
exception. In the comics, the Russian is a very silly character, a childish man
who speaks broken English and loves America and capitalism despite supposedly
being a communist. His understanding of communism can be summed up with “Thor
is a communist because he has a big hammer.” In his downtime, he is the head of
the Daredevil fan club, Smolensk branch, and wears women’s clothing. He’s
pretty much Heavy from Team Fortress 2 as a superhero fanboy. That description
should have made it clear that a faithful portrayal of the character wouldn’t
fit the mood of the film at all.
See what I mean?
This is not to say that it’s all doom
and gloom a la Hulk, though. There is the odd bit of humour, but it’s black
humour in keeping with the comics. The best example would be the scene in which
Frank tortures his mole by hanging him upside down from the ceiling, describing
in great detail the sensation of a blowtorch applied to human skin, then using
it to cook a steak while rubbing an ice lolly on the man’s back. “Isn’t science
fun, Micky?”
Thomas Jane puts in a good performance
in the lead role, able to portray both the loving family man and the hardened
vigilante. Despite all the terrible things he does, he never quite falls into
being unlikeable or unsympathetic. Seeing his interactions with his neighbours
helps humanise him, making him more than a man with a gun. Speaking of guns,
the action element is surprisingly downplayed, with action scenes tending to be
quite short for the most part instead of bullets all over the place. The action
scenes are quite satisfying nonetheless. To conclude, your enjoyment of The
Punisher will likely depend on your feelings towards action films. If you enjoy
them, there might be something to your liking here. If not, being adapted from
a comic book character probably won’t be enough to change your mind.
Next Time: Oh my God, it’s Alfred
Molina!
Bonus: A sequel was planned, but after
an extended stay in Development Hell, it became a reboot, Punisher: War Zone
instead. Fortunately, the tie-in game on PS2 and Xbox served as a sequel to
this film. In the game, John Saint was revealed to have survived the mine
explosion, but it destroyed his face, leading him to become Jigsaw and break
into Stark Tower to steal a suit of Iron Man armour. Frank wins and kills him
properly this time, thus answering the question of who would win in a fight
between the Punisher and Iron Man. Other bosses included the Russian, who was
now more in line with the sillier incarnation from the comics, Kingpin,
Bullseye, and Bushwhacker.
