Thursday, February 25, 2016

The BATMAN V SUPERMAN movie i hope to see


Trailers have showed us quite a bit and many have tried to piece together the story: batman sees the full destructive power of superman, gets obsessed with taking him down, superman fights batman, genetically enhanced clone of zod appears, trinity unites to stop the clone thus starting the justice league. 

It's a pretty standard narrative and if it turns out to be true falls a little within the realm of "disappointing". 

But what if the trailer is a switch-up from what is really going to happen?
something like this:

WE first see the battle of Metropolis from Man of Steel from the point of view of Bruce Wayne. This incident spurs Wayne to once again don his identity of the masked vigilante known as the Batman, cracking down on crime in Gotham city with a vengeance. A scene with a tattered Robin suit shows that batman gave up his crime fighting days after the death of Robin. His controversial act of allowing the perpetrator to get away with just incarceration caused all his former allies to distrust and leave him.


Scenes of Wayne reclaiming the mantle of the Bat are interspersed with Superman first answering to a committee hearing about the battle of metropolis and the lives lost. 
During that hearing, superman pledges to be a force for good and begins carrying out heroic deeds across the world starting with the rescue of a near fatal space rocket accident.

As time goes by, Superman slowly gains the trust and approval of supporters.



At the same time, Batman steps up his battle on crime to the point where Gotham city has come to fear him and his brutal methods. He initiates what history would come to call "The Long Halloween" in which Batman relentlessly hunts down every single one of his rogues gallery, beating them up to near the point of death then throwing them into prison. This begins his "reign of terror"

A year later, Superman is hailed as a hero of Metropolis and a statue is erected in his honour.

By this time, Clark Kent (possibly fuelled by his success as Superman) starts getting a big head and ambitious (taking on the batman as a reporter), desperate to bring justice to a city that is plagued by a vigilante (Gotham). He has his suspicions on a connection between Wayne and the Batman (suspects Wayne is supplying funds and technology to the vigilante). 

At a elite social event, Clark meets Bruce Wayne and he has ideological disputes with Bruce Wayne, setting up the conflict. We are introduced to Lex Luthor, a business competitor to Bruce Wayne. Desperate to topple Wayne as a business competitor, Lex befriends Clark in hopes to ride on some positive journalism. Remember, even with his powers, clark is still a rather naive farm boy at heart and gets suckered by luthors's sweet talk against Bruce Wayne and the batman and feeding Clark's desire to dig out the truth.


The clone of zod appears at this point. Lex's plan was to destroy superman and with Lex at this event, he would have the perfect alibi for innocence. Bruce goes into action as Batman, single handedly taking on the clone with an array of impressive weapons. But he is no match and lures the clone into the open while fighting a retreating battle.


Superman arrives and manages to hold off the clone for a while until Batman returns with more firepower.
Batman rains machine gun fire down on the clone who retaliates with a heat vision blast that crashes the Batplane.
As the clone prepares to finish them off, Wonder Woman appears.


After a prolonged battle and the help of Wonder Woman, superman is forced to use devastating means to take out the creature.

 His brash actions and show of power frightens batman and the world. Wonder Woman leaves and we get a sense that she is planning something after being shocked at the extent of superman's unchecked might.

>Superman turns the corpse of the clone over to to lex Luthor to uncover the origin of the clone, not knowing that it was lex who was the creator.(we see this in flashback either at this point or a later point)

Lois also goes on her own investigation of lexcorp. It is soon revealed that superman has also been confiding in lex.;
Through lex luthors's sweet talk about winning more support from the people, superman is genuinely convinced that batman is crossing the vigilante line and thus sets out to stop him. 

Powerless to stop batman as a reporter, Clark resorts to stopping batman as Superman. Superman finds batman in Gotham where the bat had just finished cracking down on some mob weapons smuggling ring.

Superman warns batman to stop and this just enrages batman who feels his paranoia  had been proven right. He retaliates by threatening Superman with the "do you bleed" quote.


This fuels batman's paranoia that superman may one day become a god-King; the nightmares of a post apocalyptic earth do not help the matter.


The final showdown between batman and superman looms. Batman creates his mechanised batsuit. Lex has caught Lois snooping around and holds her hostage and gloats about how his manipulation had set up the confrontation between batman and superman.

Superman finds out but in an attempt to rescue Lois is threatened by Lex to either go through with taking down batman or Lois dies. With superman at his mercy, lex humiliates the man of steel by asking him to kneel.

The deal is struck: batman dies or Lois does. Unknown to superman, a certain green rock in luthor' room had exposed superman to an unknown type of radiation.

Superman need not hunt Long as the batsignal lights up the night sky. 



The battle between God and man begins with batman in a newly acquired mech suit. 



The battle is one sided initially, it only seems evenly matched because superman makes it clear he is holding back.


Soon the man of steel seems to lose strength when a direct punch is caught by batman.

The dark knight hands superman the beat down of his life at this point.

Luthor lets Lois go but not before threatening to ruin her, her family and everything she holds dear if she ever writes an anti-Luthor article. With no proof of their meeting and no leverage to bargain, Lois is caught in a checkmate; write the truth and be ruined forever or publish Luthor sanctioned lies that glorify lexcorp and her life's status quo remains free of incidents.

We find out that Lex wanted to win either publicity or some weapons contract by creating the clone to destroy superman but he didn't count on batman teaming with superman once the battle starts to involve Gotham. Now that the two are at loggerheads, Luthor still wins.


We cut back to the battle. Batman stands over a defeated and bloodied superman.bbatman reveals he knows superman's alter ego as Clark Kent and refers to him as such.

As he starts on his infamous monologue about wanting Clark to remember batman as the man who beat the superman, superman's strength slowly returns.

The man of steel catches batman mid-sentence, loses his cool and delivers a handy beat down to the batman, ending in a scenario similar to the battle between superman and zod in Man of Steel. Batman makes it clear that he would never stop his vigilante ways and never stop hunting superman, taunting him to resort to fatal means once again to end the battle.

Just as it seems superman is going to end batman's life, he redirects his blow hitting the ground beside a fallen batman. Superman comments that he has to be better than just a man. He repeats Jor-el's monologue from Man of Steel about being a symbol and that he would not resort to killing ever again. He then concludes with a quote which is a homage to the Christopher reeves superman. Something like:
"I am not your enemy. They are not your enemy. There are good people here and people who wish to be. They need a light show them, to show you, a better way"

With those parting words, superman leaves. Batman is left thinking. He flash back to his tragic past and mulls over Superman's words. Perhaps the man of steel is right?  Perhaps there is hope for this uncontrollable godlike alien to be the hero that the world needs.


Elsewhere lex Luthor has the zod clone in stasis undergoing additional mutations that include elongated spikes and denser musculature.

Lois Lane meets with Superman but does not tell him about her debacle with Lex Luthor for fear of Luthor's threats. She does encourage Superman to fight the good fight. 

A voiceover by Wonder Woman is interspersed with the arrival of Super powered beings at an undisclosed location: an atlantean warrior King, a scarlet speedster, an intergalactic enforcer clad in green, a cyborg. 

"You have seen what he can do, what he is capable of.  I count you among the most powerful this world has to offer. And I come to you to ask for your help. His is strong but reckless, dangerous. It will take all of us together to stop the reign of the Superman before it can begin.


The justice league is formed.
Their first Mission: hunt down and apprehend the kryptonian Man of Steel.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Deadpool (2016) movie review


Overall verdict: 9.5/10

The Good: Perfect and faithful portrayal of a live action comic book character, spot-on acting, fitting soundtrack, well written comedy, witty humour, energetic direction, brutal action, brisk and well paced, intriguing supporting cast.

The Bad: Mediocre music score, minor deviations from the comic

3D Readiness: None

******Review******
DEADPOOL. He finally gets his movie. After a laughable appearance in the groan inducing X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, Ryan Reynolds is back bringing Wade Wilson, The Merc With a Mouth, The Regenerating Degenerate (and a whole paragraph of other monikers),  to the big screen with what is possibly the most faithful portrayal of a comic book character to date in live action.

I watch this and I am convinced that Ryan Reynolds has never existed. He has always been Wade Wilson deep down inside and this movie is Deadpool showing up his true self. He is perfect. Exactly like the more comedic Deadpool of recent years but with enough of the bad ass 1990s Deadpool so as not to come across like any other lovable loser. Read the comic, watch the movie, play the game, whatever, it will be the exact same character you know and love.

DEADPOOL kicks off with One of the most uniquely imaginative, tongue-in-cheek opening sequences to ever grace the silver screen. (Keep Wikipedia and a counter handy for all the pop culture references). The story is a romance worthy of Romeo and Juliet: washed out soldier finds the love of his life and prepares to settle down but soon discovers he has cancer and leaves, hoping to spare his loved one the pain of seeing him waste away. It is also a science horror flick worthy of David Cronenberg as our man gets betrayed to an unscrupulous scientist who conducts torturous experiments on him which grants extraordinary gifts but is leaves the man disfigured for life and unable to return to his lover. It is a revenge thriller on par with a Tarantino movie: Left for dead, Wade Wilson puts his new gifts of regeneration and enhanced reflexes to use as the mercenary DEADPOOL all the while tracking down his old tormentors in hopes of finding a cure for his affliction. Lastly, it can be considered the wittiest, most clever, most violent R-Rated action comedy film of the decade.

DEADPOOL defies genre, it defies convention, it throws us right into the thick of the action. Unlike many comic book character origin stories, we do not get bogged down by a lengthy first act setting up the eventual "birth" of the superhero, where the titular character is only seen in his civilian self without powers or the iconic costumes.  For the obligatory tragic backstory, we get flash backs interspersed with the ongoing altercations. Just as the flashback looks like it will start to drag, we are snapped right back into the whizzing bullets, blood and twin blade action.

The overall plot is a little bit derivative but in this day and age with eons of creative history behind movie making, what else isn't? It is the execution, the energy instilled by director Tim Miller, and the well timed, well written, clever humour soaked into the script by Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick of ZOMBIELAND fame. We aren't talking the cartoony quips or snide banter of disney's Marvel movies. This is smart, actually humorous, befitting of the film and filled to popping point with pop culture references of all sorts. Yet DEADPOOL is not some laugh-a-minute comedy. Ryan Reynolds completely sells even the more sombre scenes with such earnestness. For the first time I actually feel bad for poor ol' Wade and all the crap he had to go through before he became Deadpool. Reynolds sells the heartbreak and the torment in a perfectly nuanced performance. But more importantly, he sells the utter glee and satisfaction of sweet violent vengeance. 

The film earns its M18 rating with nudity, swearing and bloody violence though i still consider those tastefully restrained for an adult oriented film of such rating. It never gets excessive, thus allowing the writing and direction to shine without being marred by the spectacle or eye candy. The music by Junkie XL accompanies said eye candy and, honestly, is nothing spectacular; your standard electronic action samplings. But the soundtrack, consisting of classic songs, is amazing. The songs chosen and the scenes they are paired with either fit perfectly within the context of those scenes or create this comedic dissonance that enhances the mood.

A bit of the backstory is changed from the comics, as are the villains Ajax (but his name is Francis) and Angel Dust. Here they are devoid of their outlandish costumes and garbed in your Bryan Singer-esque black civilian outfits. On the flip side, we are introduced to two X-Men supporting characters: idealistic metal skinned muscleman Colossus (the big dumb giant) and brooding time bomb (literally) Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Somehow the good guys retain some outlandish comic book traits. Colossus is no longer the chrome clad pretty boy in X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST but a hulking lunk-head who is a dead ringer for his comic book counterpart. Negasonic is altered somewhat from the comics but she now sports a more traditional black and yellow suit like the classic Xmen uniforms. Was this contrast between colourful good guys and drab baddies an intentional jibe at the black leather look of Bryan Singer's X-men movies? 

Every once in a while, a magnificent piece of work comes along to sweep you off your feet into an imaginative mind boggling masterpiece of modern cinema. Throughout DEADPOOL, one can feel the absolute passion that the cast and crew brought to the project. At a modest 108 minutes, DEADPOOL is just right; staying long enough to leave an impression but never overstaying its welcome. DEADPOOL is unique and has all the marks of a trendsetting film. 
Give this movie the awards it deserves.

******Review End******

Entertainment: A
Story: A
Acting: A
Characters: A-
Music: B+
Replay value: A
"Brains": B+