Green Lantern

Rating: 5 Shurikens

When I was a youngster, I used to read comic books all the time. I had the good fortune to have read most of the Marvel classics, and I had actually chosen to be a Marvel fan instead of a DC fan as I got into my teens. I couldn't afford to buy every comic that was good, and I liked the Marvel style. I did read a few of the DC classics as well, my favorites being the Justice League of America, the Teen Titans and the Flash. Green Lantern was one of the comics I read as a kid, when I was learnig to read. I admit to not having the kind of memories about Green Lantern as I did about Thor and the X-Men, but I did have some background. Green Lantern is one of the first DC characters besides Superman and Batman to get onto the big screen. The Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader have been in maybe seven movies eachand both on TV, and the Flash and Wonder Woman have been in TV shows, not counting cartoons. They couldn't have picked a better hero for the kinds of CGI animation we have these days.

This movie was way better than I expected. Way better. Ryan Reynolds played Hal Jordan, an irresponsible airplane test pilot with some incredible flying skill. Ryan Reynolds has been in a couple of Marvel comics movies, like Blade: Trinity and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He is also slated to play the character Dead Pool, another Marvel character, in a future as-yet unwritten movie. He did an outstanding job as both Hal Jordan and Green Lantern. The woman who played Carol Ferris, Hal's erstwhile girlfreind, was Blake Lively. I would give her an award for her portrayal. She was very much into the character, and when you get right down to it, it can't be that easy to take a story about a guy with a magic ring seriously. I would say she pulled it off quite nicely, and made a huge contribution to the movie as a whole.

The introduction to the movie fills in the whole origin of the Green Lantern Corps. which is a group of thousands of Green Lanterns that each protects its own area of the galaxy. They come in all sorts of species, some humanoid, and some far from humanoid. We are told how the Guardians made the base of operations, and created the energy source that powers the lanterns which charge the rings. The story shifts to a very powerful being held as a prisoner for being a great danger to the galaxy, and at the beginning he breaks free and mortally wounds the Green Lantern that captured him and put him away. As the alien Green Lantern is dying, he heads towards Earth to find his replacement.

The story goes on from there, with Hal Jordan, of course, being chosen by the ring for his particular qualities of bravery. He gets to meet other Green Lanterns, including Sinestro, played by Mark Strong. You might remember Mark Strong from Kick Ass and Sherlock Holmes, but you will hardly recognize him in the costume. Sinestro is a bit more pragmatic than the other Green Lanterns, and will fight with any weapon, even the one which is the biggest threat to the existence of the Green Lanterns. Ultimately, Sinestro will become an adversary to Hal Jordan, but that is for a sequel, I am certain. However, in this picture, he is on the side of the Good Guys. Geoffrey Rush of Pirates of the Caribbean and Michael Clarke Duncan of Planet of the Apes play the voices of two other Green Lanterns.

One of Hal's acquaintances is a genius scientist named Hector Hammond, played by Peter Saarsgard, who has a real knack for the type of character he plays. There is some history between Hector, Hal and Carol. Hector harbors some resentment, so when he gets to conduct an autopsy on alien Green Lantern and comes in contact with something residual that gives him special powers, he quickly goes to the dark side. We already suspect that his power has something to do with the malevolent being that killed the alien Green Lantern. Angela Basset plays the government scientist that brings Hector in, putting on a convincing performance. Hector happens to be the son of Senator Hammond, played by Tim Robbins. Senator Hammond is a stereotypical politician, with all of the faults politicians are expected to have. Tim Robbins has played in numerous movies, including the classic Howard the Duck, and Mission to Mars.

The story is well paced, with lots of action and special effects. All in all, it is a great movie. Some of the acting is worthy of awards, but the big awards always go to actors in movies most people don't watch. Green Lantern is a really good movie, which was a surprise to me. I would recommend it to watch more than once, and make sure you see it in the movie theater, because waiting for the video to come out will be cheating yourself. I give it 5 Shurikens for quality acting, lots of good action, and an excellent adaptation of the original story, plus fantastic special effects.

Super 8

Rating: 4 Shurikens

Super 8 is a good sci-fi movie about an Area-51-style secret military operation, and a nice fun movie about some middle-school kids in 1979, making a movie for an amateur movie competition. During the course of shooting the movie with a Super-8-millimeter film camera, a military train carrying a mysterious cargo, is derailed by a man in a pickup truck. Part of the mysterious cargo is a creature of some sort, definitely a monster, with incredible strength and intelligence. Super 8 was produced by Steven Spielberg, of Indiana Jones and E.T. fame, and by J. J. Abrams, the man behind the Lost TV series, and both Cloverfield and the recent Star Trek remake on the Big Screen.

We are introduced to Joe Lamb, the son of a local Deputy, whose mother was killed in an accident at the steel mill. His friend, Charles, is making a zombie movie, with the help of Jason and his other friends, and a girl named Alice Dainard, who Joe obviously likes. The Deputy, Jackson Lamb, has some sort of problem with the father of Alice, causing some drama within the erstwhile movie crew. Joe is played by Joel Courtney, a new actor who displays some significant talent in his role. The Deputy, Jackson Lamb, is played by Kyle Chandler, who appeared in King Kong several years ago, and also The Day the Earth Stood Still from 2008. Elle Fanning, the younger sister of Dakota Fanning, does a very nice job as Alice.

The friend, Charles, played by Riley Griffiths, also a fairly new young actor, gets the group to sneak out at night to film part of the movie at the train station near town. While they are filming, a pickup truck drives onto the tracks and drives right at the oncoming train at top speed. A spectacular derailment occurs, which is something that I would have replayed over and over if I had had a rewind button, and I might just do that when it comes out on DVD. Never mind the fact that the mass of the train at several hundred tons would barely be slowed by a pickup truck, at only about one ton of the finest Detroit steel. You couldn't get a pickup to go fast enough on train tracks to have a meaningful effect on a moving train, even head-on. And the driver would never survive that sort of an impact, except in the movies. And that is pretty much what happens here.

As the kids wander around the wreckage, they find the driver of the pickup truck unconcious, but he is able to wake up and tell them a cryptic clue about the contents of the train. The kids are then forced to flee and leave him to the huge contingent of Air Force personnel that swarms the area. This is after the strange passenger manages to escape the train by pounding its way through a steel railroad car door. The Air Force combs the area, and also the town, searching for their missing passenger. The officer in charge of the military, Nelec, played by Noah Emerich, is obviously malevolent, and is determined to capture the creature at all costs, and without telling anyone anything about what is really going on.

Noah Emerich is the only cast member that I thought had a familiar face, since he had been in The Truman Show years ago. Most of the other actors were young kids, new to the business. The acting was surprisingly good, and it was easy to get immersed in the story. There was a good amount of humor, especially the pyromaniac kid who made his own firecrackers. Nowadays, you would get jailed as a terrorist for that kind of thing. There was also some nostalgia for the Seventies evoked by the music, the furniture, and the clothing styles, as well as the cars.

Super 8 is a good movie, and good for all ages. The scary part isn't so scary that it would give kids nightmares, and the story is interesting enough for just about anyone to enjoy. It is a little predictable, though, but made in a way that it continues to entertain. It's well worth the trip to the theater to see it. I give it 4 Shurikens for a good story and decent acting, and not relying too heavily on the special effects.

Kung Fu Panda 2

Rating: 3.5 Shurikens

Jack Black's voice reprises his role as the Po, the Dragon Warrior, an unlikely Kung Fu hero. This time, he has to learn Inner Peace, not an easy thing for a panda who loves to eat. It is a good, funny movie, with good laughs, and some pretty good action for a cartoon movie. Like the first Kung Fu Panda, which was actually funnier, it relies a lot on "fat" humor. There are some joke lines which could easily have been used in the first movie, but which hadn't been thought of before it was finished.

Like many cartoon movies, the voices are not easily recognized for the actors that they belong to. Jack Black is very good at doing the cartoon voice, and is distinctive at it. Angelina Jolie does the voice of the Tiger, and other actors of major import, like Dustin Hoffman and Jackie Chan, voice other characters, but they are difficult to recognize, and sometimes seeing them in the credits as a matter of curiosity is the only way you would know them. Still, the voice characterizations are very good, especially Gary Oldman as Shen, the goose who is the adopted father of Po.

There isn't really much to say about Kung Fu Panda 2, other than it is a decent movie, and a good entertaining film in 3D, but not a good reason to go to the theater. It was the only decent choice when it opened, and I went because I love a good animated feature, but it would have been second choice during any other week. As far as kids go, it would be a great movie to take kids to see, since they tend to have lower expectations.

I give it 3.5 Shurikens for effort, and some spectacular animation, and the comedy.

X-Men: First Class

Rating: 4.5 Shurikens

Adapting comic books to the big screen has become mainstream. There is a huge pool of untapped creativity from stories as old as the 1940's. Captain America, Superman, Batman and Green Lantern were all what we used to call Golden Age comic book series. Superman and Batman have been adapted to radio, TV and the movies for decades. Only in the last 10 years or so have the other, less known, classics of comic book fandom been brought to the masses of people. Thor, Hulk, Spiderman and the Fantastic Four are all from the Silver Age of comics. Just a few weeks ago, I sat in a theater packed with people, most of whom, I am certain, never picked up a Thor comic book in their lives.

The X-Men are another Silver Age comic book classic. Created by the genius of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the early 1960's, it is the story of a certain class of superheroes called mutants, who are born with their abilities. Unlike Superman, who comes from another planet, and Green Lantern, who gets his power from a ring, mutants are human but have genetic changes which give them different and varied abilities. Iron Man and Batman don't have powers, and Spiderman gets his powers from a radioactive spider bite. Mutants are misunderstood because they usually manifest their powers during the teenage years, when hormonal changes begin to occur. Their gifts of special abilities might be called curses, as mutants are feared and often times persecuted by normal people.

X-Men: First Class is the latest in a line of box-office hits begun with The X-Men in 2001. This is the fifth movie of the X-Men, in fact. It was concieved as the X-Men Origins story of Professor Charles Xavier, the founder and mentor of the X-Men. Professor Xavier, also called Professor X, is a mutant himself, who has incredible psychic abilities. He and his friend Erik Lensherr, who becomes the villain Magneto, decide to work together seeking out mutants who are just beginning to experience their powers. They have different opinions as to how they should treat normal humans.

The movie begins where the very first X-Men movie began, with the young mutant Erik Lenscher, who would later become Magneto, being separated from his parents at the gates of a Nazi concentration camp. A Nazi scientist learns of Lenscher's ability to affect metal, and "helps" him bring his powers out. Meanwhile, a young Charles Xavier meets a young Mystique in his own house, and they become brother and sister.

Years pass, and an older Erik Lensherr is stalking Nazis in Switzerland and Venezuela, seeking the scientist who experimented on him. It turns out that the scientist is a mutant himself, Sebastian Shaw. Kevin Bacon plays Shaw, the leader of a group of criminal mutants called the Hellfire Club. Lensherr catches up with Shaw, and tries to kill him, when Xavier rescues him from drowning. This is a simplified version, only to show where they met and started to become friends. Xavier is played by James McAvoy, who was the goat-like character Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lensherr is played by Michael Fassbender who was last seen in Jonah Hex.

They meet Hank McCoy, a mutant and scientist for the CIA, who has designed the Cerebro machine, which enhances Xavier's telepathic abilities, enabling him to find other mutants wherever they are. Together, Xavier and Lensherr assemble a team of mutants, which will later become the X-Men. Hank McCoy designs devices which help the mutants of the team focus and use their unique powers. While Shaw tries to start World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Xavier and Magneto and the other X-Men go up against the Hellfire Club's own mutants.

The X-Men are comprised of Professor X, Magneto, Havok, Banshee, Beast, and Mystique, and the Hellfire Club has Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost, the Ice Queen, as well as Azazael, Riptide, and Angel. This is a little different from the original X-Men of the comics who were Cyclops, Angel, Ice Man, Beast and Marvel Girl. Banshee was originally a villain who became good. The beast in the comics did not become the blue furry form until much later. Havok was originally Cyclops' younger brother. Marvel Girl was Jean Grey, later to become Phoenix. The original Angel was male and had bird-like wings, where the movie Angel had dragonfly wings and could spit acid balls. These differences will have to be chalked up to creative license, however, and the movie is still very decent in spite of them.

Another point is one which seems to suggest that the makers of this movie were trying to create a new storyline for the X-Men than the one in the other four movies. Watching the movie does not bear this opinion all the way out. For one thing, the very beginning of X-Men: First Class is the same as the original X-Men of 2001. Secondly, the helmet that Magneto takes from Sebastian Shaw is exactly the same as the one in the other movies. Also, a scene in the movie features Hugh Jackman looking exactly like the Wolverine character which he so perfectly portrays, and a close look at his hands shows no evidence of claws. This would be in perfect harmony with the original storyline, which has him born in Civil War times, and being mostly the same age because of his regenerating abilities. Beast becomes the blue furry type that appears in the later movies, and Mystique has her own slow aging explained, as well as how she becomes on the other side in the other movies. There is another point between X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: First Class about Xavier's paralysis, but that would not be conclusive, since Professor X was able to walk at some times in the comic series, and not at other times. I submit that this is not completely a reboot, and I choose to believe it in order to maintain continuity.

One thing which was a stark error in the movie was when Mystique took the form of Sebastian Shaw to fool his followers, she is wearing the Magneto helmet, which she could not possibly have seen, so how could she know what to look like in that situation. I noticed it instantly. Shaw was in the submarine when he put it on, and was in the submarine for the duration of the battle scene where Mystique takes his form.

All in all, X-Men: First Class is a great movie, with lots of action, good character portrayals, and even though there is an abundance of mutants in this story, it manages to give everyone a part to play without seeming cluttered. The story is easy to follow, yet artfully woven into actual historical events. I give it 4.5 Shurikens, just because of the artistic license taken with the original characters of the comic book series. Otherwise, it is a must-see, you will not regret it.