Comics vodcast: Action Comics, All-Star Superman 12, Secret Invasion: Thor 2, Uncanny X-Men 502
Mel Odom reviews “Checkmate: A King’s Game”
Oklahoma author and friend-to-Nerdage Mel Odom writes a review of Greg Rucka’s “Checkmate: A King’s Game” over at Blogcritics.
An excerpt:
(Rucka’s) stories don’t just revolve around missions and the agents that go on them. The stories also delineate what goes on back at mission control, all the mistrust, the jockeying for control, the desire of some of the key players to keep certain ops or assets to themselves. I found myself getting just as involved in the bickering, secrets, and political maneuvering within the Checkmate organization as I did with the actions of the agents in the field.
More in the link.
– Matt Price
DVD review: Heroes Season Two
A version of this article ran in Friday’s The Oklahoman:
The second season of Tim Kring’s “Heroes” faces a bit of a sophomore slump.
Whereas the first season focused on ordinary people with extraordinary abilities, the second season takes advantage of the roots of these powers and delves into the sins of the main characters’ parents.
As the season begins, time-traveling Hiro (Masi Oka) has transported to feudal Japan, where he decides to stay to help his childhood hero Takezo Kensei become the
legendary samurai he’s supposed to become.
The Bennets have relocated to California, where Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is supposed to lay low. Her adoptive father, Noah (Jack Coleman) is working with Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) to take down the Company, the mysterious organization experimenting
on individuals with super-powers.
Peter, who was responsible for saving New York City from an atomic explosion at the end of the first season, awakens in Ireland with amnesia.
New characters Maya and her brother Alejandro unknowingly find themselves helping a “Heroes” foe back to prominence as they make a pilgrimage from South America to find
Mohinder to learn more about their powers.
While the disparate threads of the season eventually come together, it’s obvious that the show was hindered by the writers’ strike, causing the Shanti virus storyline to come to a
quick resolution. The season wrapped with only 11 episodes.
The core ideas, cast and writers behind “Heroes” are still sound, so a stronger Season 3 seems very likely.
To find out what might have been, check out the special features on
the DVD set.
The show’s writers elaborate on their plans for the second half of the season, most of which were never filmed.
– Matt Price
DVD review – Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Complete First Season
From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
The nine-episode strike-shortened first season of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” kicks in a year after the events of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” Sarah Connor (Lena Headley, “300”) and her son John (Thomas Dekker, “Heroes”) have been hiding out, but decide it’s time to move on. They are aided by a new Terminator, played by Summer Glau.
Glau first came to prominence in the television show “Firefly,” created by Joss Whedon, playing the unbalanced psychic River, who stowed away on the spaceship Serenity. She’s excellent in her role, except in the pilot, which has a few issues. The new Terminators are supposed to better be able to mimic human emotions — Cameron (Glau) does that at first, when John doesn’t realize she is a Terminator. After she’s revealed, however, she has a much more “robotic” performance.
Still, as the series goes on, Glau’s the highlight of the show, and should be a breakout star. Headley doesn’t have the toned, steely presence of Linda Hamilton, but she does have her moments. Brian Austin Green (“Beverly Hills, 90210”) shows up about halfway through the season as John Connor’s uncle, and immediately sparks up the series.
If the series fits in with “Terminator 3,” I’m not sure how, exactly. Still, time travel allows for some leeway in events, doesn’t it?
Extras include commentaries, cast auditions, storyboard animatics, featurettes, and a director’s cut of the episode “The Demon Hand.”
– Matthew Price
DVD review: Birds of Prey
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
Video game review: Wall-E for PSP
From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
By Matthew Price
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.
Movie review – Hellboy II: The Golden Army
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)
DVD review: 10,000 BC
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
Movie review: Wanted
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.)
DVD review: The Incredible Hulk, the Complete Third Season
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
