DVD Review: Twilight

Directed By Catherine Hardwicke
Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg
Based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer


Summary
Like most tales based in small towns, the story of Twilight shows its viewers that big things CAN happen in small places. The story is about a girl named Bella Swan who moves away from her hot, southern home in Phoenix Arizona, to the small, yet colorful town of Forks Washington. Here, she begins her new life with her father and starting at a new school. And at this new institution of learning, Bella goes into her daily routines believing it would be just like every other school in the world. But as I’m sure all of you reading this can already deduce, that is far from the case.

Bella is introduced to a strange, pale boy named Edward Cullen who is more than meets the eye. As strange events unfold, Edward’s deep, dark secret is finally revealed to Bella…that Edward is part a mythological race of creatures’ known as vampires.

Now at this pivotal turning point in her life, Bella begins her life in love with a creature of the night who reciprocates her feelings. But not all is well! More of the bloodthirsty demons have risen from the shadows determined to “take a bite” out of sweet and innocent Bella. And Edward is faced with a terrible decision that may tear the fabric of his life to shreds.

My Thoughts
I swore to myself and to my fellow “Twilight Haters” that I would never in a million years pick up the teen-romance novel, and I haven’t. Never the less, I felt I obligated to at least see the film since it was bolstered up as this amazing cinematic masterpiece. I was scared to do so however seeing as how I, a male who grew up with a mother whose her own walking Vampire dictionary, did not see this film ever meeting the standards necessary to qualify as a GOOD vampire/gothic film. And thus follows the good and the bad….

What’s Good?
I’ll give it to you, the film is pretty. Very pretty in fact! The mountainous areas were almost perfect and reminded me of the hills contained in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Beauty flew throughout the entire two hours of watching it; even the emo-looking vampires had a “pretty” feel about them. I felt very comfortable in the mere fact that no matter what I was looking at, I would be looking at something gorgeous.

And from what I know of the book, (which is very little thank goodness) casting seemed to be spot on. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had an incredible, yet twisted, amount of chemistry building up as Bella and Edward. And the other characters that appeared in the story certainly live up to their roles and executes them with pride.

And of course, lastly the musical score is nothing to glance over. The music gave the film the type of emotion I’m sure the filmmakers were going for. I do remember thinking to myself “wow, the music is actually quite good.”

What’s Bad?
For you Twilight fans out there, I’m sorry to say that this film has numerous flaws in it, which caused me to yawn and become fidgety with boredom. Let me begin with what annoyed me the most, the script!

Now I’m not saying the script was poorly written, nor am I saying that the writing in the book is bad either. I’m sure this movie would do quite well in a theater for the deaf! Or at least, I wish while watching the film I WAS deaf! I think laws should be made that prohibit awfully written dialogue and poorly managed storylines. Not only was the dialogue poorly written, it was also awkward! I don’t know if I have ever known any vampires in the history of gothic literature to speak to humans in the manner that Edward was towards Bella. I felt like eating cheese during the movie.

Now secondly, the plot was amazingly predictable. There wasn’t one event that happened that I didn’t see coming from miles away. The film is so formulaic, I wondered if I was watching “She’s All That” or “Blue Crush” by mistake. Stephanie Meyer certainly has a knack for writing unoriginal storylines.

However, my biggest problem with the film was the racist undertones, pitting the whites against the reds. Of course sometimes I feel that I’m the only one out there who sees the racist connection of making the Indians the Werewolves, and how the white man (vampires) have hunted the Lycan race for centuries. Interesting that parents are so adamant about allowing our children to read these books, yet many of those parents are the same ones who are totally against Saturday morning cartoons that contain have mild violence.

And lastly, my own personal bias must have room in this rant. Having grown up with a lot of exposure to vampire literature and media, Twilight truly pisses me off. Not because of the glitteryness of Vampires, or of the other “changed” vampire traits, Vampires change all the time depending on whose writing it. No, what makes me angry is the lack of erotica within this story. Yeah sure, you get the “teen lust” aspect, but that’s far from blood lusting over a female or a male. Where is the arousal from sucking one’s blood? And where’s the blood for goodness sakes? And how in the world can Meyer get away with making this story end happily? Vampire literature is one of the more unique forms of literature in the world with it’s erotic and twisted sense of life. To give the two main characters a happy ending defies all the rules that make gothic literature GOTHIC!

Conclusion
This film was nothing more than a teen romance story trying to be innovative and creative, yet it comes off as being a predictable and a glamorous piece of junk that I hope cannot stand the test of time and dwindles away into the black pit of nothingness and forgetfulness. Allow the brilliant, more intelligent writers to come forth and give people stories that will not bore or cause you to sleep. Keep authors like Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, J.K. Rowling, Gregory McGuire, and many others around to stomp out the junk that is being put out by authors like Stephanie Meyer. And hopefully one day, people will finally realize what good literature is, and be able to reflect that in what they read, write and tell their children.

1 out of 5 stars

DVD Review: Superman/Batman Public Enemies

Plot: Lex Luthor, now the president of the United States, has been working to bring all super humans under his leadership to help control vigilantism and have them working towards a “greater” cause.  However, Luthor has a hidden agenda in mind, which of course involves Superman.

Angered by Superman’s refusal to join him, Luthor frames Superman as a murderer and places a bounty on Superman’s head.  This brings a plethora of popular villains to claim the bounty.  With the help of Batman, Superman goes on a quest to help clear his name and to once again, bring Luthor to justice. 

My Thoughts:  If you are hoping for a great plot-driven story in this newly released animated feature from DC Comics, you will be very disappointed.  From the moment you hit “play” until the very end, this movie is practically nothing but one big fist slamming, action-packed brawl that lacks that literary substance I was hoping for.

Most of what you will see is a very well animated cartoon that resembles very much the artistic style of Jeph Loeb’s story which is where this animated feature got it’s inspiration.  We see Superman with an incredible physic, bulging biceps, rippling pectorals, and chiseled abs…but with an incredibly young looking face.  In fact, if you were to analyze every character in this movie, you might come to the conclusion that every male have exaggerated physical features, and a baby face for a head.  These super heroes are over exaggerated in their physical demeanor so much, that at times they look overweight.  Yes, Superman looks fat!

This DVD reminded me of the Superman/Doomsday DVD, where the story felt rushed and not planed out very well.  I think it was mostly an excuse to bring in characters like Captain Atom, Solomon Grundy, Mongul, Starfire and Power Girl.  There was truly nothing captivating about this animated film concerning the script.  Power Girl, like always, had enormous boobs and great legs, but she did not feel as confident as she has always felt to me in the comics.  Starfire was a complete waste of time since she had no lines and no real role in the story except to show off her skimpy costume, and Mongul gets taken down like he was a paper doll.

Now it was really nice have the voices of Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Tim Daly (Superman) make return for this film.  In fact, I would say casting for this film was spectacular.  Clancy Brown without a doubt IS Lex Luthor in voice.

As bad and poorly written as this film is, I have to say that I was entertained the whole way through.  Yes, the movie really does suck overall, but it was fun to watch all of my favorite villains and heroes make some cameo appearances.  And the fight scenes were animated very well.

Overall: a pretty bad film, but still entertaining.  It’s disappointing, yet satisfying at the same time.  There are moments of brilliance, but I would say it isn’t worth the money to purchase and own.  But this is definitely worth getting at your rental store and/or through Netflix.

1.5 out of 5 stars

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter

This film really did not meet my expectations. I rented through netflix thinking this short animated film would be very well done and innovative. I had heard some really good comments about TOTBF and was very interested in seeing what everyone liked about it.

Tales of the Black Freighter come from the pages of Watchmen. It is a pirate comic, about a man who is washed up on a desert Island after being attacked by pirates aboard the Black Freighter. All the men on his ship died and the bodies all washed up on land along with him. Convinced that the black Freighter was on it's way to his homeland to kill everyone he loves, he becomes determined to get off the island to warn his people. Discovering he has no means of sailing, he creates a raft built out of nothing but the bodies of his dead comrades. The bodies had become filled with gas so they became natural flotation devises. While at sea he meets many disasters and succumbs to drinking sea water and eating live seagulls in order to survive. While at sea, floating on a raft of corpses, he becomes slightly insane due to being alone and his obsession to getting home in time. The result of this most horrifying event is bloodshed and a twist that will cause you to be disgusted at the how disturbing and gross this story is. (but you'll have to watch it to fins out the ending.)

There really are some things that need to be left off screen and kept in the pages of books. I am really glad that the pirate comic part of Watchmen was left out of the film because I'm not sure hot well it translates to the big screen.

I absolutely love the pirate comic part of the Watchmen Graphic novel. It's exceptionally well written and one of Alan Moore's most poetic pieces of writing. After seeing TOTBF as an animated short film, I can understand Alan Moore's frustrations with making Watchmen into a movie. There are parts of it that are not meant to be WATCHED.

Even with the fact that this film is only a half and hour long, I would only recommend this to people who have an interest in seeing how the pirate comic plays out in animated form. And I would only recommend it to people who do not have weak constitutions. It is the bloodiest, grossest, and most disturbing animated short film I have ever seen. The animators do not hold back at making this film EXACTLY what Alan Moore intended it to be. You can tell this before popping the DVD in the player, seeing as how on the back of the DVD box you will find an "R" rating. It is a constant wave of bodies being ripped in half by sharks, heads being broken off due to decaying, blood splattering this way and that, eye balls being plucked out by seagulls, and blood being spilled due to insanity. And even though the script is without a doubt one of the more poetic I've read in the graphic novel genre, This is not a film for people who can't handle violence at it's worst.

Now if you are interested in seeing parts the film Watchmen that were cut out, there is a really interesting special feature...an interview with Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl. The graphic novels has many excerpts of Hollis Masons autobiography "Under the Hood" which is about his life as a super hero, why he did it, and what it was like for him. In this mock interview, they take what was in the autobiography and actually turn it into a live interview from a TV news show. It was quite interesting and neat to see how this was done. However, it was all cut out of the Watchmen film due to time constraints.

Animated Wonder Woman DVD

In a nutshell....A war is raging between the Amazons and the war god, Ares, and Zeus charges them to hold him prisoner as eternally young warriors on the hidden island of Themyscira. Centuries later, US Air Force pilot Steve Trevor is lured to crash land on the island and the distraction of that trespass allows Ares to escape. The Amazons decide to hold a contest to choose an amazonian chapion to travel to the world of man and become a protector there. Diana (or Wonder Woman), queen Hypoltyas daughter wish to compete for this chance, but her mother wouldn't allow it. In response, Princess Diana disguises herself as an amazonian sodier and wins the responsibility to both take Trevor home and recapture the fugitive god, and is given the honor of holding the title of Wonder Woman. Steve Trevor offers to help and together this disparate pair must not only overcome Ares' efforts to achieve a bloody revenge, but also reconcile their own conflicting world views in an adventure that would be the first for the greatest of the female superheroes.

In my opinion, this animated film released by Dc Warner Bros. is by far the best animated film to date. DC is definatly getting more and more violent with thier animated films as time goes on. The war at the beginning of the film is quite brutal, even for animation. There are also a few sexually related comments made concerning Wonder Womans breasts (of course). I can understand the PG-13 rating. now as adults, the violence is not mind blowing. Especially when the punches and kicks landed have an earth shattering echo throughout the valley's. (we are going for effect of course.) but the representation of violence to the degree it's held in Wonder Woman can is still worthy of the PG-13 rating.

The story adaption is ok, but not incredible. The story in an of itself is a fun and epicd origin story, but this particular adaptation of it I felt was a little below what it could have been. That's probably due to the fact that it's an animated film and meant to attracted to younger adults however. If they were to do the film in a very tragic and dark way...the way I prefer my super hero films...The younger generation might not be as eagar to watch it.

The animation in and of itself is really quite good. It's no pixar, but for a DVD release only film, it's quite detailed. There are times during the dialoge scenes where you'll feel liek your just watching a saturday morning cartoon, but the action sequences are very remarkable, which is what appealed to me the most about this film.

Now, as im sure all of your know, Wonder Woman is my girl...or woman I should say. What I like about her is the fact that she doesn't behaive like a teeanged girl. Supergirl, Vixen, Wondergirl, etc etc etc, they all act as if the world around them is collapsing and they have no idea how to handle it. Apart from Powergirl and Black Canary, Wonder Woman is the only superheroine that doesn't buckle under the pressure and behaives like your streotypical "weak" woman. However, in this animated film, Wonder Woman has a semblance of a little girl attitude. She never acts like she doesn't know what she's doing and has all the confidence in the world. But there are alot of times where she behaives like an annoying teenaged girl. However it was so bad that I couldn't enjoy the film.

Overall, the film was enjoyable and entertaining, especially for an animated film. A few gripes here and there but nothing major. I give it a strong 3.5 stars. Now, keep this in mind, if I were to watch this with my my non comic book friends, most of them would find it fun but not really that great of a film. But with my comic book friends, they would all most likely it find entertaining and one of the best animated super hero films to date. If you have netflix, go ahead and put it on your queue, or go rent it.

Here is the video trailor...

Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic

Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic is a 2008 American animated short film series of motion comics for television based on the graphic novel Watchmen. The series is written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, creator and illustrator of the original graphic novel published by DC Comics. The series consists of twelve abridged 25-30 minute segments based on the chapters of the book. Both male and female characters are voiced by actor Tom Stechschulte and is directed by Jake Strider Hughes.

I first began watching this series as it was first being publicized on ITunes. I watched up until the 5th episode and discovered that the entire Motion comic would be released on DVD within a month of the of the series being completed. When I found that out, I decided to wait and just purchase the DVD.

It's quite interesting, it's takes each and every frame of the graphic novel, and through the vast usefulness of technology, and makes each character move around. The time and effort it took to create something like this was without a doubt nothing to be looked down upon. Every aspect detail of each frame was made to be animated. you can see Water droplets fall from the roof, eyeballs look around, steam coming from coffee pots, blood spilling and flowing on the sidewalk, etc etc. Not only that, but I believe music was composed specifically for this. It's definatly worthy of being dubbed one of the most innovative animated achievements in cartoon history.

That being said, I do have a few gripes. Having one person do all of the voices makes for a very interestingly awkward movie watching experience. Especially when it's a male doing the voices of all the females characters. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the actor doing all of these voices is bad by any means, in fact he's quite talented. But their have only been a handful of actors who have been able to do the voices of multiple characters and do it incredibly well, most notably Jim Carrey and Mel Blanc. (Looney Tunes.)

Another gripe of mine is it tends to drag. Each episode (chapter) has moments where the excitment is very lacking and dull. however, I think what the appeal to this series is the motion comic aspect, so I don't get terribly annoyed with the slow moving action going on.

The motion comic is a lot of fun and worth purchasing as well. Any Watchmen fan will enjoy this animated achievement. You can buy the complete DVD of all 12 episodes or you can go onto ITunes and purchase individual episodes. But if you are curious but don't want to purchase it before you see what it will be like, try watching the video on youtube, Click here --> Chapter 2 excerpt

I'm also quite excited to see the latest Watchmen DVD cartoon created by some of the best Japanese animators, Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter. Ill be getting it via Netflix here very soon! You'll definatly be hearing from me about this one