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From Friday’s The Oklahoman: 

Following in the footsteps of “Smallville,” Batman-related characters got a youth-oriented WB television series in “Birds of Prey.” Following the Tim Burton Batman films, to a degree, the film is set in “New Gotham,” in the future. Batman and Catwoman have had a daughter — The Huntress (Ashley Scott, “Jericho”). Batman himself has disappeared after a final showdown with the Joker — and the Joker, after escaping, shot and paralyzed Batgirl (Dina Meyer, “Starship Troopers”). Her paralysis didn’t stop her crusade — only how she accomplishes it. She now fights crime as Oracle, a cyber-sleuth who trains superheroes for the future, including Huntress.

Joining Huntress and Oracle is Dinah (Rachel Skarsten). Her telepathic powers keyed in on Huntress when Catwoman was killed, and on Oracle when she was shot. Thus, she believes these women are the key to her destiny.

“Birds of Prey” debuted strongly, but ratings slipped. Comic fans thought the series deviated too much from the comic book on which it was based. The show did alter the origins, but it didn’t ignore the comics; it just melded several different versions into one show. In retrospect, the show was better than it gets credit for, but not as good as it could have been. Meyer is consistently good, and it’s too bad fans didn’t get to see more of her as Batgirl or Oracle.

The original pilot, with Sherilyn Fenn (“Twin Peaks”) as Joker sidekick Harley Quinn is included. Fenn was replaced with Mia Sara (“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”).

Also included are three seasons of the flash-animated “Gotham Girls,” which come to about an hour of programming.

– Matthew Price

From Friday’s The Oklahoman: 

By Matthew Price
Assistant Features Editor

THE NEXT LEVEL

In the future, humanity has made a mess of earth. Wall-E — a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class droid — is one of the robots created to clean up the mess, so that humans can perhaps someday return. “Wall-E” is the star of the latest Pixar film, and he comes to portable gaming in this PlayStation Portable game. Gamers take on the role of Wall-E in the game. As the game begins, it’s early in Wall-E’s career, as a series of tests measure the quality of Wall-E’s work. As the game continues, it moves more into the storyline shown in the film. Farther along in the game, the gamer can take the role of EVE, a new robot for whom Wall-E develops affection.

The game has multiple levels, each with different problems to solve. Gameplay types include puzzles, mazes, races, shooting and smashing. In several levels, crates must be smashed to get energy charges to move to the next level of the game.

Wall-E can use his “box form” to smash crates. Other times, Wall-E needs to create junk cubes by compacting trash. These cubes can be used to open doorways or move levers. Wall-E also has a laser that can be used to destroy obstacles. Minigames are also included, which add to the replay value.

The graphics are good, as Wall-E’s movement and the level designs are both artistically rendered. The music is straight from the feature film.

The worst aspect of the game is the control, as the small analog stick on the PSP doesn’t always perfectly respond to what the gamer wants to do.

The game is rated E, for everyone.

Ron Perlman as Hellboy in “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” 

“Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” brings back the cigar-chomping, wisecracking paranormal agent with the indestructible hand and big red body from the first “Hellboy.” Ron Perlman reprises his role as the most powerful agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, nicknamed “Red.” He and girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), a pyrokinetic, are having off-and-on problems, largely based around Red’s loutishness: He leaves her toothbrush in the cat food, for one.

Elfin Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), angered by the humans’ constant encroachment on the elfin world, breaks a pact long-forgotten by the humans. The humans and the elves ended a long-ago war by agreeing to a truce — the elves would stay in the forests and the humans to the cities. But, as Nuada declares, the parking lots and shopping malls have driven the elves from their homes. He will reawaken the Golden Army, a clockwork grouping of 14,400 soldiers, built by a goblin for the elf king to answer the aggression of humanity in the first war. Nuada reclaims part of the crown needed to rule the Golden Army from an auction house — slaughtering the bidders in the process, with demented “tooth fairies” — so called because of their desire to feed on bones and teeth.

Hellboy and his BPRD crew, now led by the ectoplasmic German Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) seek the Troll Market for clues to who unleashed the tooth fairies.

Fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) encounters Nuala (Anna Walton), Nuada’s twin sister, who wishes to keep her brother from awakening the Golden Army.

Multiple conflicts and showdowns follow, including the final meeting with the Golden Army. But before that, director Guillermo del Toro craftfully sets up a possible sequel: With Hellboy on the verge of death, Liz must decide whether she believes in Red, or what his destiny was foretold to be. Those who have read Mike Mignola’s comic books have an idea what’s coming, but it would still be spectacular to see filtered through del Toro’s vision.

The entire film is a visual marvel; the Troll Market recalls the “Star Wars” cantina scene with monsters rather than aliens. The film is similar in many ways to the original, but improved across the board.

“Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” is an over-the-top B movie, but near-perfectly so.

Matthew Price

MOVIE REVIEW

HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY

PG-13 1:50 3 ½ stars

Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss

(for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and some language)

From the July 4 edition of The Oklahoman:

Writer-director Roland Emmerich (”Stargate,” “Independence Day”) is known for big, dumb spectacle. “10,000 B.C.” isn’t his biggest, but it might be his dumbest.

D’Leh (Steven Strait) is a young hunter whose father abandoned the tribe, causing D’Leh to be ostracized by his peers.

The bland young hunter, however, gains the love of Evolet (the spectacular but poorly-coiffed Camilla Belle).

When Evolet and most of the tribe are kidnapped by slave traders, D’Leh leads a small group on a rescue mission.

En route, D’Leh joins forces with other civilizations that have been decimated by the slavers.

The slavers are called “four-legged demons” because of their use of domesticated horses, which wouldn’t happen for 6,000 years. But that’s not the most irritating part of the movie.

D’Leh encounters saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths and giant birds in his quest to save his loved ones. Unfortunately, none of these things kill him.

He reaches the slavers, who are using their various captives and the woolly mammoths to build pyramids, which are about 7,000 years early. On top of the historical inaccuracies, “10,000 B.C.” consistently fails to engage the audience.

“10,000 B.C.” resembles “Apocalypto” meets “300,” but it’s duller than either of those movies.

— Matthew Price

From Friday’s The Oklahoman:

“Wanted,” directed by Timur Bekmambetov of the “Night Watch” films, is a visually arresting, over-the-top, paean to violence. Based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and JG Jones, the film takes a different slant than does the source material — but manages to improve on it.

Wesley Gibson (James MacAvoy) is a down-on-his luck loser in a dead-end job. He knows his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend, but he can’t motivate himself to do anything about it. Wesley is sleepwalking through his life, until he meets the Fox (Angelina Jolie).

She tells Wesley that his father, whom he never knew, was one of the world’s greatest assassins. And another of those assassins is after Wesley.

This begins the slam-bang action portion of “Wanted,” as Wesley finds himself introduced to the Fraternity, a group of assassins who call themselves weavers of fate.

Led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), these weavers follow mysterious assassination directives, aimed at making the world a better place. “Kill one, save a thousand,” explains the Fox.

The storyline has twists and turns and double-crosses, but the visuals are what makes “Wanted.” Bekmambetov channels Tarantino by way of John Woo, but adds dozens of his own touches. The only off-note is the dialogue.

Some is lifted directly from the comics, but other scenes are just f-bombs dropped on anyone who might be nearby.

Still, this is what an adrenaline-filled action movie should be — a darkly comic vision whose flaws are obscured by the film’s unyielding pace.

Matthew Price

MOVIE REVIEW

“Wanted”

R 1:48 3 stars

Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie

(For strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality.)

The third season of “The Incredible Hulk,” starring Bill Bixby as David Banner, has fewer two-part episodes than previous seasons, but still manages some solid episodes.

While the season’s fifth episode, “My Favorite Magician,” has some flaws, it’s got several interesting ideas working for it. It co-stars Ray Walston, Bixby’s co-star on “My Favorite Martian,” and it features Banner becoming a magician’s assistant, likely referencing Bixby’s 1973 series “The Magician.”

The highlight of the third season is “Homecoming,” in which Banner returns to his hometown for the first time since the accident that transformed him, in times of stress and anger, into the Incredible Hulk (portrayed by Lou Ferrigno).

The episode “The Psychic” features Brenda Benet, Bixby’s first wife, as a psychic who discovers the connection between Banner and The Hulk.

While the third season lacked the dynamic two-parters of seasons two and four, it holds up as part of one of the best television adaptations of a comic-book hero.

— Matthew Price

From Friday’s The Oklahoman:

The strike-shortened 1980 season of “The Incredible Hulk” started off with a bang, with the two-part episode “Prometheus” exploring the more science-fictional aspects of the show. A meteor with unusual properties causes David Banner (Bill Bixby) to be caught in a half-Banner, half-Hulk stage. He eventually triggers the full transformation, but is caught by a government agency seeking to capture extraterrestrials.

Lou Ferrigno, who played Banner’s alter-ego the Hulk in each episode, gets to guest-star without the green paint in “King of the Beach.”

A two-part episode called “The First” explores Dr. Jeffrey Frye’s earlier radiation experiments that created an earlier version of a Hulk-like monster. This “Hulk” is played by Dick Durock, who later became another comic-book hero in the “Swamp Thing” TV series and films. The Hulk vs. Hulk showdown is worth the price of admission.

“The First” is followed with two other classic episodes — “The Harder They Fall,” in which Banner finds himself temporarily paralyzed, and “Interview with the Hulk,” when another reporter gets the scoop on Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) and lands an interview with Banner.

— Matthew Price

From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner in “The Incredible Hulk,” a love letter to the 1970s series that mixes “The Fugitive” with “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Norton’s Hulk, a CGI-creature, isn’t all Hyde, however. While he’s fueled by rage, he maintains some of Banner’s emotions, and can be calmed by Elizabeth Ross (Liv Tyler), Banner’s former girlfriend and scientific colleague.
Banner was accidentally irradiated in a lab accident, which caused him to turn into a super-strong green giant. Anytime his pulse races beyond a certain point, it triggers the transformation. Banner goes on the run, as Gen. Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) wants to use Banner’s blood to create an army of hulkified soldiers. He seeks the aid of mercenary Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who wants any experimental process the general has to up his abilities to take on the Hulk.

The screenplay is by Zak Penn (”X-Men 2”), and French director Louis Leterrier (”The Transporter”) takes the directorial reins this time around. While 2003’s “Hulk,” directed by Ang Lee, mixed angst, art-school style and comic-book panels into an interesting hybrid that didn’t please the target audience, “Incredible Hulk” is a much more straightforward action film, but one that satisfies. The film is at its best when Norton is onscreen, which means the final CGI-versus-CGI battle isn’t the strongest portion of the movie, but it’s the perfectly accepted method of concluding these sort of things.

There are cameos aplenty in “The Incredible Hulk,” and dozens of nods to Marvel fans, but none of them detract from the film.

— Matthew Price

Kids have it made.

There, I said it. Those little jerks have the life I want to lead. No jobs. No bills. Your mom picks out your clothes for you. (Though, in that way, I guess Matt has it made, too.)

Most of all, no one will look at you funny for reading the Marvel Adventures line of comics. But when you’re almost 30 and you wear the haggard expression of a man who is slowly being murdered by his job, people really look at you funny when you walk to the counter with Marvel Adventures Spider-Man issue 40.

But forget those people, because these comics are FUN. Hey, I like my Vertigo and Ed Brubaker’s Criminal and all the rest, but in the just-plain-a-joy-to-read department, they can’t hold a candle to this stuff.

Take MA: Spider-Man 40 for instance. You’ve got Spidey in high school, stopping muggers and getting rewarded with a kiss from a very unusual damsel in distress. So unusual, in fact, that it turns out she wasn’t in much distress — what with being an immortal God from Asgard.

It’s a hoot as Spidey, somewhat unwillingly, helps her charge the gates of the fabled land and take on some fan faves while taking notes for a report on vikings. And, best of all, it’s a done-in-one story. It’s great to be able to sit down and read a comic cover-to-cover without being in part 3 of a 7-part series for once.

When people talk about how great comics were back when they were kids, these are the comics they were talking about. Throw some praise at writer Marc Sumerak for penning an adult-friendly, kid-approved book. There’s a reason I go back to the Marvel Adventures line again and again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to eat a bag of Lik-M-Aid and pretend this cardboard box is a spaceship.

– Greg Elwell 

I like Mark Millar. I liked his work on the The Ultimates. I liked his work on Wanted. I like his new book, Marvel 1985.

It’s easy to like those books, because they’re all kind of the same. What if superheroes and villains lived in the real world? That’s what Millar writes and he does a good job at it. It’s no Watchmen, which took a less personal and more geopolitical look at the same idea, but it’s good.

Marvel 1985 and Wanted are particularly similar in the idea that the villains are winners. In Wanted, analogues of DC and Marvel bad guys have already won. In Marvel 1985, the Marvel villains come to our Earth (though, not actually our Earth, since I kind of remember 1985 without Dr. Doom and Red Skull) to take over.

It’s all shown through the eyes of Toby, a teen-age protagonist who is drawn a lot younger, and it gives the story an air of “is-it-really-happening?” that, frankly, kind of annoys me. Maybe I’ve seen too many stories devolve into dreams or imagined tales that I’d like to see something more solid.

Regardless of my nitpicking, Marvel 1985 is a good book and full of funny moments and hidden treats. (Hey, kids! Find Ultron’s head!) This wasn’t on my list to pick up before, but I was won over by the first issue and I’ll be sure to collect the rest.

– Greg Elwell