Superheroes

Superhero Category: 3rd October

	Title	Rachel’s Score (/5)	James’ Score (/5)	Total Score (/10)
1	Buffy: The Vampire Slayer	2.5	2.5	5
2	Superman 2	0	0.5	0
3	Hellboy	1.5	1	3.5
4	Catwoman	3.5	0	3.5
5	Fantastic 4	4	3.5	7.5
6	Spiderman 2	2	2.5	4.5
7	The Incredibles	4.5	4.5	9
8	Ironman	2	4	6

Average 4.9/10

Reviews

• Buffy: The Vampire Slayer: For the most part this is Clueless meets The Lost Boys but with poorer quality than both. It moves along okay for a while and Buffy’s development as a character is the best part of the movie being smooth and convincing but it completely falls apart towards the end when it turns into some kind of B-movie. Kristy Swanson is okay, though there’s no way she could pass a teenager, and whatever happened to her?

• Superman 2: Incredible story, brilliant performances, stunning special effects, winning dialogue… oh wait, is this Superman 2? Okay, forget all that, this movie SUCKS! I’ve never seen anything more boring, or ridiculous in all my years of movie watching. It is so bad, I do not understand how so much nothing can happen in two whole hours! There’s nothing good about this movie, not even Gene Hackman, and that wasn’t his fault. The best part was Rachel accidently referring to the adventures of the young Superman TV show as “Smalltown”. It got half a mark because we laughed so much at our own jokes.

• Hellboy: The opening sequence is awful thanks to bad acting and dialogue, but once the movie kicks in it becomes much more tolerable, for a while. After about an hour of waiting (and enjoying some very high quality visual effects) you suddenly realise there isn’t really a plot. Unlike Superman 2 however, the lack of a story is occasionally covered up by some good action and, as I said before, very good special effects. The characters weren’t any good, except maybe for Hellboy who sometimes is funny and shows at least a small ammount of depth through his own boredom and blaze attitude, and the bad guys are bad characters played by bad actors. The best part of the movie is that atmosphere which is generated by good music, good art direction, and some really good sets and locations. Some of the visual were also quite poor and the movie generally sucked, it needed to be written by someone who wasn’t going to direct it, like the Star Wars prequels which by comparrison were really good.

• Catwoman: This is a movie that had women being powerful and strong and taking control to make a difference and show that they too can kick arse and be superheroes, and God knows we need more women in powerful roles. The problem with Catwoman though is that they decided to make a complete joke of the women therein. Halle Berry was made to prance around like a complete moron doing the most idiotic cat-like things imaginable. Sharon Stone with all her years in front of the camera delivered a ghastly performance as the baddie. They wanted to show us female strength but instead showed ridiculous females. Added to that the movie had some of the worst, unconvincing CGI EVER! 90% of the scenes where Catmwoman is moving in some way looked like cut-scenes from a video game, and furiously paced editing of the fight scenes were worse than Æon Flux. This movie should have absolutely rocked, but sadly, and in my opinion, it absolutely sucked. (P.S. The white russian joke was great, and so was Alex Borstein)

• Fantastic 4: Finally a good superhero movie! Fantastic 4 is fun and funny. Surprisingly the performances were all quite good, especially the cocky human torch guy, who although was playing a jerk, played the jerk very well. The movie didn’t try to be anything it wasn’t, a load of fun and action that was simply meant to entertain. The special effects were really good, the invisible girl and the fire effects were great, the stretchy guy looked a bit odd at times and The Thing’s rock suit wasn’t very convincing. Which brings me to my only gripe of the movie. The Thing! He had a stupid sounding voice, a bad outfit, and he spent almost the entire movie whining about being a freak. Otherwise it was simple good fun that came together in the end when the F4 team had to use all their powers together to save the day. I doubt it won any awards but its definately worth watching and I’m sure kids would love it too.

• Spiderman 2: The second installment of a tragically flawed trilogy, Spiderman 2 could have been deep, moving, and beautiful, but thanks to a series of very weird choices on behalf of the filmmakers, it wasn’t. Director Sam Raimi pulls together a collection of vastly different directing styles that result in a creepy mish mash of horror, action, romance, comedy, and drama that does not endere one to the movie. Spidey’s sadness and the romance with Mary Jane were the best parts but they weren’t good enought to make up for the rest of the comic book adaptation insanity. Metal arms imbued for no reason with AI stuck to an old guy – WTF? If they’d stuck to the good points and played to their strengths this movie could almost have been Batman Begins good, but I guess if you want that level of quality for your movie, hire Christopher Nolan. And a new drinking game while watching: Drink everytime a woman screams hysterically into the camera.

• The Incredibles: Whilst being a Disney Pixar animated movie, its difficult to call this a kids movie. All the major themes in the movie are important for kids to understand and know about but they’re also quite adult, or rather very important for adults to remember too. This movie by the way is extremely good, incredible really, it has so much goodness in it, its hilarious, really good action scenes, some absolutely amazing visual moments and it could even be considered a good spy movie. The crux of the movie though is the superhero movie that stars. They’re forced into hiding and have to supress their own superpowers so they can “fit in” to society, pretending to be normal, but evel calls and the entire family is drawn into a battle that requires each member to creatively and intelligently use their powers. Seeing the kids get to finally use their powers is really satisfying, touching, and very very funny. The parents marraige is a major issue in the movie as is the childrens oppressed potential but throughout the trials and fights with evil fools the family comes together as one and shows how valuable the nuturing of talents, forgiveness, acceptance, and love really are. The movie is very sweet, very touching, and anyone who’s ever had a family can appreciate the realistic depection of an unreal superhero family. The use of each of the brilliant characters individual powers is very cool too,  like the boy running on water and the force field rollerball. The music is also great. Awesome movie, as fun and funny as Fantastic 4 but with bucketloads more depth and maturity. A must see!

• Ironman: In a word this movie is cool. It doesn’t have a killer plot or any mature themes worth mentioning, apart from maybe using your talents to help make the world a better place, but it is very entertaining and lots of fun. Robert Downey Jnr is awesome and I recommend everyone watch all of his movies, and he is very quick and cook as Tony Stark. He embraces this role and does everything he can to bring the character to life. Honestly, he is the reason you should watch this movie and its upcoming sequel. Don’t expect to have your world shattered but do be prepared for fun and laughs and some very cool effects and action. Pure popcorn goodness.

Reviewed by James