CaptainAstro Reviews

The Batman (2004–2008)

Started OK, got better, got worse, and then got pretty good...

[7/10 · 21 December 2006]

It's been an interesting run for this series.

In the 1st season, there were maybe 3 or 4 really good episodes, a few that were OK, and a few that were just terrible. The second season did a little better about not being bad. Then, in the 3rd season, they introduced Batgirl. Incidentally, the show started to get really bad. Save for the "Criminal Mastermind" episode, the season was filled with disappointment.

Then, at the beginning of the 4th season, they introduced Robin. My initial reaction was "considering how bad the show got when they brought in Batgirl, the introduction of Robin couldn't be good. But it was. The show started to pick up, and has become much more promising and watchable.

What I said about the show when it started, and I maintain I was right, was that the show needed a while to really settle into it's stride. If you watch the beginning episodes for "Batman: The Animated Series," Batman and Joker start out with a slightly more playful relationship, and Batman isn't nearly as dark. This show did take a while, but it seems to have gotten to a point where they can entertain people who are old enough to remember the first show.

The show is really intentionally different from any other incarnations of the characters, as obviously evidenced by the Joker redesign. I thought that making the Joker the version they did was such a bold statement, and the character still works.

The show is so different, that a lot of die-hard fans will be disappointed. But the show has gotten better, and is less of a guilty pleasure for me to watch now.

7 out of 10. Shaky start, but on more solid ground.

P.S. For all my tolerance of the extreme character redesigns, I will never be okay with the Mr. Freeze they settled on. Clancy Brown can't save it, it's just a stupid, poorly-written character with a pretty lame design.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Not quite as bad as Fantastic Four, but...

[5/10 · 1 August 2006]

This is not a good film.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. I don't like it. Because I'm thinking that it should be compared to the movies that came before it. And therein lies the problem. This film has a complete lack of emotional gravity or character development.

In the first films, we focused on a few main characters, Wolverine, Rogue, and a few others. Everyone got a few scenes where they developed, and there were arcs. Let me say that again: The characters went somewhere. Somewhere they couldn't have gotten in a half-hour episode of television.

In this film, they emphasize the plot more than the characters. But the screenplay is not good enough to support it, and the director makes no attempt to make up for it with exceptional deliveries. All the characters we fell in love with have been completely tossed by the wayside. In the first films, Wolverine was an amazing character, an anti-hero, who did awesome things with his claws, and was struggling to figure out his past. Now, granted, he seems to have figured out what happened to him in X2, but there was a life before the procedure, and in X- Men 3, he's somehow come to terms with his past, and the internal struggle is gone. He has no exciting sequences, and no character development.

I don't want to give any spoilers, but there are a more than a few characters who are set up for fantastic arcs and character developments, but these stories are forgotten and unfulfilled. That's the movie as a whole. It's set up for a great film, and the plot in itself has potential, but they do not collect on the potential.

Now, make no mistake: I have seen worse movies. Fantastic Four jumps to mind. Elektra and Hulk are up there. But this was one of the worse blockbusters of the summer, and didn't deserve to open the summer movies. This film could've used about another year of working on the screenplay, another month shooting, and another half of a year on the special effects. (They're aren't terrible special effects in the film, but the whole film is rushed.)

If you want to see a quality superhero movie, go rent X2. This film is nowhere near as good. It's one thing for a sequel to fall short, but this is ridiculous.