I first encountered Ghost Rider back in the early 90’s at, oh, age 8 or 9. What drew me to the character was pretty much what draws everyone to the character, at least at first. Ghost Rider looks really, really cool. Flaming motorcycles, blazing skulls, black leather, chains…visually, Ghost Rider is like an awesomeness overload. So, of course, Ghost Rider on the big screen, in live action, is a sight to behold. Visually-speaking, that is. As we all know, a movie can’t survive on visuals alone, and while I still enjoyed the heck out of this flick, I won’t deny it had some troubles.
At a young age, stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) sold his soul to Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) to save the life of his ailing father. Mephistopheles betrayed him and vowed to one day return to take what is his. Years later, Johnny Blaze has become America’s top stunt cyclist, yet he feels something is missing. His old flame, Roxanne Simpson (Eva Mendez), walks back into his life and Johnny suddenly believes he has gotten his second chance. Not quite. Someone else has come back into his life, Mephistopheles, who forces Johnny to fulfill his end of the bargain. Johnny is suddenly and painfully transformed into the skull-faced Spirit of Vengeance: Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is charged with the task of hunting down and destroying Mephistopheles’ rebel son, Blackheart, and his trio of elemental demons. At stake are the souls of a thousand evil men, enough to tip the balance of power. Johnny is joined by the Caretaker (Sam Elliot), a mysterious guide who knows more than he lets on.
Screen writer and Director Mark Steven Johnson deserves some serious credit; he really knows his stuff when it comes to Ghost Rider. This movie manages to pack in nods and elements from just about every era of the Marvel comic, fusing the different versions of the character into a sort of hybrid “Ultimate Ghost Rider” (ironically, Ghost Rider has yet to appear in Marvel’s “Ultimate” line of comics). You’ve got Johnny Blaze, the 70’s Ghost Rider, who dresses like Danny Ketch, the 90’s Ghost Rider, with references to Carter Slade, the Western Ghost Rider who predated them both (though, in the comic continuity, had nothing to do with the Ghost Rider curse). There are lots more additions, including Danny’s classic “Penance Stare” and Johnny’s Hellfire shotgun which he used during the “Blaze” comic series in the 90’s (when he went through that brief cyborg phase). It’s like a total Ghost Rider orgasm.
Yet, despite working with so many decades worth of material, Johnson crafted a very strong script which gets just about everything right. Some of the more convoluted aspects of the Ghost Rider are ignored (though not contradicted), such as Noble Cale and Zarathos. But this is a 90 minute movie, so some content shearing is all-together expected. Oddly, they choose to refer to Ghost Rider’s creator as “Mephistopheles” rather than “Mephisto” (his name from the comics), but I just assume that choice was made because the former name is more well-known amongst the general public.
The script is strong and the story and characters stay true to their roots…so what could possibly be wrong with this film? Unfortunately, the problem lies with most of the cast. Nicholas Cage wouldn’t have been my first choice for the character, though he isn’t so awful as Johnny as he is unremarkable. He interjects moments of his trademarked weird sense of humor, which lightens things up (as cool as Ghost Rider is, he’s not one to take seriously) but simultaneously takes you out of the experience because all you can think is “Wow, that’s vintage Nicholas Cage”. Eva Mendez is also a rather weak link, mostly because she’s a pretty weak actress. It’s almost as if Johnson knew this and tries to make up for her flat, amateurish acting with lots of plunging necklines and booty shots. It helps but…not a whole lot. Wes Bentley also delivers an underwhelming performance as Blackheart, delivering some cheesy dialogue a bit too poorly for it to even have comedic value.
So, “great script, bad acting”. What is there left to tip the scales? The aforementioned “Holy crap, Ghost Rider looks awesome!” factor comes into play right about here. While the CGI isn’t up to Lord of the Rings standards, I found it to be more than acceptable. Every scene with Ghost Rider is joyous, thanks not only to how cool he looks but to his downright lunatic personality. Ghost Rider cackles like a madman with an extremely sinister edge to him. This isn’t the friendly Ghost Rider from the 70’s, this guy is nuts. The bits where he blazes down the street in his flaming chopper, melting parking meters and igniting the gas tanks of parked cars is just absolute eye candy. Johnny Cage may come across as a bit weak, but Ghost Rider has enough personality for the both of them.
I suppose the only weak point of the visuals stem from the only weak point of the script: no seriously balls-to-the-wall fight sequences. The bits where Ghost Rider drives up skyscrapers and sets fire to everything in sight are plenty adrenaline-pumping, but the villains in the movie leave a bit to be desired. The Elemental Demons fair very poorly against Ghost Rider, being seriously out-matched, so none of them provide any real sport. There’s Blackheart, but most of that final battle is between him and Johnny Blaze.
Still, there’s always the sequel and the possibility of some more worthy villains, such as Vengeance. And I do so hope they make about a million of these, just so long as the Johnny Blaze-to-Ghost Rider ratio leans decidedly more in the direction of Ghost Rider.
This is a great popcorn flick and an almost all-around worthy adaptation of the comic.
Grade: B
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Ask anybody who has seen all three live action Ninja Turtles movies, and I can almost guarantee that most of them (if not *all* of them) will say they hated the third one. Now, I’m not gonna go and say that it isn’t the worst installment in the series, or that it’s an overlooked gem, or anything like that. I will say, though, that it does have a few redeeming factors and that it’s really only slightly worse than TMNT II.
While at a flea market, April O’Neil happens upon a strange scepter of Japanese origin. She brings it to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michealangelo) as a gift, but accidentally activates it, warping her back in time to feudal Japan. She changes places with Prince Kenshin, the son of Lord Norinaga, a power-hungry shogun waging war against the people of his land. The TMNT waste no time in heading back after their friend, switching places with four of Norinaga’s samurai elite. It seems that Norinaga is being manipulated by the treacherous Englishman, Walker, who wants to trade him guns and cannons for his vast wealth of gold, silver and silk. After rescuing April, the TMNT help the oppressed people under Norinaga’s rule fight back.
There are a lot of reasons why people hate this movie. The first one that springs to mind is the absence of Jim Henson Studios in regards to the special effects. The suits for the TMNT in this film are provided by the All Effects Group and…well…they pretty much suck. Then there’s the jokes in the dialogue; they’re not funny. At all. The writers just slapped in as many random pop culture references as they could manage and assumed that would equal hilarity. I’m afraid that is not the case. Then there’s also the fact that a few voice actors have been changed, particularly Splinter, who is no longer voiced by Kevin Clash. The new voices are noticeably off and, in Splinter’s case, noticeably awful.
There are a few things this movie gets slammed for that I don’t agree with, though. Some people tend to call this film “cheap”, which just isn’t the case. Now, the suit design for the Turtles and the puppetry for Splinter is a terrible down-grade, I will not argue that. However, the overall scope of the film is considerably larger than what was seen in the previous two movies. In the previous two films, the TMNT simply fought villainous thug ninjas and retarded mutants, but this time around they’re traveling through time, battling samurai warriors and freeing a village of oppressed people from an evil shogun and a vile limey bastard. The set design for Norinaga’s castle as well as the numerous samurai warriors on horseback and what-not is anything *but* “cheap”.
Another complaint I hear quite often is “no Shredder”. Well, if you’ve ever read the TMNT comics, you’ll know that the Shredder just isn’t that important of a character. He was in about five or six issues, total, and that’s counting clones (if you only count the original Shredder, then he was only in one issue). The comic is still going today, albeit, on its fourth volume, and is proof-enough that you don’t need the Shredder to have a good Ninja Turtles story.
Is the story for TMNT III any good? It had promise, yes, but the execution fell far from the mark, I’m afraid. There are plenty of good TMNT time travel stories. I mean for example, the time scepter seen in this film is very loosely inspired by the time scepter used by Lord Simultaneous and Renet from the Mirage comics. Perhaps if they’d thrown in Savanti Romero and a few more Mirage-inspired aspects this might have turned out a bit better. As it stands, TMNT III is just kind of…boring.
I will congratulate them on bringing back Elias Koteas as Casey Jones, who co-starred in the first live action film, but was noticeably absent from Secret of the Ooze. Casey-himself doesn’t get to do any fighting, unfortunately, and simply baby-sits the time-displaced samurai. However, Koteas also plays a character named Whit, presumably one of Casey’s ancestors, who gets his fair share of action during the feudal Japan portions of the film. I was a bit disappointed that Casey-proper didn’t get to do any fighting, but I was just happy to see him again. Koteas hadn’t lost his touch with the character, either.
While TMNT II was more kid-oriented, TMNT III is a bit more risk-taking. The villain dies at the end, the TMNT are actually allowed to use their weapons again and there’s even some cursing here and there. It’s not as mature as the original film, but a step upward from part II.
Is TMNT III a bad movie? Yeah, it really is. There are a few things about it worth seeing, but for the most part, I wouldn’t recommend it. The story is completely stand-alone, like an episode of the cartoon, so if you just ignore it you aren’t missing anything.
Grade: D
Men in Black (1997)
I was immediately drawn to this film when it came out in 1997; it was like Ghostbusters but with aliens. It sure as hell beat that year’s extraterrestrial alternative, Contact. Ugh. Men in Black, based on the Malibu comic book series, takes a concept you’d think would be rather simple, an organization that polices alien activity, and really works an intriguing story out of it.
The Men in Black are a top secret non-Government organization which monitors and polices alien activity on planet Earth. Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is a founding member, and after the retirement of his long-time partner, Agent D, is in the market for a replacement. He finds promise in a rough-around-the-edges NYPD detective (Will Smith) and hires him on. Now known as “Agent J”, the newbie must learn the ropes of his new life and employment…and he’s got to learn them fast. It would appear that an alien “bug” (Vincent D’Onofrio) has come to Earth in search of “the galaxy”. With it he can conquer his enemies as well as the planet.
What makes Men in Black so different is that it avoids the whole “Government” angle one would expect from a movie about alien cover-ups. The thought of an organization even more top-secret than the Government is refreshing and keeps the scope from being too limited or predictable. As the movie goes on they divulge bits and pieces of the “MIB’s” history, such as how they can fund their operations, how they first began policing aliens and how they manage to get away with what they do without anybody noticing. It adds a sense of “realism” to the works, in that if an alien-policing organization *did* exist it could conceivably function in this manner.
Men in Black is also a fun spin on the tired “buddy cop” genre. K is the stoic and by-the-books seasoned veteran, while J is the “I play by my own rules” loose cannon stereotype. Yet, they play off one another in a way that’s genuinely hilarious. The presence of sci-fi material and over-the-top gadgets like the “LTD” or the Noisy Cricket injects some fresh ideas into what would normally be a stale formula.
The special effects are both good and bad. The 1997-era CGI isn’t exactly astounding, though at the time, it was considered amazing. Thankfully, they blend the CGI with traditional effects like props and costumes, so things don’t feel quite so fake. Mikey, for instance, works pretty well, transitioning from a guy in a costume to a CGI beast rather smoothly. One thing they pull off which I absolutely love is the manner in which the aliens disguise themselves as humans. Some simply morph their bodies, while others wear a variety of costumes or even the skin of other human beings. Tiny aliens pilot full-sized human “mechs” while some go the “ghetto” route and wrap themselves in a blanket and simply stick a puppet-head out the top. It’s very clever and funny.
The chief villain, Edgar, is realized rather well. For the bulk of the film, he looks like a walking corpse with skin that doesn’t fit quite right (as is the intent) and Vincent D’Onofrio pulls it off extremely well. The final battle, where he morphs into the giant “bug”, is a bit too heavy on the primitive CGI, but makes for some really funny moments and a very solid ending.
Men in Black eventually spawned a totally kickass animated series (which *needs* a DVD release) as well as a mediocre sequel that you should probably avoid. I’ve never read the original comics, so I can’t tell you how accurate of an adaptation this film is, but on its own merits it is very fun and memorable.
Grade: B
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
There seems to be something about Batman Beyond that tends to rub people the wrong way. From what I’ve seen, fans either love it or hate. The haters typically dislike the show for having a new Batman as well as giving Bruce Wayne an “ending”. Personally, I enjoyed Batman Beyond for what it was. It took a while to grow on me but eventually the show came into its own and I began to appreciate Terry McGinnis as the new Batman. The series lasted for three seasons, with this film acting as the “big finish”. Not unusual, as Batman the Animated Series ended with the film Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, while the New Batman Adventures ended with the film Mystery of the Batwoman.
It’s the future; Bruce Wayne is an elderly old man and his teenage protégé, Terry McGinnis, has taken up the mantle of Batman. A group of street punks calling themselves the Jokers have begun swiping high tech equipment, a marked step-up from their usual petty theft and mindless destruction. As it would turn out, they’re all under the guidance of the real Joker, back from the dead after decades. To make matters worse, the Joker knows too much, including Batman’s secret identity. A mystery unfolds leading to the identity of the resurrected Joker as well as what exactly went down on the night he died.
This film doesn’t follow-up many plotlines from the television series, making the story very accessible to newcomers. There are a few elements fans will have better appreciation of, such as the gang of Jokers or the concept of “splicing”. There’s one very painful moment in the film where Terry delivers a dreadful exposition explaining his origin to Bruce Wayne (for the benefit of the audience who came late to the party) and it couldn’t sound more forced or ridiculous. Aside from that little bit, this is the best material Batman Beyond has to offer.
Now, there are two versions of this film: the edited version and the uncut version. There are numerous small changes between the two; the edited version cuts out lots of violence including punches, knife stabs and blood-red paint. It also cuts out suggestive material, like a scene where Batgirl interrogates two hookers as to the wherabouts of Robin. However, there is one *major* difference between the two versions: the death of the Joker. The edited version plays it off in a cartoonish manner and makes it rather comical. The uncut version is very dark and considerably more violent. For my money’s worth, I’d go for the uncut version, as its all-around superior.
The story goes back and forth between the “present day” Batman stuff and the future scenes. My favorite part of the movie happens to be the flashback sequence containing the death of the Joker. It brings back the whole “detective” element of Batman and really gives Terry a chance to earn his stripes as the Caped Crusader. The future Joker’s identity remains uncertain through most of the film, with a few red herrings included to throw the audience (and the cast) off track. It’s done extremely well, and the revelation of the Joker’s identity is one of the strongest points in the film.
The movie is probably the most violent the DCAU (DC Animated Universe) has ever gotten. I already mentioned the death of the Joker, but this film also includes scenes of child torture, one of the Jokers biting it, Bruce Wayne getting roughed up real bad and a satellite laser annihilating dozens of innocent people. They don’t pull their punches with this film (at least, not in the uncut version).
The animation is provided by TMS (Tokyo Movie Shinsha) and it’s some of their best. The fight scenes are very fluid and well-choreographed, particularly the opening sequence where Batman fights the Jokers at the tech facility. And, of course, the explosions look terrific.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker may not be for everyone since it isn’t the “classic” interpretation of the Dark Knight everyone recognizes. Still, it has one of the strongest stories from anything produced for the DCAU as well as some of the most impressive animation. Being a fan of Batman Beyond, I give this film a B.
Grade: B
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
What’s the greatest Batman movie ever made? Well, it isn’t Adam West’s Batman, it isn’t Tim Burton’s Batman and it isn’t Batman Begins. At least, not to me. In my personal opinion, the greatest Batman movie ever made is Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. This film was brought to us by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, the creators of Batman the Animated Series, which is arguably the best interpretation of the Dark Knight out there. Mask of the Phantasm gets to the core of the character, delving into what makes Batman tick, aiming for character depth over action sequences.
A mysterious, ghostly figure calling itself “the Phantasm” is stalking Gotham’s underground, brutally murdering crime lords and mob bosses. Batman (Kevin Conroy) gets right on the case, but matters are complicated once the Gotham PD mistakes the Phantasm for the Caped Crusader and put an APB out on the hero. Bruce Wayne’s life isn’t getting any easier, either, as a long lost love, Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany) comes back into his life. Bruce recalls asking her to marry him shortly before beginning his solitary career as a crime-fighter and considers giving up the superhero gig to be with her. Meanwhile, mob kingpin Salvatore Valestra (Abe Vigoda) seeks out protection from Batman’s number one foe, the Joker (Mark Hamill), which invites a whole new level of insanity and danger into the plot.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is told through multiple flashbacks which delve into the origin of Batman much deeper than most film adaptations (save for possibly Batman Begins). These flashbacks are dark and moody, even more so than most Batman fiction, and show Bruce’s struggle with the death of his parents and even his first night on the job, sans-Batman get-up. The flashbacks illustrate everything which eventually lead him to become a secluded loner. It can be quite depressing, as this film goes out of its way to inform the audience that the good guys don’t always get a happy ending.
With this being a feature film, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini were given license to be far more violent and gruesome than even in their award-winning television series. The Phantasm and the Joker murder quite a number of people, and in some very nasty ways. Due to the limitations of animated television story-telling in the early 90’s, the Joker wasn’t always permitted to be portrayed as the psycho killer he really is. This film goes all the way, showing just how terrifying the Clown Prince of Crime can be. Additionally, punches and bullets are allowed to actually hurt people in this movie. Both Batman and the Joker take some serious blows, with the Joker loosing quite a number of teeth.
One thing that really stood out to me with this film was the operatic version of Danny Elfman’s classic Batman theme. It’s truly gorgeous-sounding. As far as the animation goes, it’s very fluid and detailed (considering Bruce Timm’s art style) and certainly looks like it was produced on a feature film budget. It’s not the *best* Batman animation ever produced, as Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker actually have superior animation, but it is very pleasing to the eye.
In my book, this is the quintessential Batman film. It has everything one would need; the origin of Batman presented in a deep, sophisticated manner, a story that never insults the intelligence of the audience, and when necessary, a terrific spectacle of action.
Grade: A