Review: Watchmen

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I've been waiting for this film for most of my adult life. I was 23 years old when the 12-issue miniseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons debuted on the comic shelves in the late Spring of 1986, and it wasn't long after it wrapped up the following year that the talk of a Watchmen movie began. Just to get my credentials - or, rather, the details of my intense relationship with the subject matter over the intervening 23 years - out of the way up front: I own 4 different printings of the comic series (original serialized format, two different trade paperback editions and the oversized Absolute Watchmen volume that came out a few years ago); I've read Watchmen, in one form or another, nearly 10 times over that stretch; I place it, along with Alan Moore's other magnum opus, V For Vendetta, at the very top of my favourite comic stories of all time; and I own a page of original artwork from the book. For all of these reasons, and many others, this is not just another movie for me.

With a running time in excess of two and a half hours, I knew going into the viewing last night that we wouldn't be shortchanged, at least. This was not going to be "Watchmen Lite", in which most of the secondary arcs were excised in order to focus our attention on just one or two plot lines and get it to fit within a comfortable ninety-seven minutes. As it turns out, screen writers David Hayter and Alex Tse, along with director Zack Snyder, retained about 80% of the original material and something like 90% of its spirit.

Not surprisingly, what's missing is much of the ironic nature, subtlety and complexity of the Moore/Gibbons masterpiece. The first clue that I got to that fact came early: several times in the first half hour of the film, various members of the "superhero fraternity" refer to themselves as "the Watchmen." Anyone with only a passing familiarity with the comic series or less would probably say, "Uh... no duh! That's what they're called!" But in fact, that's not the case. Despite the series being titled Watchmen, there is actually no group within its pages who go by that name. Instead, it refers to the spray-painted slogan that begins to show up in the mid-1970s, once public sentiment turns against the costumed adventurers as the result of a police strike (which comes about when the cops decide that vigilantes are making their jobs too difficult). When long-haired hippies cover tenement walls with crimson red graffiti asking "WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?", it's not a literal reference to any super-team in existence (as would be the case if someone scrawled "WHO AVENGES THE AVENGERS?" in the Marvel Universe, for example) but rather an alarm bell sounding in the words of the poet Juvenal (who wrote, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" in Latin), from nearly two millennia ago. It essentially demands to know, "If they're operating outside the law to guard against our misdeeds, then who's guarding against theirs?" That's one of the central themes throughout Watchmen, and yet I can't help but believe that you water that message down considerably if you make the mistake of believing that "Watchmen" is simply the group name for the heroes (and again: it's not, simply or otherwise). Either the film-makers didn't get this distinction, or they decided that their audience was too stupid to. In any event, something was lost in the process.

If that seems like nit-picking, well... it is! What you'll likely find, if you happen to come across reviews of this movie by fans of the comic (like me), is that much of what we'll devote our attention to are nits. I could point out, for example, that Rorschach's backstory is weakened, ever so slightly, by the change imposed upon it in his fateful scene with the child-murderer. In the comic, Rorschach handcuffs the wretch to a furnace pipe, leaves him a hacksaw with which to cut off his own arm, and then starts the man's home on fire. He thereby gives him a chance to survive, albeit with ridiculous odds. In the film, however, he uses a cleaver to kill the man. Again, as with the point noted above, this suggests a lack of understanding on the part of the film-makers. Watchmen is a very dense piece of literature. Every single thing in it happens for a reason, and an adaptation that (out of necessity) removes or alters bits needs to do so very carefully. My reading of that scene has always been that it was that encounter, that moment in which Walter Kovacs had no choice but to stare into the abyss, only to discover that "the abyss stares also," that transformed him from "Kovacs dressing up as Rorschach" to "Rorschach posing as Kovacs in order to move through the city unnoticed." That metamorphosis, from a world view that allowed at least some grey areas in it to one that could no longer abide them, required more than the swing of a meat cleaver to complete. It was his choice to torment the killer with his own slim chance at salvation, and then to stand on the street outside and watch it all burn, that completed his rebirth. (Fire as a transformative elemental power also shows up in V For Vendetta, when V emerges from the concentration camp while it all goes up in flames around him.) Less of that breath-taking energy comes across in the film version, unfortunately. And I can think of at least a half dozen other places where I similarly winced to see an impact lessened by what I'd characterize as an unfortunate tweak.

So yes, there are details aplenty for die-hard Watchmen fans to complain about (and we will!). But there's also a whole lot to love about this adaptation. Moore and Gibbons were geniuses at creating a fully-realized, internally-consistent world of 1985 in which to tell their tale, and that aspect is on display here as well. It's not really the same look and feel as you'll find in the comic book, as the electric cars, hover bikes and funky cigarette holders are nowhere to be seen when the story begins. But a very effective credit sequence, under the always-welcome sounds of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changin'," sets up the premise that men and women decided in the 1940s that dressing up in gaudy costumes and catching crooks might be fun, and that makes it easy to just roll with that conceit as the story progresses. The divergence between our history and the events in the Watchmen universe become poignantly apparent when the god-like Dr Manhattan ends the Vietnam War in a matter of days. In one of the most spine-tingling lines from the comic series, the Comedian tells Dr Manhattan, "I mean, if we'd lost this war... I dunno, I think it might have driven us a little crazy, y'know? As a country." Seeing that sequence, in flashback form, even the Watchmen-neophyte has no choice but to conclude that "This is no version of history that we've ever seen!"

As far as creating the physical world with that history, I'd say that the special effects were somewhat hit and miss. I loved seeing Archie, the owl ship in action, and most of the visuals involving Dr Manhattan worked for me (and for the women in the audience: full frontal male nudity!) but several of the costumes looked ridiculous and I simply couldn't buy most of the Mars architecture. I had expected to hate the "slow mo" scenes but I take my hat off to Snyder and the rest: they actually dazzled me, seeing them in context like that.

Less dazzling were some of the performances by the ensemble cast. First, though, I want to say: every single one of them seemed committed 100% to their part, and that's not always the case when dealing with the dreaded "comic book material." There were no winks at the camera, no one hamming it up or going over the top... but there were also no "star turns" that I could see. Now, it's more than possible that Heath Ledger's mind-boggling take on the Joker in The Dark Knight has raised the bar to the point where I simply now expect some sort of break out performance when the material is so strong. Don't look for that here! Jeffrey Dean Morgan ("Denny", for Grey's Anatomy fans) was fine as Edward Blake/The Comedian, but he didn't really fill out the larger-than-life, completely-amoral character that inhabits the comic book. I wanted to see a man who truly didn't give a shit what anyone thought, and instead I saw what looked like a man who wanted us to believe that he didn't care. Again, though, maybe the fault here is really Ledger's... so to speak.

On the flip side, I thought Jackie Earle Haley completely nailed Rorschach, both in and out of costume. Fans of the prison scenes in Watchmen will be delighted to see Haley's affect-free delivery during his interview with Dr Malcolm Long and his encounters with Big Figure and friends. His gravelly, Christian Bale-like narration style bothered me at first, but then I came to enjoy it and eventually realize that he had to sound like that. He's Hill Street Blues' Mick Belker on steroids, after all... as shown in the flashback scene where young Walter Kovacs bites off part of a bully's face!

Matthew Goode, as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, seemed to strike the wrong note from his first appearance on, and at no point came across as "the smartest man on the planet." I was surprised to see Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer in the role of Edgar Jacobi/Molloch, but he made the most of his limited screen time. Both Malin Akerman (Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre II) and Patrick Wilson (Dan Drieberg/Nite Owl II) sold me on their characters, but they suffered from the same problem that most of the cast did: it felt, for most of the film, like they were more focused on the words that they spoke than the emotions behind them. If anything, perhaps the actors held the source material (which all of them supposedly read, and re-read) in too high a reverence... after all, it wasn't just the dialogue of the original Watchmen that fascinated us, but also what it revealed about the people at the bottom of the speech balloons. Too often, the people on screen didn't seem to get that. Or, maybe this criticism, as well, stems from what Heath Ledger showed us in last year's comic book blockbuster.

I loved the famous faux-cameos throughout, which must have kept the casting director busy, searching for celebrity lookalikes. You'll easily spot JFK and Jackie, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, Ted Koppel and Henry Kissinger, as well as an unimpeached Richard Nixon, of course. There are others, as well. I thought that their inclusion worked well at re-anchoring us, reminding us at different points that while this is an alternate history on screen, it's still the planet Earth and some things didn't change (including Glam Rock in the 70s and early 80s, apparently!).

If anything worries me about someone viewing the movie without having read the book, it's that both of the big revelations toward the end of the film seem to come almost entirely from left field. To avoid spoilers, I won't give them away here. But in one case, an unknown relationship is revealed, while in the other it's the villain's motivation and master plan that are laid bare. Unlike in the printed version, though, we don't get the slow build up to them here. We aren't provided all of the clues, as Moore and Gibbons did so effectively, to make us slap our foreheads at the moment of reveal, and say, "Of course! Why didn't I see that coming?" Instead, I imagine that many will react with, "Huh? Where did that come from?" Which is too bad, because those were a couple of Watchmen highlights for me, even on subsequent re-readings where I could pick up on new examples of foreshadowing that I'd never noticed before.

I suppose, "inna final analysis," (as Bernie the news agent says in the comic), while we didn't get a perfect Watchmen movie, we probably got about as close to one as we could reasonably expect. Gone is the symmetry of opening and closing the story with Rorschach's journal (ruined by the addition of a largely unnecessary sequence showing the Comedian's death as the film begins); lost is much of the incredible juxtapositioning of dialogue to visuals; removed for the sake of brevity are many of the third-tier character bits that would have made us care more about the climatic world events that occur near the end. But what's left is still a very large chunk of a literary masterpiece. It's a very good film adaptation of perhaps the greatest comic book series of all time. Anyone intrigued by the film who seeks out the source material will find layers and depth not even hinted at within the frames of Zack Snyder's production... and that's not necessarily a bad thing!

I'm not sure that I'll view Watchmen the movie as many times as I've returned to Watchmen the comic... but at the moment, at least, I'm looking forward to seeing it a second time.

Rating: *** 1/2

Sarah Connor Kicks Butt In Season Two Premiere

Tonight's second season opener of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was pretty damn fine, indeed! This show waxed and waned for me a bit in its inaugural season, but ended strong with a good mix of action and the "small stuff" like John Connor getting to meet his father (as a little boy). The finale back in May left me feeling that they'd have to up the ante in the second season, and if tonight's episode is any indication: they're going to! While the series can be uneven at times, there are clearly some good writers on staff who know how to tell a compelling story. They seem to get that they're going to have to stop telling us how great a leader John Conner is in the future and start showing us how he gets there, in the present. Tonight's scene with Cameron, and the gun, was a great example of the latter. Instincts like that don't come along every day! And just who exactly do we really think offed the reprehensible Sarkissian? Was it Sarah (who Derek had claimed in Season One didn't have it in her to kill people), or was it maybe John's first kill?

The first season finale had a very exciting climactic scene that was dubbed over with the great Johnny Cash, singing "The Man Comes Around," echoing Agent Ellison's earlier remarks about the Book of Revelations. Tonight, bookending that was an opening montage put to the music of a female performer who I didn't recognize, foreshadowing both the literal house-burning that was about to happen as well as the extended family's figurative house (of unified purpose) that would melt down as a result of Cameron's new situation. It's not exactly Alan Moore- or Grant Morrison-subtle, but it's still pretty high-brow by mainstream TV standards. And it shows a willingness to experiment a bit with their form that goes against the norm for action-based series. I continue to hold out high hopes for this somewhat-brainy gasoline-powered show...

Review: V For Vendetta

Seeing The Dark Knight twice in the past two weeks made me hungry for more comic-based movie fare, and so we watched V For Vendetta on DVD this evening. I'd seen the film at the theatre when it came out in 2005 and have owned the DVD for awhile now, but hadn't gotten around to re-watching it until tonight.

As anyone who's seen my favourite comic stories of all time would know, V For Vendetta - the comic series - rates pretty high up there with me. In fact, the only work of that sort that I like better is Watchmen, which is also now in the process of being movie-ized even as we speak. Because of this, I'm probably harder on the film version of VFV than I maybe should be, but there you go. The reality is that the source material that the Wachowski brothers and James McTeigue drew on in creating V For Vendetta - the film - is among the most intricate, dense and rewarding to be found in the "four colour medium." Given that, I'd say that what they put on the screen was a reasonable, though certainly not outstanding, distillation.

The scene that devastates me, every time I read the comic or (now) watch the film, is the one where Evey emerges from captivity. I wrote about how that revelation moves me elsewhere:

"But the shocker in that story, the one that put the whole tale in a different perspective for me, happened when Evey was released from her prison and wandered upstairs to find that her captor and tormentor had been V all along. The gravitas this turn of events lent to the larger canvas of VFV was incredible, for me at least. We knew full well how much V cared for Evey, so seeing the lengths he'd go to in order to, in his words, remove her blinders, was shocking and revelatory. I can still remember the sensation of reading those pages for the first time, realizing what had happened, and having tears run down my cheeks as it sunk in and everything changed. Definitely one of the most powerful scenes in comics history that I can think of."

And for their inclusion of that scene, as well as how beautifully they pulled it off - and all that leads up to it - I have to give the film-makers full credit. That aspect of the story works, and works well. Also effective are the shots of V doing his thing, and the progression of his relationship with Evey throughout.

Where the movie version fails, it seems to me, is in its choices to deviate from the blueprint laid out by the Alan Moore/David Lloyd comic. And I don't mean that simply from a purist point-of-view, although I'm sure it must seem that way. Rather, I think that our suspension of disbelief, which Moore is a master at playing with but never betraying, gets stretched past the breaking point with some of the coincidences and pleasantries that are introduced into the silver screen script. Having Evey work at the TV studio that V uses to broadcast his message, turning the citizens of London into V-wannabes, and even the plot near the end to turn one of the insiders against the "high chancellor" are all examples of Hollywood writing stomping all over something much better than that. Moore's story is full of ambiguous greys, unanswered questions and unsolvable mysteries... which I suppose someone decided just wouldn't be palatable to a movie-going audience.

What I think V For Vendetta accomplishes, though, is perhaps this: it may cause people to seek out the graphic novel upon which it was based ("Illustrated by David Lloyd," as the credits tell us, because Moore demanded that his name be removed from the film). If that happens, then those lucky souls will find a superior masterpiece that was only hinted at by this passably entertaining flick. And that's not a terrible outcome, indeed.

Rating: ***

Review: The Dark Knight

Incredibly... almost impossibly... this movie actually lives up to the hype!

In preparing to brave the crowded theatres for the already-critically-acclaimed The Dark Knight, wife Vicki and I took in our third or fourth viewing of Batman Begins over the past weekend. Christian Bale's first turn as the Caped Crusader has been one of my favourite movie-watching experiences since I first took it in three years ago, but I couldn't help but wonder: how would you ever top it? I mean, BB is the ultimate origin story, cut together perfectly by director Christopher Nolan as a series of flashbacks-within-flashbacks (almost but not quite venturing into the sort of territory that initially caught our attention within his first masterpiece, Memento). It does such a great job of making us believe that a childhood trauma, of the sort that befalls poor little rich boy Bruce Wayne could truly lead to a life of obsessive, not to mention dangerous, behaviour. And while the Scarecrow was a bit on the lightweight side as Bat-villains go, you can't beat Ra's al Ghul in terms of grandeur and scope. So with that kind of a kick-off, where could this latest Batman franchise really go, but down?

As it turns out, Nolan really was just getting started with Batman Begins (making the choice of titles all the more appropos). He took what could've been an onerous task - setting the stage for Batman to play upon, including an origin, a living, breathing Gotham City, and a stable of supporting characters, some old and some new - and turned it into an outstanding Bat-relaunch. But it's now apparent that Nolan, along with brother Jonathon and comic writer David S. Goyer, had much bigger tales to tell. And TDK is a huge movie: it takes larger risks, it plays for bigger stakes, and it asks so much of its viewing audience's intelligence and attention to detail that you'd better be able to control your bladder for a hundred and fifty minutes or you'll be left behind!

The last movie that I can remember ever holding me in its hands the way The Dark Knight did last evening was Alien, when I saw it for the first time in 1979. Back then, I went to the theatre expecting to watch a nice little science fiction film and instead got broadsided by one of the best horror flicks ever made. With The Dark Knight, I went into the experience with high - though somewhat skeptical - hopes, and had my mind blown by what I saw on the screen. I've gotten awfully used to watching comic book movies and knowing, more or less, where they're going... often because I've read most or all of the source material! But last night I was almost literally on the edge of my seat, waiting to see just what turn the story would take next. Yes, there's a bit of The Killing Joke in there, and fans of bank heist movies will recognize a cliche or two from that genre, but the vast majority of the plot came at me with the originality and wonder of earlier Nolan works, Memento and The Prestige. Almost every surprise was rewarding to me, none of which I'll spoil here for the uninitiated. As much as I loved Iron Man - and I did, and do - this latest Batman offering simply operates on a different playing field.

Somewhat paradoxically, the heart of The Dark Knight rests with the Joker. I'd heard rave reviews of Heath Ledger's grandiose performance here, but always assumed that he'd be acting in the shadow of Jack Nicholson (1989's big screen Clown Prince of Crime). About twenty minutes into the festivities, though, I came to realize that it's now the other way around. Nicholson was certainly very good as the Joker, but Ledger eclipsed him almost right out of the gate. This is an incredible, immersive acting job that may just have driven the actor insane. His body language, the unnatural rasp of his voice, his facial expressions and even the very cadence with which he speaks, all blend together to create a character that could believably push an entire city population to the edge of insanity themselves. The level of terror created in this film, obviously paralleling some of what's occurred in the U.S. since 9/11, provides the perfect antithesis to the sort of "comic book violence" that usually fills movies in the genre. Nolan touched on this theme in Batman Begins, with the fear gas that the Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul unleashed on "the Narrows," but here it's cranked up to a terrifying new level, with the Joker acting as the maestro / social commentator / cynic of it all. There's one scene in particular, toward the end of the film, where a look of resigned disappointment spreads over Ledger's make-up encrusted face, and damned if I didn't sympathize with him ever so slightly!

Whether you go to see Heath Ledger as the Joker, Aaron (Thank You For Smoking) Eckhart as heroic District Attorney Harvey Dent, another great set of performances by Bale, Caine, Freeman and Oldman, or just for the incredible action sequences, I don't expect that disappointment will spread over your features at any point. This is an amazing movie, in an unbelievable year for comic book movies, and I can hardly wait to see it again... maybe even in the theatre!

Rating: ****

Review: The Incredible Hulk

Marvel Studios is on quite a roll these days...

While not quite as engrossing or funny as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, under the direction of Louis Leterrier and starring Edward Norton (Bruce Banner/The Hulk), Liv Tyler (Betty Ross), William Hurt (General "Thunderbolt" Ross) and Tim Roth (Emil Blonsky/The Abomination), delivers the goods! It's a great mixture of what we used to get from the old Hulk TV show - a fugitive Banner, always on the run from the authorities as he roams from town to town - and what we'd expect from modern day, big-budget film-making. That last bit can be summed up in two words: Hulk smash! And there's lots of that to be found here (with nary a Hulk-dog nor super-villain Banner, Sr to be seen anywhere, thankfully!)

Liv Tyler is gorgeously emotive as Banner's love interest, although I wish they'd spent a little more time building up some credibility around her role as brilliant scientist. Roth is fine as gonzo would-be Hulkbuster Blonsky, despite being upstaged in the final act of the movie by a CGI-proxy. The two stand-out performances, for me, though, were Norton as Banner and Hurt as his army nemesis. Neither one of them has a great deal of deep material to mine - did I mention that Hulk smashes?! - but both stellar actors make the most of what they're given. True to the comic book character, "Thunderbolt" isn't really the villain of the piece: after all, he thinks that he's making the world a safer place with every action he takes! And Norton's Banner is appropriately conflicted between wanting to help at every turn and being afraid of what will happen if he gets too hungry... I mean, angry! (That's an in-joke, for those who've seen the film.)

The real jewels of the film were the many nods made to past and future moments: Lou Ferrigno's cameo, a brief appearance on-screen by the late Bill Bixby, Robert Downey, Jr's continuity-enforcing walk-on as Tony Stark, references to the Super Soldier serum (and its description of being "on ice," which all comic fans know relates to how Captain America transitions from World War II to modern day), as well as setup moments involving "Leonard" (who should eventually become "Doc" Samson) and "Doctor Samuel Sterns" (who begins the transformation into Hulk arch-villain, the Leader). I thought it would've been cool if the "Mr Blue" that Banner text messages with in the film had turned out to be Reed Richards (as happened in the comics), but I guess that would've been asking too much (and potentially crossed studio lines, as I'm not sure who produces the Fantastic Four big screen adventures right now).

It's a fun film, with no shortage of big fight scenes. I'm not sure where they'll go in a sequel, as "the U.S. army versus the Hulk" motif was already beginning to grow old even this time around. But I'm sure they'll think of something.

Rating: *** 1/2

The Incredible Hulk Movie? It May Actually Be Good!

I've now read two reviews of the new Hulk movie that's going to debut next weekend, both written by "genre" critics (in other words, people who know something about comics, as well as movies) and both were very, very positive. One claimed that this one's as good as Iron Man - high praise, indeed! - and the other said it was in the same class as that recent gem. With all of the news about supposed clashes between Ed Norton and the studio (no, not The Studio!), perhaps some of us have drawn unwarranted conclusions about the quality of the work itself.

All of a sudden I'm a lot more interested in going to the theatre to see The Incredible Hulk than I used to be. Maybe we'll finally get something to wash away the bad taste left by Ang Lee's crapsterpiece...

Want To Read That Comic From Lost?

Some fans of Lost were so intrigued by their glimpse of Mystery Tales # 40 on the show recently that they decided to buy their own copy of it on eBay... and now are posting its interior pages, page by page (slowly). While I don't normally support or even condone scanning and posting entire comic stories online, this is a comic long out of print and not available in reprint form, as far as I know.

Review: Iron Man

This is the Iron Man movie that most fans of the character have waited their entire life for... and never really expected to see! Director Jon Favreau, who does double duty by appearing on-screen as Harry "Happy" Hogan in several scenes, has delivered a passionate love letter to Iron Man followers everywhere, for which we all owe him a great big "thank you."

One of the best indicators of how well a superhero movie works is how it's received by viewers who know nothing about the characters before the lights go down. That's hard to measure with well-known icons like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man or even the Hulk (thanks to that 1970s TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno), but Iron Man? He's practically tabusa rasa for most non-comic folks. For example, my wife Vicki recalls that I bought Tales of Suspense # 39, ol' Shellhead's first appearance, more than a decade ago at The Dragon Lady in Toronto on a snowy day during which we had to walk and walk to find an Automated Banking Machine in order to get some cash for the purchase... but that was about the extent of her Tony Stark background going into the theatre last night. (Not quite true, as she pumped me for a few bits of trivia as we drove there, fearing that she'd be lost in the film. She needn't have worried!) Driving home afterward, all she could talk about was the movie and how good it was, and this morning one of her first comments to me was that she really appreciated how intelligent all of the characters were (for a change, by implication). In fact, we ended up catching a very late showing - 10:30 p.m. start - and I'm not sure I've ever seen my early-to-bed wife so awake and animated at 1:00 a.m. as she was when we got home!

For the comic book fan, the movie is a treat on so many levels. From the inclusion of all three of the early armour versions - grey, gold, and ultimately the now-standard red and gold - right through to the goosebump-inspiring final scene that rewarded those of us who stayed through the entire final credits, Favreau and the screenwriters just hit right note after right note. Iron Man's 1960s origin in the jungles of Viet Nam has been updated to modern day Afghanistan, but it still works! Professor Yinsen is still there, working at the American inventor's side, and providing the cliched-but-vital sacrifice that catalyzes Stark's transformation from hedonistic playboy into conscientious do-gooder. And if memory serves, the first mention of the word "superhero" in the movie is accompanied by Tony saying something along the lines of, "Me, a superhero? Why, that's just too fantastic an idea!" in an obvious nod to Marvel's flagship foursome.

In the casting department, Robert Downey, Jr seems like he born to play Tony Stark, both in his initial cavalier incarnation and then later, as the heroic-but-never-boring man inside the machine. He has enough range to make us like the character at the start and still believe that he'd undergo such a drastic change of heart (no pun intended, for those who know the story). I totally bought Downey as Stark, every second of the way, and that's quite an accomplishment, seeing as I own probably close to a thousand appearances of his in comic form!

I went into this one expecting a lot from the male lead, but had some doubts about what kind of job his opposite number would do. Within a few short scenes, though, all of my reservations about Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia "Pepper" Potts were blown to smithereens. She's played smart and sexy (but never easy!) throughout, and thankfully isn't turned into the "girl hostage" as so often seems to happen in the other comic movie franchises. You can almost feel her love for Tony and the pain she endures each time he brings his latest trashy conquest home (before moving on to the next one), and the scene where she echoes an earlier confession of his about them only having each other really said it all.

Terrence Howard, as Jim Rhodes, doesn't get a lot of material to work with, but one scene in particular seemed to suggest that bigger things await him. (War Machine, anyone?) Jeff Bridges is good as Obidiah Stane, and kudos to him for shaving his head for the part! Everyone pales beside Downey, though, as he owns every scene he's in. Just owns them!

Particularly fun was the section of the film where Tony Stark works to master the use of his new armour. Some of the biggest laughs I've ever heard in a comic-based movie came during those scenes, and fortunately they each came exactly where they were supposed to! Who knew Iron Man could work as slapstick?

I personally can't wait to see what this franchise has to offer over the next several years. I'd say it's off to as good of a start as Spider-Man was after the first installment, and almost as good as the current Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman series. It's nice to see a Marvel character done so well in the first release that the company's studio was involved with... I just hope The Incredible Hulk can keep the bar from dropping too much! Iron Man is probably one of the 10 best comic movies made to date, and that's a very good sign.

Rating: ****

Iron Man Trailer To Be Expanded Into Feature Film?!

Have I ever mentioned just how much I love The Onion? Well, how can I not, with contributions to popular culture like this?

If the video at that link doesn't make you laugh, you may be dead and just not know it yet...

Review: Spider-Man 3

I first reviewed Spider-Man 3 after seeing it at the theatre in May of last year. Last night, I finally got to see it on Blu-Ray in the comfort of my very own home, and I have to say, I enjoyed it even more!

There's so much to like about this movie that it still boggles my mind that some people didn't take to it at all. The effects are amazing, whether it be the sand formations that brought the Sandman to life, the creeping black goo that becomes Venom, or just the mid-air acrobatics of Spidey and Goblin, Jr in their various scenes! As I said to my wife, it's so incredibly well done that, very quickly you forget that they're special effects and just accept them as being real! Some of the scenes toward the end, with the giant version of Flint Marko towering over the crowd, or Venom being separated from his second host, were just jaw-dropping in their ability to bring concepts like that to life.

The dance scenes remain my least favourite, but that's hardly surprising for someone who hates musicals! Having said that, I actually bought the Peter-as-dancing-king moments this time around, since I knew it was coming and could therefore get past the jarring aspect of it more easily. That look on Gwen's face as she realizes that the whole night was about Peter's feelings for MJ, not her, and her reaction of going up to the stage to apologize to the other woman for her unwitting part in it, provided the sort of depth that you don't normally get out of comic book movies.

And let's face it: Spider-Man 3 is a comic book movie. Unlike Batman Begins, which is a great story that just happens to be about a bunch of comic book characters, each Spider-Man film only works if you accept the rules of that particular comic book universe. So having three supervillains, one of whom is Spidey's best friend, another of whom is his uncle's killer, and the last of whom is his workplace rival, despite taking place in a city of tens of millions of strangers, is accepted. (Just like having the main bad guy in the first movie be his best friend's dad, and in the second one a scientist who he'd just befriended, was just taken for granted.) Similarly, the notion of a character suffering a blow to his head that gives him selective amnesia, which conveniently only lasts just long enough to set up a new plotline before wearing off, would be laughable in the real world... but happens all the time in comic books (and certain TV shows).

For pure laughs of the intentional variety, it's hard to beat the moment when the crowd is imploring the hero to kiss the girl (Gwen Stacy) and there's the one young kid screaming, "Don't do it, Spidey!" followed by a look of pure revulsion when the Web-Slinger plants one on her! That's simply the way things work in the Marvel Universe, and you're just along for the ride!

Topher Grace was suitably slimy as Eddie Brock, Thomas Haden Church struck exactly the right note as Flint Marko, and of course Bryce Dallas Howard absolutely killed in her all-too-few appearances as Gwen. What you realize in the climax, though, is that the first three Spider-Man films were really about writer/director Sam Raimi's notion of the "holy trinity:" Peter, MJ and Harry. While I don't share his reverence for that dynamic, I give him full credit for embracing that approach and going for it! This trilogy, taken as a whole, tells a very compelling tale of love, friendship, perceived betrayal and eventual redemption. And anyone who doesn't buy Harry's change-of-heart toward the end of Spider-Man 3 had better not claim to be a big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, what with mass murderer Darth Vader coming over to the light side just before dying. At least in Harry's case, he had a lot less on his conscience to be forgiven for!

And speaking of such things, I was much more moved this time around by the final exchange between Peter and Flint. Having seen Parker venture so far into the darkness, thanks to his contact with the symbiote, it was all the more telling of his strength of character when he said, "I forgive you." That was probably the single most heroic thing that he did in the entire movie!

As the credits rolled, my wife Vicki asked, "How could people not like that movie?" She took the words right out of my mouth.

Rating: *** 1/2

Heath Ledger Dead!

Very sad and shocking news today that The Dark Knight's very own Joker, Heath Ledger, was found dead in his home today. I'm sure that all of the details will come out over time, but at 28, it can't be considered anything but a life cut prematurely short.

Random Musings On The Writers Guild Strike

I've been reading a lot of articles about the Writers Guild of America strike that started a week ago, partially because I'm interested, and partially because it keeps intersecting with another topic that's near and dear to my heart (eg. Brian K Vaughan, writer of the excellent Ex Machina comic book, as well as the incomparable Lost TV show, opining on the strike; an article on whether the comic industry could, should or ever would unionize; and ruminations on how the WGA strike may affect comics). So let's just say it's been getting a fair share of my mind lately (and the strike is all about fair share, after all!)

Having started off my professional career as a computer programmer, I've had many occasions to consider how life in that industry would be different if we all received residuals. In other words, imagine if we not only got paid for the initial writing of the code, but also received some fractionally small slice of all the money that was subsequently made (or saved) by its use! Think of all those lines of Cobol, Java, C, C++ or _____ that we've each sweated over during our careers, often in no less a creative fashion than that of the folks who write TV shows or movies. While at the bank, I worked on a small team that built and maintained the Common System Function libraries. Those were the ubiquitous modules that all of the product teams used in order to avoid re-inventing the wheel themselves: various and sundry date calculations, common structure setups, communication protocol implementations, and so on. On that team, we used to joke that we'd all be millionaires within a month if they simply paid us 1% of a penny every time one of our modules got executed (after all, CSF programs were being run hundreds of millions of times each day). Imagine that paycheque...

From reading about the WGA strike, it's clear that many professional writers live off of residuals. Most of them have hot and cold periods, and they get through the latter by receiving payments from what they produced during the former. That's so different than the existence that I've known (to date, anyway) that it almost seems wrong to me, at first blush. I mean, I was brought up to believe that you earn money by working, and if you're smart (and disciplined) enough with your money then you'll eventually have saved up enough to retire. In over 21 years so far, I haven't been unemployed for even a single day, meaning that (as a salaried worker) I've been earning money continually for over two straight decades. Where do these writers get off, having long periods of non-work during which they still manage to draw an income? How's that fair?

But of course it is fair, because that's the way their industry works. The product of their imagination gets used - and then re-used over and over again - to make money, and the deal is: they're entitled to a little bit of the pie anytime money's being made from their creativity. The WGA fought bitter battles in the past to win that setup, and now they're fighting once again to extend that principle into a new medium, among other things. And I'm not entirely sure from what I've read whether the producers/studios are trying to make us believe that the principle shouldn't apply to the Internet (for example), or that there's simply no money to share.

Which brings me to creative accounting. As the parent of a freshly-employed accountant, I can't be too hard on that occupation for fear of retribution from within! But it always amazes me that the answer to such seemingly straight-forward questions as "How much money did that money make?" or "How much revenue did those ads generate?" can be so easily manipulated and twisted to suit someone's purpose. Isn't it just book-keeping? Why does it end up being so full of greys? And how do people get away with telling one story to those they want to impress ("Our movie's doing boffo box office and will be one of the most profitable of the year!") and a complete contradiction to anyone with a stake in it ("Yes, I know that you're entitled to a slice of the profits, Mr Clooney, but as our books will clearly demonstrate, we're well in the red on this production...")? Where's an auditor when you really need one?

Anyway, Entertainment Weekly has a good pro-WGA article that I found interesting. Maybe you will, too.

Review: Transformers

Annnnnd... it has some giant robots that turn into cars and stuff, too!

So, a quick check of my Comic Book Inventory System confirms that I don't, in fact, own any Transformers comics. Never watched the cartoon series. Knew next to nothing about the concept beyond the whole cars that turn into robots thing. I came into this movie, as they say in the business, virtually cold.

I guess it would be reasonable to say that it's a pretty cheesy movie. Some of the dialogue definitely inspires laughter of the wrong sort, but to be fair, other bits of humour are right on the mark. When the teenage hero's parents burst into his bedroom - where, unbeknownst to them, the too-sexy-for-words new flame played by Megan Fox (shown above) is hiding - his mother chooses that particular moment to ask him if he had perhaps been masturbating! That scene alone practically justifies the hundreds of millions of dollars that went into... well, showing us robots-that-turn-into-cars beating the crap out of each other!

The wife and I first encountered young Shia LaBeouf while watching Season Two of Project: Greenlight. In it, he won the lead role in the Greenlight film, The Battle of Shaker Heights. Over the course of many hours of documentary footage, we couldn't help but get to know young Shia somewhat better than you normally would someone in a low-budget film like that. It's hard not to cheer for a guy like that (and hey, he's in the next Indiana Jones movie, so I guess he did OK). Here in Transformers, he's effective enough - likable, heroic, frantic every 15 minutes - but it's in a part that's about as deep as a sheet of tin foil. And he sweats a lot (no wonder his mother thought she'd caught him failing at being the master of his domain).

As far as plot goes, I suppose there is one. More or less. Maybe more than "bad alien robots and good alien robots fighting for the fate of the Earth" and less than anything much more interesting than that. Oh, there's a pair of old eyeglasses that seem important for awhile, only to be replaced in that regard by a cube that's going to somehow kill us all unless one of the robots absorbs it into his chest, and all the while... robots fight! A lot!

The effects for those battles are actually pretty impressive, allowing me to repeatedly forget that it was only happening in a computer somewhere. One scene didn't work - a small girl reacting to an Autobot, where I didn't believe for a second that she was really looking at him, simply because her gaze never quite lined up with the effects - but for the most part, I bought the action. We're supposed to remember who the good robots and the bad robots are, but I'll admit I mostly lost track. I like to think that the evil ones had the lowest fuel efficiency of the bunch, though. I'm sure at least one of them must've been a Hummer, for example.

And then there's Megan Fox. She starts off being eye candy, but eventually her character's given slightly more to do than run around in a low-cut top... although, she does that, too! She hot-wires a car - one of the few ones that doesn't turn into a giant robot! - and uses a tow-truck to carry one of the good Transformers back into the big final battle. And she looks great while doing each of those surprisingly useful activities!

By the time we got to the final Optimus Prime (leader of the good robots) voice-over that wraps up the movie, we'd decided that Transformers was mindless, harmless entertainment of the easily-forgettable variety. Since it was viewed for free (thanks again, Nhan!) I think we got to see it at just the right price. It's always nice when that happens!

Rating: **

Review: Superman Doomsday

This seems to be my weekend for watching comic-based movies, but there are worse ways to spend Thanksgiving!

This animated feature is the first in a highly-anticipated series of direct-to-DVD films from Warner Brothers, capitalizing on some of DC Comics' most popular storylines from the past several decades. It's the sort of idea that, when you hear it for the first time, you wonder why the Hell it had never happened before. After all, with a direct-to-DVD rather than theatrical approach, you don't need to make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to turn a profit. Add in the fact that DC has a built-in audience across several generations who'd be interested in seeing some of the classic stories brought to their TV screens, and it has the feel of a no-brainer.

So how was the first offering, Superman Doomsday? Surprisingly effective! The story is one of the most-read comic tales ever, because of the media hype that developed around it. For those who don't know: Doomsday was the Hulk-like monster who forged a path of destruction across the countryside on his way to Metropolis, essentially wiping out anything that got in his way. Several Justice League members tried to stop him but were nearly killed in the attempt, and then it was up to the Man of Steel to save the day. The two juggernauts fought, with both of them dying in the end as a result of the incredible blows each had landed on the other during the fight. That final confrontation occurred in Superman (Vol 2) # 75, a story that sold literally millions of copies, by the time all of the subsequent printings and collections had been grabbed up. Following that came the Funeral For A Friend arc, and then The Reign of the Supermen (as several new characters attempted to fill the void left by the Last Son of Krypton's death) before the inevitable Return of Superman. In this DVD, all of that is compressed into a 75-minute version.

I give the script writers a lot of credit for their choices in terms of what to keep from the original material, and what to lose. As hard as it is for me to admit, much of the comic story was horribly convoluted to anyone not intimately familiar with the character at the time (as I was), and so all of that is gone: no other superheroes are shown here, and very few of the supporting cast made the cut. For the most part, it's Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor and Doomsday, with Daily Planet editor Perry White having a few key scenes. Even Clark Kent is barely shown, although his final appearance is truly memorable (and appreciated, by this fan).

Importantly, though, the DVD has a PG-13 rating, largely because of the amount of violence, and specifically death, that was not discarded. I shudder to think of what a Doomsday story would've felt like if everyone he encountered miraculously survived, as has always been the rule for the TV animated series (Adventures of Batman, Superman Adventures, Justice League Unlimited, etc.) Here, though, many deaths are shown, far beyond simply the expected demise of the title characters. That aspect of the story made it quite scary, in a way that cartoon features involving superheroes normally aren't.

There are also plenty of surprises for fans of the original Death of Superman comic event. One significant aspect of the story was completely new, although I suppose, in a way, it was a subtle little nod toward the aforementioned Reign of the Supermen period. As well, the decision was made to have Martha Kent as the only surviving parent, which is different than the comic book mythology at the time (and currently), but strangely in line with both the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeve and the most recent events on TV's Smallville. It worked well here, although one key scene involving Martha and Lois in Smallville was abbreviated to the point of losing an opportunity for true poignancy, in my opinion.

And speaking of Ms Lane, she's well-written here (for a change) and given a very adult role to play (also for a change). I loved her character in this feature, and the only negative reaction I had was in hearing Anne Heche's voice coming out of her mouth! Heche's squeaky, crackling tones were completely ill-suited for Lois, and could only have been worsened if they'd chosen Fran Drescher in her place! I was so bothered by this casting choice that it probably, in the end, cost the movie a 1/2 star off its rating in my estimation!

Pretty much everything else worked for me, aside for minor quibbles like how quickly Metropolis seemed to get rebuilt after each disaster struck it (and one scene involving a building collapsing was eerily similar to the events of Sept 11th and thus perhaps not appropriate here). There's also the moment where Superman used a mirror and his X-Ray vision to see beneath the skin of his own face. Did the writers really not understand that a reflecting surface can only show whatever's visible? Using an X-Ray on a mirror, I can't help but believe, would simply result in your seeing whatever's behind it! Unless, of course, we're to believe that Superman can somehow cause his super-vision to bounce off surfaces...

Overall, Superman Doomsday is a frightening, suspenseful and ultimately satisfying story that should be understandable by all (though not suitable for small children), enjoyable for most, and a true treat for the comic fan. And if you like seeing superpowered creatures beating the crap out of each other while knocking down buildings and generally totalling the joint, you're going to be beside yourself while watching this animated feature!

Oh, and the Special Features on the DVD provide an excellent recap of all that happened during the media event surrounding Superman's death! Even I learned a thing or two from watching it! If you happen to see it, and find yourself wondering why, of the four Reign of the Supermen characters, Superboy isn't actually shown (just mentioned), it's all because of this.

Rating: ***

Review: Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer

Expectations are a funny thing. They can really affect how you react to a movie - or TV show, or book, or comic - no matter how much you may try to guard against it. Based on everything I'd heard about the second Fantastic Four movie, I really expected to hate it. And yet, when I finally got to see it, I found that I actually sort of, kind of liked it.

Not that it's a great motion picture, or even a very good one. It's just not really a bad viewing experience, which means that it exceeded my expectations. It's maybe a little better than the original - which isn't saying all that much - and rewards fans of the Marvel Comics title better than its predecessor did. Since I'm one of them, I guess that counts for something.

Among the best parts of Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer are any scene with the aforementioned herald of Galactus, as the script writers got the character right for a change. His change of heart wasn't given the room it deserved, seeming as it did to turn entirely on a coincidental resemblance between his lost love and the super-sexy Susan Storm. But I think you can still get at least a taste of what Norrin Radd's all about, from his portrayal here.

I also liked the power-switching subplot, as it allowed for both some laughs, and a little bit of character-building. Notable in that last category was the difficulty each of the team members except Reed had in adjusting to finding themselves with an unfamiliar super ability. As the big brain of the outfit, Mr Fantastic should be able to figure that sort of thing out quickly, and he did. Also cool, for the comic fan, was how they temporarily turned Johnny Storm into a big screen version of the Super-Skrull - he who has all four of the FF's powers - making for one of my favourite scenes, by far.

At first the schtick around the wedding - which keeps getting delayed because of crises - bothered me, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. In the comic series, the lovebirds had some of the same issues, with the wedding event itself being crashed by dozens of costumed villains (establishing a tradition, within the genre, for how superhero weddings are supposed to play out). I have to give the movie-makers credit for acknowledging that, within the limitations of this new form (it's not like there are dozens of super-villains who even could've shown up!)

Comic fans will recognize that the main plotline this time out was essentially an amalgamation of two of the earliest Silver Surfer appearances, from Fantastic Four #s 48 - 50 and #s 55 - 57. Those two arcs tell of the Surfer's debut, arriving to prepare the planet for Galactus' lunch, and then later, Dr Doom's successful attempt to steal the silver one's powers for himself. While nearly every detail of each story was changed in the movie, the broad strokes were retained. I'm a little disappointed that more of the terror implicit in each of those classic yarns wasn't captured on film, but I suppose that's part of the cost of going for a light-hearted tone.

On the negative side, it really is too campy for my tastes. Yes, the original material has some of that, too, but somehow it seems less obtrusive on the printed page. On the screen, at times it's hard to understand just what any of the four would actually see in each other, not the least of which relates to Reed and Sue - and I'm sure you can guess which attraction I'm referring to! As with the first movie, it feels like we're just supposed to accept that they're all best buddies, despite the bickering, but it continues to irk me that virtually no time is spent actually demonstrating any true bonding.

Alicia, Ben Grimm's blind-and-hot girlfriend, was horribly under-utilized once again. In this instance, that fact was more reprehensible, though, considering the pivotal role the character played in Norrin Radd's introduction in Fantastic Four #s 48 - 50. There, it was the blind sculptress' compassion for her strange visitor that first lit a spark in the Surfer's heart, and thus his eventual betrayal of his master made more sense, was less self-directed (acknowledging mankind's potential for good versus simply being reminded of his own love interest) and provided some delicious irony by having a non-powered, supporting character turn the tide of the battle where super-strength and the rest had come up short. I can't see any particular reason why that aspect of the drama couldn't have been used here, especially considering the silly alternative we got.

With so many superhero movies coming out these days, it's inevitable that certain traps would start showing up in them. One of the first I noticed was the "superhero has his secret identity discovered by love interest or arch enemy." We saw that one in each of the Spider-Man movies, most of the Batman ones, and even several Superman versions. And now we're getting a wave of "main character dies only to be brought back to life," which started way back in Superman II - said rebirth coming courtesy of Kal El turning time backwards or some such nonsense - and has more recently been *ahem* reborn with Jean Grey in X-Men 3 and now Susan Storm near the end of this film. It's not something I'm at all fond of, since it removes any drama around future deaths ("Ah well, it won't last!")

There were plenty of other annoyances in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, and yet I was still left with a faintly positive response to it. I guess I'm just the forgiving type when it comes to comic movies, although you wouldn't know it by my reaction to the horrid League of Extraordinary Gentlemen debacle. It probably also helped that I got to see the film courtesy of a loaner from Boneman, for which he once again earns my thanks!

Rating: ** 1/2

You Know You Want Some

Just try telling me that this doesn't look like fun!

And I have to give them credit for using "the song." Even though I'm not a fan of it, the band (Sabbath) or its lead singer (Osbourne), I'm impressed they used it, nevertheless.

When Is Good News Not Necessarily Good News?

Well, one example would be this little nugget over at Blog@Newsarama.
There we learn that maybe the Justice League of America movie will be used as a launch vehicle for various and sundry of DC's woefully under-utilized comic properties - Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are mentioned - which sounds like a good thing. But then we read on to discover that equally likely is the rumour that the film will be fast-tracked to get it out as soon as possible, which - I'm sorry - just doesn't exactly scream

Quality Endeavour

to this jaded fan! Am I just being paranoid? Or have I been burned once too often?

And yes, I originally planned to post this over on my own blog, but loyalty to this motley crew changed my mind, damn it!

Review: Stardust

The Family Three headed out to see Stardust last night, and what follows are my thoughts on it. Perhaps Tammy will supply her own take on the film at some point. (Depending on your definition of such things, Spoilers may follow.)

There's always a challenge - for me, anyway - in evaluating a movie that's based on something that I'm already familiar with. Clearly, a huge part of the success of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy came from his ability to satisfy not only the newcomers who came to the theatre having had little or no experience with the books - myself included - but also the Tolkien enthusiasts who were almost certainly expecting to find the adaptation lacking. It was interesting to me that, with each successive film, the amount of time the fans spent talking about what was missing or changed decreased in lockstep with their appreciation for the job that Jackson had done in distilling the spirit of each book into a mere three (or four) hours of thrilling story. For that reason, I think The Lord of the Rings, regarded collectively as a twelve-ish hour masterpiece, stands as one of the greatest movie adaptations ever, in terms of the complexity of the source material and its success with fans and non-fans alike.

Adapting Stardust, the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, represents something of a similarly daunting task. While nowhere nearly as deep or as long as The Lord of the Rings, the tale of Tristan and Yvaine, in its own way, embodies the antithesis of what you'd expect to find in a typical film. For example, the division between reality and fantasy appears at first glance to be simply the low stone barrier that separates the village of Wall from whatever lies beyond its namesake. And yet there's less difference between the two than you might think, as author Gaiman makes clear in his text. He certainly wasn't writing the classic "down the rabbit hole / over the rainbow / into the wardrobe" story in which everything changes upon passage from one realm to another. Instead, he was juxtaposing the two more closely than that, and perhaps suggesting that a hundred and fifty years ago, they were more intertwined than separate. And how do you convey a message as subtle as that in a film? (In this case, I'd say they didn't.)

Similarly, the love story within the graphic novel doesn't really bloom until its final pages, when the hero finally, unquestionably understands that it's Yvaine he loves, and not Victoria. Until that point, he's rather singularly followed his original quest, which was the retrieval of the fallen star and presentation of it to the object of his desire. We, the readers, appreciate the folly of his path, both in terms of the unlikelihood of its success and the worthlessness of its achievement, but Tristan is achingly unaware of these things right up until the end. That sort of delayed gratification is out-of-step with today's movie audiences, and so, not surprisingly, the decision was made to speed along the romance and even show its consummation prior to the story's conclusion.

And there are other impediments that resulted in significant changes upon moving to film: almost the first quarter of the original story concerns the misadventures of the eventual father of the hero, delaying the central character's arrival well beyond what one would normally expect; for all of his innate goodness, Tristan just isn't the brightest bulb in the pack, and at times is as likely to stumble onto a solution as he is to divine it; and so on. In each case, what showed up on celluloid was more standard fare, losing some of the charm of the graphic novel, for those who knew it.

So as I sat in the theatre watching Stardust, the movie, play out before my eyes, I was trying not to compare it to the source material that I knew so well. Instead, I wanted to regard it as a standalone tale, and like, love or loathe it as such. Since I was in the company of two women who had never read the original, I was also taking some of my cues from how they reacted to it.

Most jarring, for me, was the "amping up" of the Captain Shakespeare character, as portrayed by Robert DeNiro. Transforming him into an overt homosexual/transvestite, while delivering lots in the way of comic relief, felt very un-Gaiman-like, as well as several times more over-the-top than just about anything else in the production. I'm not convinced that anything was added to the experience by that change, and it seemed to push the movie into silly territory, rather than being funny.

Other than DeNiro's scenery-chewing, the acting was uniformly good throughout. Michelle Pfeiffer, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for allowing herself to be made to look as ugly as she did. Charlie Cox and Claire Danes were both believable in their evolving relationship, which is obviously critical to a central romance. No one really "wowed" me among the cast, but that's OK when everyone's doing their job.

In the end, I think that Stardust's a very good movie, but not a great one. It captured a lot of the humour, adventure and compassion of Gaiman and Vess's superior work, but missed the mark as far as tightness of plot is concerned. One of the hallmarks of a Neil Gaiman story is that virtually nothing is thrown away. The most casual piece of dialogue or plot development magically ends up having some greater significance by the time you close the book for the last time, and even knowing that about him, he still catches you off guard more often than not. In the film, the places where part of his idea was retained but not all of it stood out like sore thumbs. The spell that the witch queen puts on Madame Semele, making it impossible for Semele to see the star, for example, has essentially no payoff in the film, whereas in the original story it was pivotal to saving Yvaine at one point. Simiarly, the burning of Tristan's hand provided a means for the two leads to form a stronger bond, almost none of which made it into the adaptation. And the unicorn, so important to several events in the novel, seems completely inexplicable in its existence (and lacking in closure as far as its eventual fate) in the film version. Those are just three examples among many, but they're the sorts of moments that resonate with a reader; I can't help but wonder if their absence still allowed for as magical a movie-going experience. Or, put another way, is 50 - 60% of Neil Gaiman's genius still worth seeing? I think it definitely is; it just could've been so much better.

Rating: ***

Star Gazing

During our two days at the Wizard World Comic Convention in Chicago last weekend, in addition to briefly getting to see Tricia Helfer, star of the current Battlestar Galactica TV series, we also caught a glimpse of Michael Madsen (shown here), the infamous "Mr Blond" from Reservoir Dogs. Why was big screen tough guy Madsen at a gathering mainly devoted to comic book and science fiction geekitude, you rightly ask? Apparently he's acting as consultant on a new comic series of some sort. Haven't you heard? Comics are cool right now. No, really, they are. Just ask anyone.