It is M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie. Some of his movies have been epically great. Some of them have been horrendous. You are never sure what you are going to get.
His new film has its moments, but felt as if it collapsed the longer it went and seemed to never end. Actually, it felt like it was ready to end several times.
A fire fighter named Cooper (Josh Hartnett) was attending a concert from the hot singer Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) with his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue), who was a huge Lady Raven fan. While at the concert, Cooper sees what seemed to be an excessive police presence. He discovered that the entire concert was a trap for a serial killer named The Butcher, who FBI agents had decided that their tip that the Butcher was attending this concert was good intel.
It turned out that Cooper, the good father and friendly man, was, in actuality, the Butcher and he spent the next part of the film trying to find a way out of the trap.
The first hour of the movie was actually not too bad. I did like the premise of the film and I liked how we were seeing this from the POV of Cooper. He was the main protagonist and the film seemed to want the audience to cheer for him to get away from the FBI despite the fact that he was a vicious serial killer.
I could not tell whether this was a good performance from Hartnett or if it were terrible. There were moments that it felt like Hartnett was absolutely delivering horrendous dialogue, but I think that maybe he was doing this to show that this guy struggled with feelings and that he was more of a sociopath. I am choosing to believe that these were acting choices by Hartnett as a way to show more about this character.
However, the dialogue was not very good. It felt like a typical Shyamalan film where the dialogue sounds as if it is not spoken by real people.
Lady Raven was shown performing multiple songs during this concert, and we get nearly the entire songs. It turned out that Lady Raven was M. Night’s daughter Saleka, who wrote, recorded and performed these songs on her own. It felt like a good chunk of this movie was M. Night trying to help out his daughter’s music career. I thought she was fine, and her acting, when she became a more integral figure in the plot, was, at best, okay.
A major problem with the film is that some of the things that happen are so improbable and implausible that it was hard to accept. And it only got worse as the film continued. The second half of the movie saw things happen that you really had to stretch credibility to believe.
Again, avoiding spoilers, I absolutely hated the events at the very end of the movie. Without going into anything specifics, people just do not act this way and the choices that were made are just ridiculous.
Trap was too long and it dragged on. It should have been 15-20 minutes shorter. Josh Hartnett was strong and, if he did make those specific choices during the first part of the film, then his performance certainly kept this messy film afloat. I thought this premise had some promise but it was mostly unfulfilled.
This movie is based on a children’s book by Crockett Johnson from 1955. I had not heard of this book before, though the person who can draw things into existence is not a concept that I had not seen before.
This version starred Zachary Levi as Harold, who lived in a world of fiction, with his friends Moose (Lil Rey Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds). A narrator (Alfred Molina) told the story of Harold and his adventures with the magic crayon.
Then, one day, the narrator no longer spoke and Harold and his friends did not know what to do. So Harold decided to use the crayon to go to the “real world” and find the “old man” once and for all. Moose and porcupine decide to follow him.
Of course, once they are there, there is the obligatory fish-out-of-water story for the characters, though it seemed as if sometimes they understood the world’s items or culture when needed.
Zachary Levi played Harold in much the same way he played Shazam, with a childlike wonder, only with the volume turned way up. At first, he seemed charming, but it did wear thin after a while.
The first part of this film was fun and did have some cute moments. I found my attention wavering as the film went on. It was just an hour and a half length of the film, but it did feel longer than that. There were plenty of things that happened that were pretty difficult to accept. I do not just mean the magical crayon thing, but some of the other things that happened.
Without giving any spoilers, I really disliked the finale of the movie as it seemed to take the story and amped it up in a manner in which the film was not taking it. The action battle at the end just did not feel as if it fit in this movie.
Still, there were some sweet moments and I liked the pairing of Zachary Levi and the little kid who played Mel, named Benjamin Bottani. Again, I think this is more of a little kid movie than for me, and in that manner, it works.
I finished up the remaining five episodes of the new animated Amazon Prime series, Batman: Caped Crusader, and don’t listen to the angry mob of online haters, this was great.
You get a few race and gender swaps and people get angry. That is sad. These 10 episodes are still really great no matter how ‘woke’ you claim it is.
We get several villains that we do not usually get in the first stretch of Batman. There was no Riddler. No Joker (until the very final scene). No Killer Croc. No Bane. No Scarecrow.
Instead, we got Gentleman Ghost and a couple of characters who I did not recognize. One was Onomatopoeia and the other was Wednesday Adams. Um… actually, it was a character named Nocturne, who I had never heard of before, but she sure looked like Wednesday Adams.
Then the season long running storyline with Harvey Dent led to the acid-in-the-face origin of Two-Face, but the end of the two episode season finale led to a surprising and tragic end for Harvey Dent. I liked the way that storyline wrapped up. It was more than just what we usually expect from a Two-Face story.
Marc Bernardin wrote the Gentleman Ghost episode. Bernardin who co-hosts the podcast Fatman Beyond with Kevin Smith has done a lot of television writing over the years, including animation. The Gentleman Ghost episode was excellent and one of the better ones of the season.
While this does not reach the level of Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Caped Crusader was a lot of fun and seemed to get better with each episode. I look forward to seeing the next season.
I jumped into the new season of Batman: Caped Crusader after starting with episode one last night. This morning I went through the first half of the new season on Amazon Prime. So far, I have liked this more with every episode.
Batman is well done. He feels as if he is new to the world of crime fighting and the responses to him from the Gotham PD and the people of the city reflect that. The only nitpick I have on the character of the Batman is when he calls Alfred, “Pennyworth.” I know that is his last name, but it feels too distant for Batman to call his longtime butler and mentor by his surname. That’s a minor gripe, but I do notice it every time he has said it so far.
The show has taken its own takes on Batman’s rogue’s gallery so far, making some interesting changes. Of course, the female Penguin must have shaken some tailfeathers of the internet, as did the changing of skin color for Jim and Barbara Gordon). Neither of those changes meant anything to me as none of those changes made any real differences to the characters.
Other villains used in episodes two-five included:
Clayface. He was a top notch actor whose face prevented him from getting the roles he wanted and he underwent a experimental treatment which turned his skin into the malleable skin we know. I will admit not knowing as much about Clayface as some of the other Bat-villains, but I did like the use of the actor in the role. It made sense to me.
Catwoman. Selina Kyle felt as if she were the least adjusted villain of the series so far. She was a down-on-her-luck high society woman who took to crime to make her money. Her father had been convicted of some kind of tax evasion leaving her penniless. The Batman-Catwoman chemistry was still there and Selina’s outfit was very comic accurate.
Firebug. Another character that I do not know as well as some other Bat-villains, and he was used as bait by Bullock and Flass, both crooked cops, to try and capture the Batman. Bullock shooting Firebug who then fell to his death out the window to keep Firebug from talking really set the crooked cop up as one of the big bads of the series.
Harley Quinn. Harley was really adjusted quite a bit, taking her origin with the Joker out of the picture and playing her as a therapist who was brainwashing her patients into doing her bidding. Her bidding all had a positive outcome, like having people donate to charity or so on. She was not the crazy Harley that we have been used to over the years. She id definitely different than the Harley Quinn on the HBO Max series or in the DC movies. That is not a bad thing. I liked the new look at this character, but she did do the old “falling to her death” trope that we have seen in so many Disney movies. No way Harley is dead.
One of my favorite scenes was in the Harley Quinn episode as we saw one of her patients in the road dressed up like King Tut. King Tut was a villain on the Batman TV show from the sixties played by Victor Buono. This animated version was not a villain, but a victim of Harley Quinn but it was still cool to see him.
Interestingly enough, there has been no sign of the Joker so far in the series. I am curious to see if that will continue as the show focuses in on other Bat-villains. Batman certainly has the number of villains to make this work.
A brand new Batman animated series dropped its ten episode season one on Amazon Prime today, and I was able to watch episode one, “In Treacherous Waters,” to kick off the new show.
This first episode, which featured the new Penguin, a female named Oswalda Cobblepot, gender-switched for the animated program. She is voiced by Minnie Driver.
The new series definitely has the same flavor of the original Batman: The Animated Series, one of the greatest cartoons of all-time. Bruce Timm is back with an involvement in this new series, so that tone similarity makes sense.
Hamish Linklater is the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne and the style of the voice is clearly in honor of the late great, EYG Hall of Famer, Kevin Conroy. Diedrich Bader, who has done a ton of voice over acting, is Harvey Dent, Eric Morgan Stuart is Commissioner Gordon, Krystal Joy Brown is Barbara Gordon, and Jason Watkins was Alfred Pennyworth. There are several other voices to come in the remainder of the episodes.
The style on this series again reflects the original series and looks really cool. However, the story itself was, at best, okay. I did like the first episode, but that is all I have seen so far and I would say that the level of animated TV shows from this past year (X-Men ’97, What If…? etc.) rates much higher than this so far. Of course, I have only seen one episode so far and I will definitely be checking out the remaining 9 episodes of this first season as soon as I can.
Of course, the gender-swapped Penguin will probably be an issue for some, but that does not bother me in the slightest. Minnie Driver is a talented actor and works well for the character. I am sure there will be voices out there who are angry at this change who will scream to the heavens about the impropriety of making Oswald Cobblepot a female. I am sorry for your pain.
We have another week of new comic releases, along with some back issues to look at here at EYG Comic Cavalcade. The Blood Hunt is coming to a close so there will be fewer vampires running around the Marvel Universe. This series was decent for a summer saga, but the major step with Dr. Doom really sets the world of Marvel in some challenging situations. I guess Doom is messing with the MCU now too, with the face of Robert Downey Jr.
I just received my copies of two books that I had supported via a Kickstarter campaign last year. As i was messing around at Kickstarter, I came across a project that I had funded last year, but had never actually done the final approval. I clicked on it, and everything went through. So today, I received the reward in the mail. It was issue 1 and 2 of Painkiller Jane: Beautiful Killers, signed by Jimmy Palmiotti. It was a cool surprise after such a long time.
I picked up a bunch of Eisner nominated graphic novels this week too. I actually had an order of four from Amazon that had not been delivered. On Saturday, after several late days and Prime indicating that the order may be lost, I re-ordered the books. Of course, then Monday, the missing package showed up. I was able to cancel the re-order before it was shipped so I did not have to deal with sending anything back. The standout book I go here was called A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll. There was also a multiple time Eisner winner, Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki.
Just a couple of week before I have to go back to school. We’ll see how that affects the time available for the Comic Cavalcade.
Books this week:
Saga #67. Written by Brian K. Vaughn and art by Fiona Staples. After a long break, Saga is back once again! It has not seemed as long for me as I just recently discovered the book and just got #66 recently so it felt as if it was not as long of a break. It is great to get back into this world with these characters that have been so awesome over the last sixty-six issues. I hope this can maintain its release schedule so I have Saga to look forward to every month for the extended future.
Amazing Spider-Man #54. Written by Zeb Wells and drawn by Ed McGuinness. McGuinness, Mark Farmer and Marcio Mentz did the cover art. The final showdown between Norman Osborn and Peter Parker takes place as the evil Goblin sins bounced back and forth between them. Zeb Wells has one more story arc to go before ending his run with ASM so we’ll see where that takes us.
Ms. Marvel Annual #1. Written by Iman Vellani & Sabir Pirzada with art by Giada Belviso. Salvador Larroca & Guru-eFX did the cover art. The Infinity Watch story continued in this issue with Ms. Marvel coming across the possessor of the Soul Gem, Multitude, a young robot. There is also the next part of the Death Stone Saga, by Derek Landy & Sara Pichelli. I have liked this mini-saga at the end of these annuals. We’ll see where it takes us next.
Immortal Thor #13. “The Vengeance of the Gods“. Written by Al Ewing and drawn by Jan Bazaldua. Alex Ross did the cover art (silver medalist). Thor meets up with Hercules and the pair go searching for the Goddess of Night, Nyx. I have to say though, I saw Hercules ask Thor if he knew about Nyx, and I thought, jokingly, that that was the new X-book with Ms. Marvel. Ha ha. I loved the interaction between The King of Asgard and the Prince of Power.
Blood Hunt #5. Written by Jed MacKay and illustrated by Pepe Larraz. Cover art was by Larraz & Marte Gracia. The big crossover comes to a close as the heroes are able to break through the darkness to bring forth the light… well, did I say the heroes? Maybe not all of them were heroes… and I am not referring to Dracula. We get a new Sorcerer Supreme here… and he is Dr. Doom. Bad things ahead in the Marvel Universe.
X-Force #1. “Where Monsters Dwell.” Written by Geoffrey Thorne and art by Marcus To. Stephen Segovia and Bryan Valenza did the cover art. A new X-Force is back, with Forge pulling together several other team members whose only caveat to joining was “No Deadpool!” Well, there was “some” Deadpool.
Fantastic Four #22. “Safe Once More” Written by Ryan North and art by Ivan Fiorelli. Cover art was by Alex Ross. I have been a big fan of Ryan North’s work on FF and this is one more banger. Especially the scenes with Reed and Alicia in New York, struggling to save as many people from the vampires as they could. I had never seen Reed stretched so much that he was tearing. Ugh. Alicia stood out in this issue with her ability to keep Reed focused on what they needed to do. This was one of the better Blood Hunt crossover issues of the run.
Ultimate Spider-Man #7. Written by Jonathan Hickman and art by Marco Checchetto. Checchetto & Matthew Wilson was the cover artist. Look at who is here. It is Otto Octavius. He is working with Osborn to discover the limits of their Stark suits. This all leads to the appearance of Iron Man at the end.
What If…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine#1. “Old Duck Donald.” Written by Luca Barbieri and art by Giada Perissinotto. Variant cover art was done by Peach Momoko (Gold Medalist). Yes, Donald Duck is Wolverine. Mickey Mouse is Hawkeye. Goofy is Grey Hulk. Pluto is Colossus. There is a bunch of What If fun with Disney and Marvel’s big mash-up.
Drawing Blood #4. Script by David Avallone and artwork by Ben Bishop. Kevin Eastman did the cover art. With trouble circling, Books has a place where everything is at an even higher elevation… a comic convention! With the SDCC just finishing the timing of this issue was spot on, and I found this perhaps the best, most interesting issue of Drawing Blood so far.
Black Widow: Venomous #1. Written by Erica Schultz and art by Luciano Vecchio. Leirix did the cover art. This issue dives deep into the partnership between Natasha and her new Symbiote. Natasha decided that her symbiote required the training that she went through in the Red Room in order for their pairing to work out. She asked for some help from her friends. I do think there are too many symbiotes running around the Marvel Universe, but this one with Black Widow has some possibility.
Sam and Twitch Case Files #5. Script by Todd McFarlane (co-plotted with Jon Goff) and art by Szymon Kudranski. Mirko Colak and Javi Fernandez did the cover art. The case that Twitch has been working on took a nasty twist, and Twitch is going to find himself in some serious trouble. I was shocked by the way this turned in the issue. I had to go back and read through it again to make sure what I thought happened actually happened. This has been a really solid Spawn universe series with no sign of Spawn. I love that.
Spider-Man: Shadow of the Green Goblin #4. Written by J.M. DeMatteis and art by Michael Sta. Maria. Cover art was done by Paulo Siqueira & Rachelle Rosenberg (Bronze medalist). This flashback series ended with Spidey facing down the Proto-Goblin and Gwen Stacy’s mother’s death.
The Department of Truth #24. Written by James Tynion IV and art and cover art by Martin Simmonds. The lead up to the Kennedy assassination continues as we see how things started to pull Lee into the world of the Department. This is a very tight story that requires every bit of attention and it is so worth it. I love that the Department of Truth is back on the comic stands after a long hiatus.
X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #4. Written by Steve Foxe and penciled by Netho Diaz. Dotun Akande did the cover art. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! My prediction last time came true this time as Doug becomes the heir apparent to Apocalypse with a brand new name… Revelation. I like the redesign of the character and I am excited to see where Doug Ramsey takes us from here.
Ghostlore #12. Written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Leomacs. Cover art by Reiko Murakami & Leomacs. This series wraps up with a dramatic final battle between the preacher and his daughter Harmony and Shane. It has a very powerful ending to this story.
Other books this week: Captain Marvel #10, Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt #3, Judgment Day #3 (even though I still swear Judgment Day #1 does not exist), The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #11, Grimm #19, Nights #9, and House of Slaughter #25.
It was Previews day at Comic World today so I am back with some of the upcoming books that spoke to me. As a trendsetter, I want to be able to share with you some of the books I found as I scoured the pages of Previews. There was a series of books that felt Halloween specific.
I did not include any Marvel books last issue so I wanted to make sure I made up for that this time. One of my personal favorite X-Men character is getting her own series. Storm #1 features Ororo Munroe in her major new role as an Avenger. I love Storm and it makes me happy to see her in her own ongoing series.
An Image Comic series debuts with Hyde Street #1. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis are the creative team behind this new title from the Ghost Machine imprint. Labeled as character-centered-horror, Hyde Street sounds like a street that you could find yourself on from any city or town. I do like a good horror comic and I am intrigued by what this book will be.
Dynamite has not been a company that I have purchased many books, but Space Ghost may be changing that idea as we get a new book based on the movie The Terminator. Declan Shalvey is the writer of The Terminator #1 and Luke Sparrow is doing the art. The iconic character could have a lot of great fun with this idea.
There is a one-shot from Zenescope Entertainment that I was so excited for. It was a one-shot featuring the Bunnyman, from Man Goat and the Bunnyman, one of my favorite duos. This book is titled The Bunnyman’s Furry Nightmare, and you can give me as much Bunnyman as possible!
There is another one-shot advertised in this Previews that was really interesting for me. Archie Comics released a book written by Cullen Bunn called The Nine Lives of Salem. Salem is a familiar for a family of witches. Books featuring cats and other animals are fairly hot right now and this looks to be a great.
Dark Horse has several interesting books this issue. There is a futuristic book called FML that i am not sure I am going to buy. It is one of those apocalyptic tales that I am not a huge fan of typically. I have considered looking at #1 of this issue to see what I thin of it. But the other ones available are Living Hell #1, the story of a demon named Jerome Jameel who escaped Hell and began a new life with his daughter (A family tale of Hell? I’m in) and You Never Heard of Me #1, showing a character with the power to touch someone and see the best and worst moment of that person’s life.
DSTLRY is a company to keep an eye on because there are some really great books coming out from them (although I do believe that they may be struggling with releasing things on time). This Previews had two books from DSTLRY that stood out: Come and Find Me: An Autumnal Offering #1, a one-shot horror anthology for Halloween, and Through Red Windows #1, from creators Ram and Joelle Jones.
When I first went through the Previews, I did not think that there was much new worth mentioning, but as I was writing down the lists, I realized that there were many more than I thought, as there were some on my list that I did not write about here. The fact that I want to let you know what books you should keep an eye out for. The one-shots seemed to be a plenty here.
Here we are for the EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week. Three Marvel Comics this week, one variant and one of, probably, the artist with the most medals this year so far.
Bronze Medalist
Spider-Man: Shadow of the Green Goblin #4
Cover Art by Paulo Siqueira & Rachelle Rosenberg
I do like white space. I also love the way the title is broken as Spidey and Proto-Goblin are falling down the cover.
Silver Medalist
The Immortal Thor #13
Cover art by Alex Ross
Alex Ross has been the most awarded medalist so far in 2024. This one is just a lot of fun with Thor and Hercules in an arm wrestling contest that does not seem to be too interesting for Thor.
Gold Medalist
What If Donald Duck Became Wolverine #1
Variant cover
Cover art by Peach Momoko
2024 Eisner Award winner Peach Momoko is awesome with the covers and this Donald/Wolverine mash up is so cute. It’s the standout cover of the new Disney/Marvel What If series.
I finally got around to finishing the podcast that I started listening to that inspired much of my own Detective Daniel Prophet Podcast. It is entitled “Who is No/One?” and it follows the story from a comic book named No/One from Image Comics.
The comic was written by Kyle Higgins and Brian Buccellato and the art was done by Geraldo Borges.
The podcast has an episode for each of the ten-issue series and stars Rachel Leigh Cook, Patton Oswalt, and Todd Stashwick.
We got to focus heavily on Starbuck on Caprica. Kara is shot during a fire fight and is taken to a hospital. We do not know what was going on, but Kara was immediately suspicious of the situation. The doctor named Simon came to see her and save her, telling her that Anders, whom Kara had just slept with, had been killed. This was questionable for the viewers since that would have happened off screen and it felt like a scene that would not just be thrown away.
And viewers would be right when we discover that Kara had been taken captive by the Cylons in this ‘hospital’ with the intent on implanting her with a baby, using her like a breeding animal. When Simon was giving her the pelvic exam, he was acting quite sus. He did the old ‘namedrop’ trope where he used the name Starbuck and Kara had not told him that, which meant that he was actually a Cylon.
Katee Sackoff is awesome again. He powerhouse performance, both emotionally and physically, shows how epic this character was.
Meanwhile on Galactica, Adama returned to the command and continued to be stubborn and oppositional. President Roslin sent a message to the fleet that she would lead them to earth and any member of the fleet who wanted to go, they would be jumping. Adama denied this “religious crap” but it turned out that nearly 1/3 of the fleet jumped with Roslin.
The Farm was a sci-fi type trope that has been used before but this was very impressive with the set up. The implications of this reach well past just in our basic story. There are some major current world ideas that feel like this fits with.
I enjoyed this episode of the Greatest American Hero more than some of the other episodes so far in season one. The story with Bill Maxwell failing the lie detector test for the FBI because he couldn’t talk about the suit and Ralph was a neat idea.
This gave the character of Bill Maxwell a little bit of development as he has to face the government that he loves so much. There was some subtle acting from Robert Culp in this episode. He typically played Maxwell in a very bombastic manner, but there were some moments here that were really well done.
I also enjoyed the use of the students’ from Ralph’s class in the story even though it is very improbable. The use of Tony in particular with Ralph was a nice character moment in the show.
This episode kept the super hero antics from Ralph t a minimum and I think that worked very well too.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 